I love technology. Always have. Anything that does the heavy lifting so you can concentrate on the work that actually creates value is powerful. And right now, AI is the most talked-about tool in sales. The question isn’t whether it can help. It can. The question is whether most sales teams are setting it up to succeed or quietly engineering their own disappointment.

Because here’s what I’m seeing. Businesses are adopting AI at pace. They’re excited by the promise of it. And many are treating it like a hack, something you plug in to get faster results without doing the foundational work first. That is the fastest route to underwhelming outcomes.

AI Amplifies Everything. Including Your Mistakes.

Nearly every part of the sales process is being touched by AI in some way right now. The early focus was predominantly at the top of the funnel and focused on prospecting, outreach, and lead generation. Now the conversation has shifted to the middle and lower parts of the funnel, specifically discovery, qualification, pipeline management, forecasting, and proposal writing. The opportunity AI brings is very real.

But here’s the thing that gets missed in all the excitement. AI amplifies what’s already there. The good and the bad. If your data is good, AI makes it better. If your process is clear, AI makes it faster. If your playbook is documented and your team understands how they sell, AI can accelerate every stage of the journey.

But if those foundations don’t exist, AI will help you do a lot of dumb things at a much faster rate. And the consequences aren’t neutral. Sending AI-generated outreach to thousands of people might seem like a smart efficiency play, but if you haven’t done the deep work to truly understand your audience, what their world looks like, what they actually care about, what a relevant conversation means to them, then you’re not accelerating your sales effort. You’re accelerating the erosion of your credibility. At scale. Buyers notice. And once that trust is gone, no tool in the world will get it back.

This isn’t a critique of the technology. It’s a reality check about what organisations are bringing to the table before they expect AI to perform.

The Tool Fatigue Problem Nobody’s Talking About

We’ve spent the last decade accumulating sales technology at a staggering rate. The marketing and sales tech landscape has grown from fewer than 200 enterprise solutions in 2011 to over 15,000 today. The sales tech landscape alone now spans more than 2,100 tools across 50 different categories. And yet investment in technology has not translated into proportional gains in performance or productivity.

More tools. More data. Less impact.

The fastest-growing categories right now, including signals and intent data, sales data aggregation and AI assistants, are remarkable in their capability. But the problem isn’t the tools. It’s that most organisations are adopting them without a system to sit inside. Fragmented workflows. Inconsistent usage across teams. Data that nobody has the time or capability to turn into genuine insight. CRM systems configured as contact databases rather than selling systems. And managers defaulting to activity inspection, checking who logged in and how many fields were completed, rather than actually coaching performance.

Sales tools don’t drive performance. Sales systems do.

A tool without a system is just noise. And when the noise multiplies, it creates a very specific kind of fatigue, where sellers are juggling multiple platforms, none of which feel connected, and none of which feel like they’re actually helping them sell better.

The Mindset Piece

This is what I think gets missed most in the conversation about AI in sales. It isn’t just a technology issue. It’s a mindset issue.

Your beliefs about AI and how you choose to engage with it will shape your behaviour. Your behaviour will drive your results. That’s not a complicated equation, but it’s one most people aren’t being honest with themselves about.

I’m learning how to leverage AI like everyone else. I’m not a programmer or a prompt engineer. But what I’m doing, consciously and deliberately, is challenging everything. Challenging the rationale. Questioning the output. Testing and experimenting rather than assuming. Because if you don’t, it’s remarkably easy for AI to lead you somewhere completely different to where you actually need to go.

The people who treat AI as a shortcut are going to get shortcut results. The people who invest time now, learning, understanding, testing, and getting genuinely comfortable with how to use it well, are the ones who will be in a fundamentally different position in twelve months. That choice is available to everyone. Not everyone will make it.

The Real Competitive Advantage

The most important thing AI can do in sales is help you have better conversations. Not more conversations. Better ones. The heavy lifting, the research, the signal-monitoring, the preparation, the nurturing cycle, AI can handle that. So that when you get into a conversation with a buyer, you arrive with context, with insight, and with the mental space to actually listen.

But that only works when the human side of the equation is strong. Buyers today are better informed than ever. Many have completed 60 to 70 per cent of their research before they’ll engage with a salesperson. They know when they’re being processed rather than spoken to. They can feel when outreach has been generated at volume rather than written with intent. AI-generated noise at scale is still noise.

The balance of human and AI working alongside one another is where the real value sits. AI for the analytical, administrative and preparatory layers. Humans for the conversations that require empathy, emotional intelligence, trust building and the ability to navigate complex stakeholder environments. Those aren’t things you automate. They’re things you develop.

The Foundation Has to Come First

If you’re a founder, a sales leader, or a commercial director thinking about how to make AI work harder for your team, start here. Before you invest in any tool, ask yourself whether you have a documented playbook. Not something that lives in your head, or in the heads of your best salespeople. A real, accessible system that sets out how you sell, what good looks like at each stage, how you qualify, how you handle objections, and what the standards are for every buyer conversation. That’s the foundation the AI needs to follow.

Without it, the AI has no guardrails. It will work on fragmented activities that aren’t consistent with one another, generate output that doesn’t align with your commercial intent, and create the illusion of progress without moving anything forward. The playbook has to exist first.

Leaders also need to set the standard. Mandating AI use without modelling how to use it thoughtfully doesn’t create change. It creates compliance. The organisations winning with AI right now are the ones with clear guidelines, documented processes, explicit handoff points between where AI operates and where human judgement takes over, and leaders who talk openly about how they’re using it themselves.

Every Tool Has to Earn Its Place

The question I’d encourage every sales leader to sit with isn’t “which AI tools should we be using?” It’s “what sales behaviours are we trying to drive and does this tool actively reinforce them?”

If it doesn’t make the right behaviour easier and the wrong behaviour harder, it isn’t earning its place. If managers can’t use it to coach more effectively, it’s creating overhead rather than insight. If sellers experience it as reporting admin rather than deal support, adoption will be inconsistent, and the value will never be realised.

The best tools are the ones that embed the right behaviours while doing the heavy lifting in the background. That’s not a low bar. Most tools don’t clear it.

So Before You Rely on AI to Do It For You...

AI is not a hack. Used thoughtfully, with the right foundations and the right mindset, it is a genuine multiplier. It can help you have smarter conversations, manage your pipeline more intelligently, prepare more thoroughly, and focus your energy where it matters most.

But the question worth sitting with, before you give AI the keys, is this: ‘What are you going to do first?’

Do you have a playbook? Do your managers know what good looks like? Is your data clean? Does your team understand the process they’re supposed to follow? Have you been honest about what you’re actually trying to solve?

Because if the foundations aren’t in place, AI won’t fix them. It will simply make the gaps harder to see and the results harder to explain.

Fractional leadership is often introduced into conversations for the wrong reason. It typically appears framed as a financial alternative, a way to reduce cost, a temporary solution while a permanent hire is delayed, or a pragmatic compromise in uncertain times.

That framing is understandable. It is also deeply limiting.

The most effective organisations do not use fractional leadership to save money. They use it to multiply capability, accelerate progress and reduce execution risk at critical moments in their growth. When this model is treated as a cost play, it underdelivers. When it is treated as a strategic capability lever, it can materially change the trajectory of a revenue organisation.

The Real Question Leaders Should Be Asking

For CROs, CEOs and boards, the core question is rarely about headcount.

It is about momentum.

Where are we stuck? What is slowing execution? What capability gap is quietly constraining performance?

Those constraints rarely show up neatly on an org chart. They manifest in inconsistent qualification, fragile forecasts, overloaded managers, a drifting GTM focus and systems that no longer reflect reality. The uncomfortable truth is that most revenue problems are not caused by a lack of effort or intent. They are caused by capability gaps that persist for too long.

Fractional leadership exists to address those gaps with speed and precision.

Why the Cost Comparison Misses the Point

Yes, a fractional leader is often less expensive than a full-time executive hire. But cost comparison is the weakest argument for adopting the model. It anchors the conversation in savings, not in strategic impact.

Permanent leadership assumes a degree of stability that no longer exists in most markets. It works on the premise that one individual, hired at one moment in time, will be equally well suited to multiple, distinct phases of growth, change and complexity.

In modern GTM environments, that assumption is fragile.

Markets shift faster than hiring cycles. Buyer behaviour evolves. Sales motions change. Technology stacks expand. The capabilities a business needs can mutate long before a job description is updated. Fractional leadership does not fight that reality; it works with it, offering a more adaptive approach to sales leadership.

Where Growth Really Gets Constrained

Across revenue organisations, the same friction points appear again and again:

• Sales processes that no longer match how buyers actually buy.

• Qualification standards that look consistent on paper but are not in practice.

• Pipelines that appear healthy until they suddenly evaporate close to quarter-end.

• Managers promoted for being great sellers, not for their ability to develop others.

• Technology configured for reporting rather than for enabling better decisions.

None of these issues are solved by simply increasing activity. And none require blanket leadership coverage to fix. They require experienced, focused intervention. This is where fractional leadership starts to behave like a capability multiplier.

The Multiplier Effect: How Fractional Leadership Actually Works

Fractional leadership creates leverage in three distinct but connected ways, fundamentally improving revenue performance.

First, through Focus

Fractional leaders are rarely brought in to “run everything”. They are deployed with surgical intent.

To stabilise forecasting. Rebuild qualification discipline. Redesign the GTM motion. Or strengthen first-line management capability.

That focus matters. It concentrates senior leadership attention on the one or two things that will meaningfully move performance, rather than spreading it thinly across competing demands. Progress accelerates when leadership energy is precise.

Second, through Capability Transfer

The most effective fractional leaders do not create dependency; they work to make themselves redundant. They act as a catalyst for internal improvement, not as a long-term substitute for internal leadership.

Instead, they work inside the system to raise its standard.

They coach managers on how to coach. They embed clearer decision-making frameworks. They sharpen how teams think about risk, value and stakeholder dynamics. They introduce ways of working that survive long after the engagement ends.

When fractional leadership works well, the organisation does not simply maintain performance. It exits the engagement more capable than it entered. That is the difference between temporary cover and genuine, lasting uplift.

Third, through Speed to Impact

Revenue organisations do not have the luxury of waiting.

Hiring cycles are long. Onboarding takes time. Gaining alignment and credibility takes longer. In the meantime, pipeline degrades, execution slips and competitive pressure mounts.

Fractional leadership compresses time.

Experienced fractional leaders arrive with pattern recognition, proven frameworks and immediate credibility. They become effective within weeks, not months, because they have solved similar problems before. In volatile markets, that speed is not just an advantage; it is a strategic necessity.

The First-Line Management Effect

One of the highest-leverage applications of fractional leadership is at the first-line manager level. This is where strategy meets reality. It is where deals are shaped, habits are formed, and capability either compounds or erodes.

Yet first-line managers are often the most overextended and under-supported people in a sales organisation. They are expected to deliver results without the tools or training to develop their people effectively.

A fractional leader can change that dynamic quickly.

• By coaching managers to think differently.

• By improving how deals are challenged and reviewed.

• By stabilising sales cadence and standards.

• By building better judgement to reduce escalation.

As management capability improves, performance follows. Sellers make better decisions. Risks surface earlier. Forecasts become more credible. Leaders spend less time firefighting and more time leading. That is what multiplication looks like in practice.

A Better Way to Think About Fractional Leadership

The most useful question is not whether fractional leadership is cheaper than a full-time hire. It is this:

What capability do we need right now to unlock our next stage of performance?

If the answer requires deep experience, intense focus, speed and a lasting uplift in your team’s ability, then fractional leadership is often the most effective and intelligent option.

Used with intention, it is not a compromise. It is a strategic choice.

Not a Shortcut. A Lever.

Fractional leadership is not a silver bullet. It does not replace strong internal leadership, and it does not compensate for a lack of intent or accountability.

What it does provide is experienced leverage at moments when clarity, momentum and capability matter most.

When leaders deploy it with that mindset, the return is not measured purely in cost. It shows up in better decisions, stronger managers, cleaner pipelines and more predictable revenue outcomes.

Capability compounds over time. Leadership creates the conditions for that to happen. Fractional leadership, deployed well, simply accelerates the process.

Not because it is cheaper. Because it is smarter.

Visit Tekweni for more information on the benefits of Fractional Revenue Leadership to help achieve your growth objectives.

When sales begins to feel uncomfortable, overwhelming, or unpredictable… the immediate instinct is to hire a salesperson.

On the surface, it seems logical. You’re stretched thin, the business is growing, and you want someone to “own sales” so you can focus on product, delivery, and operations.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Most founders hire the wrong salesperson.
They hire them at the wrong time.
And they set them up to fail before the first call is even made.

This isn’t a hiring problem.
It’s a systems problem.

And unless you solve it at the source, you risk repeating the cycle every 12–18 months: new salesperson, new promises, new underperformance.

Let’s break it down.

Why Founders Default to the Wrong Profile (h2)

When you’re under pressure, you start looking for the shortcut. Someone experienced. Someone confident. Someone who “has worked in big organisations”. Someone who knows how to sell.

The problem?

Corporate sales experience rarely translates into a scaling business environment.

Corporate salespeople typically succeed inside a fully built system:

• Clear ICPs

• Brand recognition

• Established demand

• Marketing support

• Sales operations

• Playbooks

• Training

• Deal support

• Proposal teams

• Account management

• CRM discipline enforced from the top

In a founder-led business, none of this exists yet.

So when you hire someone “senior”, what you’re actually bringing in is someone who is used to operating inside a system, not building one.

They say the right things.
They present well.
They’re articulate.
They’re confident.

But when it comes to doing the real work, prospecting, building pipeline from scratch, writing their own outreach, documenting their approach, adapting messages, updating CRM, shaping the proposition, many simply haven’t had to do it in years.

And hunters?
Good hunters are never out of a job.
They choose where they work. They don’t apply through Indeed.

This is why founders often end up hiring someone who looks the part but cannot execute the part.

The Real Mistake: Hiring Too Early

Before you think about recruitment, you must ask yourself a simple question:

“Have I actually built a system someone can succeed in?”

A salesperson cannot thrive in ambiguity.

They need clarity.
They need structure.
They need expectations.
They need a process.
They need positioning.
They need coaching.
They need a rhythm.

If you don’t have these foundations in place, the problem isn’t the salesperson. It’s the environment you’re bringing them into.

Here’s a quick test to see if you’re ready to recruit.

The Founder Readiness Test

You are ready to hire a salesperson when you have:

• Clear ICP and buyer definition

• A documented sales process, not just stages in your CRM

• A core proposition articulated through 3–5 plays

• Qualification criteria everyone uses consistently

• Value messaging that resonates with your ideal clients

• A simple coaching rhythm you can commit to

• A foundational understanding of why your sales performance hits a ceiling

If you’re unsure, this is exactly what our Sales Capability Assessment helps you test and align across your business.

Without clarity, the recruit will default to what they know, not what your business needs.

What Founders Actually Need (Not What They Think They Need)

You don’t need a polished corporate salesperson.
You don’t need a “Head of Sales”.
You don’t need someone to design your strategy.
You don’t need a saviour.

You need someone who complements you, not replicates you.

The right first salesperson in a founder-led business is:

• hungry

• resilient

• coachable

• curious

• willing to prospect

• comfortable with repetition

• consistent

• structured

• adaptable

• motivated by progress, not perfection

Experience is useful. But attitude and behaviour are the leverage points.

And here’s the critical misunderstanding:

You don’t hire someone and then build the system.
You build the system and then hire someone into it.

Your sales process, playbook, and onboarding structure come first. Not as a “nice to have”, but the foundation of how this person will succeed.

If you haven’t already built these elements, start with your Sales Planning Toolkit & Playbook framework, which gives you the exact structure weak onboarding often lacks.

The Power of a Strong Playbook and Onboarding Plan (h2)

At LSOS, I didn’t hire for “impressive CV energy”. I hired for mindset.

I looked for someone who:

• understood sales

• wanted to learn

• was comfortable with the fundamentals

• was willing to be coached

• could complement my strengths

• was eager to execute rather than strategise

And then I backed that decision with:

• a clear sales playbook

• centre-line scripts

• role clarity

• expectations

• cadences

• hands-on mentoring

• consistent coaching

The result?

He closed a sale in his second week. Not because he was some sales genius.
But because the onboarding environment gave him structure, confidence, and clarity.

A good recruit thrives when you reduce uncertainty. A poor recruit hides behind it.

The Hidden Cost of Hiring the Wrong Person (h2)

When you hire the wrong salesperson, the consequences compound:

• Six months of salary

• Lost pipeline

• Damaged confidence

• Founder distrust in sales

• Internal frustration

• Another search process

• Delayed revenue

• Negative client impressions

But worst of all?

It deepens the founder’s belief that “sales doesn’t work for us.”
This is exactly why many founders keep their business on a plateau. You build around your own comfort zone, not your growth goals.

If this dynamic feels familiar, it’s probably because your business has reached the point where founder-led sales hits a ceiling.

So When Should You Actually Hire?

Only when these conditions are true:

1. You’ve diagnosed your own selling constraints.

   The first step of any strong founder sales accelerator journey.
   You know whether your real bottleneck is lead generation, conversion, or retention.

2. You have a clear point of view on how you want to sell.
   Style, tone, behaviours, boundaries, and non-negotiables.

3. Your processes are documented clearly enough to coach.

4. You have a simple, realistic onboarding plan.

5. You’re ready to invest time in the first 4–6 weeks.

Great salespeople don’t become great alone.
They become great inside great systems.

Who You Should Actually Hire as Your First Salesperson

Here’s the truth most founders don’t want to hear:

Your first salesperson is not a “Head of Sales”.
It’s not a senior hire.
It’s someone closer to a Sales Development Executive with strong commercial instincts.

Look for someone who:

• has sales fundamentals

• enjoys the chase

• wants to prove themselves

• is comfortable with structure

• is willing to follow a process

• has emotional resilience

• learns quickly

• thrives under guidance

And look for these red flags:

1. “I’m a relationship builder”

2. “I prefer warm leads”

3. “Marketing usually brings the pipeline”

4. “I’m strategic; I don’t really do cold outreach anymore”

5. “I led a team of 12 in my last role” (but can’t show individual numbers)

You’re not hiring a strategist.
You’re hiring a doer who can execute consistently while you continue to shape the system.

If you want an example of what “team development done right” looks like, see our work with Dua Accountancy, where the right environment transformed the right hire:

The Founder’s Role: Reinforce Your Leadership, Not Abdicate It

Hiring a salesperson doesn’t absolve you from sales.
It accelerates your role as a leader.

Your responsibility becomes:

• setting the direction

• designing the guardrails

• providing the playbook

Effectively your own sales manager playbook that guides expectations and coaching.

• running weekly coaching

• reinforcing expectations

• reviewing performance

• refining the system continuously

This is what our SMART Framework calls Reinforce. The leadership alignment stage before training the team at scale.

Most founders skip straight to “Train” and then wonder why nothing sticks.

Final Thought: Recruitment Is Not the Beginning. It’s the Middle

The most important mindset shift is this:

Recruitment is not how you fix sales.
Recruitment is how you scale sales once the foundations are in place.

The exact philosophy behind our sales accelerator approach.

If your system isn’t ready, no recruit will save you.
But if your system is strong, even a less experienced recruit can excel quickly.

Clarity creates performance.
Structure creates confidence.
Process creates consistency.
Coaching creates growth.

And that’s how you hire the right salesperson and set them up to win.

The same foundation that underpins every effective b2b sales accelerator programme.

This blog explores how to create and use a competitor tracker. It may seem like overkill at first, but once you see how it helps you stay ahead, you’ll realise it’s worth the effort.

The truth is that a competitor matrix is an incredible source of insight. It can help you make informed decisions, validate gut feelings, and empower your sales strategy.

So why track your competitors? Why collect competitor intelligence at all? The simple reason is that everything around you, your clients, your competitors, and the market itself, is constantly changing. This includes market trends, environments, people, systems, and technology.

In today’s world, where things evolve at breakneck speed, it’s critical to stay ahead and understand the real impact these variables have on us, our clients, and our competitors. That’s why collecting as much intel as possible is so important.

As salespeople, we’re uniquely positioned to do this. We’re in constant conversations with customers, whether in diagnostics, discovery calls, solution presentations, or at conferences and events. We’re always receiving information about the market, the competitive landscape, our clients, and our competitors.

The challenge is finding a way to capture all of that information and store it in one place where it can be put to meaningful use. And that meaningful use is key because it helps you preserve and grow the value you deliver to your clients and to yourself.

The Value Concept in Competitor Intelligence

Our role as salespeople is all about collecting information to enhance the strategic decision-making process.

When we collect that information, our goal is to figure out how best to position ourselves so we can showcase our value wedge.

In a competitive market where everyone looks the same, sounds the same, and uses the same messaging, how do you actually differentiate yourself? That’s exactly what the value wedge helps you do.

Collecting competitor information enables you to ask: How can we reposition ourselves? What can we do differently to truly showcase our uniqueness? Not just on paper or a website claiming, “we’re different,” but in a way that is meaningful to clients and prospects. That’s ultimately the end goal of collecting all this competitive information and maintaining a tracker.

The key to value lies in focusing on what the client or ideal client really cares about. What will help them decide whether to stay with you or move to you from a competitor? That value wedge is what drives change.

Parity, on the other hand, is something we don’t want to focus on. Not because it’s unimportant, it’s essential, but it’s also where everyone looks and feels the same. These are the table stakes: what clients and prospects already expect you to deliver.

Value is always in the eye of the client. The better you understand their perception of value, the easier it is to uncover it and play it back to them in a compelling way.

Connected to this are value drivers. Value is the only thing that motivates prospects or clients to move from where they are to where they want to be. Whatever their current situation, if you can show them a better future and the value they can derive from it, you give them a compelling reason to act. Without that reason, they’ll stay where they are.

So how do we capture all this? The best way is through a tracker by gathering the intelligence we collect in conversations every day. By analysing that market intelligence (including loss information), we can inform the rest of the business about the direction we need to go:

• What product development might be necessary

• How to improve our service

• What clients and prospects are thinking about that we may not have considered

This isn’t just about repositioning ourselves against competitors. This data and intelligence can inform strategy across departments, marketing, product development, and beyond. It ensures we continue supplying solutions aligned with where our clients and prospects are heading.

And this is more important than ever for competitor segmentation.

Right now, everything seems to be about AI. You’ve probably noticed how much marketing copy sounds identical, generated by ChatGPT or another large language model. Everyone has the same polished websites and landing pages that say all the right things.

In that environment, the intel you gather from real conversations with real people becomes even more valuable. That’s why this process matters so much.

Four Stages of the Competitor Tracking Process

There are four stages to the competitor map and tracking process, and each one will be explained in detail.

A spreadsheet can also be used to capture all the information. It may seem old school, but the advantage of a spreadsheet is that it can be easily recreated in a shared folder on Google Drive, SharePoint, Excel Online, or any platform the team uses. The key is that it must be accessible to everyone and open for contributions to analyse the competitive landscape.

Stage 1: Build Your Competitor List to Understand the Competitive Landscape

Analysing competitor data and conducting a competitor analysis is a crucial part of building a sales growth strategy. Building a competitor list is the first step, and it has two parts:

1. Known competitors: Start with the companies you regularly come up against in pitches and client conversations. For example, in market research, even when several products were sold, there were about five or six competitors that consistently appeared. List these first.

2. Broader competitors: Go beyond the obvious. Who else is considered a competitor—even if they don’t feel like a direct threat right now? In a market research role, selling into industries like finance, food, government, academia, and technology meant facing smaller, niche competitors in each sector alongside the major players.

By the end of this step, you’ll probably have 20–30 competitors listed. That’s manageable, and the key is to make it as complete as possible. This is why a shared document is so valuable: everyone on your team can add new competitors as they come up. Your sales teams, in particular, are the best source of this information since they’re constantly speaking with clients and prospects.

Stage 2: Research Competitors

Once your list is built, the next step is research. Your spreadsheet should include:

• Competitor name

• Background and history

• USP and focus

• Headline product, service, or solution

• Performance statistics (e.g., managed service providers often publish their Net Promoter Score on their websites)

• Sector focus

• Relevant frameworks or certifications (such as government frameworks in certain industries)

Essentially, capture anything related to their positioning strategy, including products, services, solutions, and how they compare to yours.

Stage 3: Deal Analysis

On the far right-hand side of your spreadsheet, track examples of deals you’ve won or lost against each competitor. Ask:

• Why did we win?

• Why did we lose?

• Was it price, service, product, or something else?

If possible, include pricing insights: were they significantly cheaper, or was the decision not price-driven at all? This intelligence is gold.

Don’t be afraid to ask clients directly for feedback when you win or lose a deal. Simple questions like, “What made you choose us/them? Was it product, service, or approach?” can reveal powerful insights.

Stage 4: Analyse Your USP

This is where the value wedge comes in, comparing your USP against competitors to see where you win, where you’re on par (value parity), and where you might be losing. Capturing and maintaining this data ensures you can reposition effectively.

Remember, much of this information already lives in your head or your team’s heads. But if it’s not written down, it’s not helping anyone. Getting it on paper (or in a shared file) means your entire organisation benefits — from sales to marketing to product development.

One extra benefit: this spreadsheet is invaluable for onboarding new hires. When a new salesperson joins, instead of asking, “Who are our competitors?” they’ll have an up-to-date, detailed resource ready to go.

As a leader, encourage your team to keep this tracker updated. When someone says, “We’re up against X competitor, and they do this better,” your response should be: “Great, add it to the spreadsheet with the date and details.”

That’s the key. Consistent, ongoing updates turn this into a living document that continuously strengthens your positioning strategy.

Sharpen your competitive edge with LSOS Academy. Turn competitor insights into real results with CPD-certified sales strategy courses at our sales training academy.

Start Your Strategic Leader Journey

Segmenting Competition

At the start, it was suggested to collect between 20 and 30 competitors, or however many are on the list. Now, you’ll know there’s a core group of competitors that you come up against more often than not. Every time there’s a competitive pitch or a proposal to submit, you’ll see the same names appearing — those are your Category 1 competitors.

The next step is to add a column to your spreadsheet to rank each competitor. The ranking aims to show similarity to your brand by assigning a percentage. This number can be quantified by combining simple criteria, and that criterion is very straightforward. It isn’t about the service itself, but about how your clients and prospects view you.

Do you offer all of the same products, solutions, and services? If yes, the number should be close to 100. If you provide unique services they don’t, or vice versa, that percentage adjusts down. Naturally, there will be some things they do really well that you don’t offer, and vice versa.

For example, although accountants are generally thought to offer three or four main services, in reality, most accountancy firms provide between 100 and 140 different services.

We rarely see accountants going through that entire list with us, because we focus on those three or four core services. The same applies here: accountants choose to specialise in certain things and outsource or deprioritise others.

So the more we understand who our core competitors are and where we’ll proactively come up against them, the better we can position ourselves. That’s the whole purpose of this exercise: identifying Category 1 competitors. You’ll probably find you have four to eight at most.

Now, there are a couple of additional layers to consider. You might be a locally reliant business, in which case your Category 1 competitors will be the ones closest to you.

The issue today is that technology has made geography less relevant. In the past, being in London meant I only had competitors in and around London. That’s no longer the case. You could be in Birmingham, Manchester, or Liverpool and still compete directly with London firms by offering the same services and solutions.

The key is to think about size:

• Do you have the credibility?

• Do you have the revenue?

• Do you have the team to support and service clients beyond your local area?

So you need to think about how you measure and compare yourself against each of those competitors. Technology has removed many geographic barriers, so you may find yourself competing with firms across the UK or even internationally.

The second category you want to focus on includes all the smaller competitors, the ones that aren’t direct, but still in the background. You may not encounter them often, but they’re there. Maybe they’re too niche (focusing on enterprise while you serve SMBs), or maybe they specialise in a vertical you don’t target.

Whatever your criteria, segment them. And if you need to, create a third category as a “watch list” of emerging competitors.

Benefits of Maintaining a Competitor Tracker

Over time, as you collect this information, it becomes gold dust. It informs your strategy, your pricing, how you service clients, and even how you segment your service levels. And if competitors suddenly start raising more awareness in the market, you need to be nimble, flexible, and adaptable so you can react.

A great example from experience: in market research, there was one particular product considered extremely valuable. There was also an element of confidence — it was believed to be very difficult to copy. But then technology completely changed the market. What once took hours or days to collect in terms of insight and information has suddenly moved online.

That shift meant a competitor could now use web crawlers to collect the same information automatically. It’s critical to constantly evaluate and review who your competitors are, because you never know where the next competitive threat will come from. The only way to stay nimble and flexible is to keep adding to a tracker like this.

Whenever we do a review, have a conversation, or run a kick-off meeting with a client, we always come back to this tracker. Why? Because it’s a great source of intelligence. If someone is feeling that pain, the more information the team can add, the better equipped we are to develop strategies to overcome challenges with that competitor.

We can also inform senior management, which in turn influences the direction of our products, services, and solutions. It also helps guide what other departments do. So while it may not be the most glamorous topic, it’s an incredibly powerful one that keeps delivering value behind the scenes.

The amount of insight and value it provides for your business and your teams is immense. If you’re not already tracking competitors in this way, with this level of rigour and detail, it is highly recommended that you start, because it truly is a game-changer.

Great salespeople react, strategic leaders anticipate. Our sales academy equips you with the skills and insights to lead with confidence. What sets us apart:

• Real-world competitive strategy frameworks

• Expert coaching and peer community support

• CPD-certified training to accelerate your growth

Explore the Academy

And for a while, that belief was enough. You were the best salesperson your company ever had because you knew exactly what to say, how to adapt, and what your customers needed.

But at some point, the momentum slows. Deals take longer. Your team struggles to sell without you. And you find yourself pulled back into every major conversation, just to keep things moving.

That’s the moment most founders realise: what got you here won’t get you there.

Founder-led sales can take you to your first £1M–£3M, but beyond that, it becomes a bottleneck. Not because you’re doing anything wrong, but because your success has outgrown your system.

Scaling sales requires more than confidence or charisma. It requires a structure that captures what you do instinctively, and turns it into something your team can repeat.

This article explores why founder-led sales eventually hit a ceiling, what signs to watch for, and how to break through by turning your intuition into a repeatable, scalable sales engine.

The Founder’s Early Advantage and the Hidden Trap

In the early days, you are the sales strategy. You know every feature, every objection, every nuance of your product or solutions. You’ve lived through the problems your customers are trying to solve, and that authenticity sells.

That’s why founder-led sales work so well at the beginning. Your passion is contagious. Your confidence builds trust. And your ability to adapt in real time gives prospects a sense that they’re dealing with the person who can make things happen.

But what starts as your biggest advantage quietly turns into your greatest limitation.

As the business grows, the same energy that once fuelled every deal begins to fragment.
You’re pulled between product, operations, finance, and people. Sales no longer gets your full attention, yet it still depends on you.

You might hire a salesperson or two, hoping they’ll bring the same results. But without your instincts, they often struggle to replicate your success.

Not because they lack skill. But because the process, the language, and the logic of how you sell only exist in your head.

Your personal excellence becomes a system bottleneck.
What made the company thrive early on now makes it difficult to scale.

The uncomfortable truth?
Founder-led sales aren’t sustainable, at least not in their original form.

To grow beyond the founder’s ceiling, the business needs a structure that preserves the founder’s clarity but removes the dependency on their constant presence.

The Signs You’ve Reached the Ceiling

Every founder feels it differently. For some, it’s the sense of déjà vu in every pipeline meeting. The same discussions, the same missed targets.

For others, it’s the frustration of watching talented hires underperform, despite your best training and encouragement.

But beneath those experiences lie clear, recurring patterns, unmistakable signs that your founder-led sales model has reached its limit.

1. You’re Still the Chief Closer

Every large opportunity somehow finds its way back to you.
Whether it’s a strategic deal or a nervous prospect, your team turns to you to “help get it over the line.”

What feels like leadership is actually dependency, and it keeps you tied to day-to-day sales execution.

2. Your Sales Team Can’t Replicate Your Results

You’ve brought in capable people, but they can’t seem to sell the way you do.

You hear yourself thinking: “They just don’t get it.”

The truth is, they don’t have access to what’s in your head: the reasoning, rhythm, and language that made your approach work.

3. Your Messaging Changes Depending on Who’s Talking

If you were to join three different sales calls this week, you’d probably hear three different versions of your value proposition.

Without a shared structure, everyone explains the product their own way.

It confuses customers and dilutes the credibility you worked so hard to build.

4. Your Forecasts Feel More Like Guesswork

When deals close, you celebrate, but you can’t always explain why they closed.

When they don’t, you feel the frustration but lack the clarity to fix it.

Without consistent process or defined stages, pipeline predictability is impossible.

5. You’re Too Deep in the Weeds to See What’s Next

You wanted to lead the business strategically, but you’re still firefighting on the front line.

You spend your time solving problems that your team should own because deep down, you don’t yet trust the system to deliver without you.

Recognising these symptoms is not a sign of failure. It’s the inevitable progression of a growing business, and the moment where the founder must evolve from chief closer to sales architect.

Next, let’s explore why this happens and why relying on instinct, however sharp, isn’t enough to scale.

Why Intuition Doesn’t Scale

At the heart of every successful founder-led business lies one powerful truth: you sell on instinct.

You know how to read a prospect’s hesitation, how to pivot in conversation, and when to push or pull back.
You’ve built that intuition through hundreds of interactions. Successes, rejections, and lessons that shaped your judgment over time.

That instinct is your superpower. But it’s also your blind spot.

Because while intuition works brilliantly when it’s yours, it fails the moment you try to delegate it.

Your Instinct Can’t Be Copied

You might expect your team to “just get it”, to know what to say and when.

But they haven’t lived your journey. They don’t have your depth of product understanding or the pattern recognition you’ve built.

Without documentation or guidance, they’re forced to improvise. And improvised sales rarely scale.

Experience Without Structure = Inconsistency

You can’t manage what you can’t describe. When your success comes from instinct, you can’t easily explain why a deal worked, which means your team can’t repeat it.

Sales success then becomes a matter of personality, not process.

Scaling Requires Translation, Not Delegation

To grow beyond yourself, you must translate your instincts into a system that others can understand, trust, and execute. That doesn’t mean stripping away authenticity. It means codifying what makes your approach effective so it can be taught, refined, and scaled.

When that translation doesn’t happen, sales performance becomes unpredictable.

Pipeline health fluctuates. Coaching feels vague. And new hires struggle to find their footing.

The result?
You stay stuck in the loop. Forever pulled back into deals because you’re the only one who truly “gets it.”

Breaking that cycle starts with one essential step: capturing what you do instinctively and turning it into a system your team can follow.

And that shift, from intuition to structure, is what we’ll explore next.

The Emotional Challenge: Letting Go Without Losing Control

For many founders, the hardest part of scaling sales isn’t strategy. It’s trust.

You’ve built the business from the ground up. Every client, every deal, every pitch reflects your personal effort and credibility. So the idea of stepping back can feel risky.

If I’m not in the room, will the deal still close? Will they represent the business the way I do?

These questions aren’t just practical. They’re deeply personal.

Sales Feels Personal Because It Is

When you’ve poured years of expertise into a product, every rejection feels like a judgement on your life’s work.

That’s why handing sales over to others can trigger a fear of losing not just control, but identity.

Many founders tell themselves they’re “just buying time” before finding the right hire or better structure. But that hesitation keeps them stuck: balancing leadership, delivery, and still jumping in to “save” sales conversations.

Control vs. Clarity

The truth is, you don’t need to lose control to let go. You just need clarity. Clarity in your process, in your messaging, and in how success is measured.

When those foundations are missing, founders feel forced to micromanage.

When they’re in place, stepping back becomes a strategic decision. Not an emotional leap.

Your Role Must Evolve

The goal isn’t to disappear from sales; it’s to elevate your role within it.
From chief closer to chief enabler.
From leading every deal to leading the system that wins them.

Letting go doesn’t mean losing your voice. It means ensuring your voice can be heard even when you’re not in the room.

Up next, we’ll explore how to break the ceiling. By turning that experience, intuition, and leadership into a structured system that your entire team can follow.

How to Break the Ceiling: Turning Knowledge into a System

Every founder who’s built a business from scratch has something priceless:
a proven way of thinking, communicating, and converting.

The problem is, it’s trapped inside your head.

To scale beyond yourself, you need to translate that personal method into a shared system. One that your team can understand, apply, and refine over time.

That process begins with three key steps: capture, codify, and communicate.

1. Capture What Works

Start by mapping what you do when selling (the real flow, not the idealised one).

• What questions do you ask first?

• How do you uncover real pain points?

• What stories or analogies make your message land?

These insights form the raw material of your future sales playbook, the document that transforms your know-how into shared company knowledge.

2. Codify It into a Sales Playbook

A playbook is more than a slide deck or a checklist. It’s the enabler that bridges your instinct and your team’s execution.

It gives everyone a shared language and reference point for how to approach, qualify, and close opportunities.

When done right, a playbook doesn’t limit creativity. It amplifies consistency.
It gives your team the freedom to adapt within a structure that works.

3. Communicate and Transfer the Knowledge

The real transformation happens when that playbook comes alive through knowledge transfer. Workshops, coaching sessions, call reviews… These are not “training days,” they’re transfer days. They’re how your thought process becomes your team’s mindset.

This isn’t a one-off handover; it’s a journey. It takes repetition, feedback, and reinforcement until your people can sell with the same clarity, confidence, and conviction as you.

That’s when you start seeing mini-me’s emerging. People who don’t just mimic your style, but embody your thinking.

Breaking the ceiling isn’t about working harder or hiring faster. It’s about building smarter. Embedding your experience into a structure that allows others to perform at your level.

And that’s exactly what the SMART Selling Framework is designed to do.

Breaking the Ceiling Isn’t About Working Harder — It’s About Building Smarter

Many founders respond to sales friction by doing more. More meetings, more pitches, more involvement. But effort without alignment only leads to exhaustion.

What actually breaks the ceiling isn’t more of you; it’s a system that scales what already works.
That’s why we built the SMART Selling Framework. A structured way for technical founders to translate instinct into an engine that performs without constant oversight.

S — Source the Root Cause

You can’t fix what you haven’t diagnosed.

The first step is identifying the real friction points: Is it the sales process? Messaging? Manager capability? Or unclear roles?

Spotting the root cause turns assumptions into clarity.

M — Mindset Shift

Sales won’t scale if the founder’s vision and the team’s execution aren’t aligned.

This stage reframes sales not as pressure or persuasion, but as structured problem solving. A mindset shift that technical founders find especially empowering.

A — Architect the Impact

Here, you define the stages, handovers, and decision points that create a repeatable sales process. The aim is clarity, so everyone knows what happens next at every step.

R — Reinforce Leadership

Managers are the bridge between strategy and daily execution.

We help them coach effectively, use consistent metrics, and keep the team anchored to the system.

T — Train for Execution

Finally, knowledge becomes capability.

We train and embed learning through real-world practice, so the new system is lived.

Through SMART, founders move from firefighting to foresight, from intuition to insight, and from dependency to scalability.

You stop being the bottleneck and start leading a sales engine that reflects your thinking, even when you’re not the one driving it.

The Moment to Step Back and Scale Up

Recognising the ceiling isn’t the end of growth, it’s the beginning of real scale.

The truth is, your business doesn’t need more of you.
It needs more of what makes you effective (your thinking, your structure, your standards) captured in a system others can follow.

When that happens, sales stops feeling chaotic and starts feeling predictable.
Managers coach with purpose.
The team speaks a common language.

And as the founder, you finally have the freedom to focus on growth, investment, or innovation, knowing that sales is no longer dependent on your daily involvement.

That’s the power of building smarter.

Ready to Break Your Founder-Led Ceiling?

The SMART Selling Accelerator is designed specifically for founders who are ready to:

• Turn intuition into a repeatable system.

• Build a team that can sell with the same clarity and conviction.

Scale sales without losing control or authenticity.

Explore the Accelerator →

🎥 Watch:

You know your product is world-class. So why does selling it still feel uncomfortable? Watch Vinit Shah unpack the answer.

Dua & Co (DUA) is an award-winning accountancy and business consultancy firm operating within the professional services sector. The firm is FCA-regulated and a proud member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW).

Recognised for championing the SME sector, DUA supports small and medium-sized enterprises in growing sustainably and profitably.

The team operates across a range of industries, with particular expertise in healthcare, technology, and scale-up businesses, helping clients navigate their financial and strategic challenges with confidence and clarity.

Why This Project, Why Now?

Dua & Co has grown organically over the years and is now making a concerted push to become more than just a provider of traditional accountancy services such as tax returns.

The industry itself is evolving rapidly, with technology increasingly handling the heavy lifting of compliance and processing tasks. As a result, DUA recognises the need to redefine the value it provides to clients and transition towards a more advisory, insight-driven model.

Clients already view the firm as a reliable and trusted partner—a “safe pair of hands”—and the next step is to leverage those strong relationships to uncover broader business challenges and proactively support clients in new ways.

CEO Rakesh Dua firmly believes that every team member should be able to identify and pursue business opportunities during their interactions with clients and prospects.

Early challenges identified:

• Inability to upgrade clients — great at accounting conversations but struggling to uncover incremental opportunities.

• Communication challenges — the team is comfortable in their domain and nervous about asking open questions to explore vision, goals, and challenges (often triggered by client language).

• Struggling to obtain information from clients — causing processing delays with knock‑on impact on additional work.

• Time management — not setting boundaries; frequent reprioritisation; separating “nice to do” vs “must do”.

• Ensuring timely payments from clients.

• Commercial confidence — holding broader, more varied conversations.

• Buyer/seller psychology — managing expectations effectively.

• Portfolio management — not proactively seeking out growth opportunities.

• Creating urgency

• Using available systems more

Objectives at the Outset

The main objective of the engagement was to strengthen the team’s confidence, communication skills, and commercial acumen, enabling them to hold meaningful business conversations without feeling like they were actively selling.

As technically minded accountants, the team members were more comfortable focusing on the details, so the goal was to help them adopt a broader perspective, one that encouraged curiosity about their clients’ businesses.

Through a clearer understanding of the sales process, they would learn to ask better questions, uncover deeper insights, and identify opportunities for DUA to provide additional support.

Ultimately, the aim was to transform the team into brand ambassadors who could deliver value beyond accountancy services and help nurture new opportunities for the firm.

Why London School of Sales?

The partnership with LSOS began through a referral, with the London School of Sales quickly demonstrating a deep understanding of the team’s mindset and the specific challenges they faced.

This ability to connect with both the technical and behavioural sides of the business resonated strongly with DUA’s leadership. Rather than opting for a one‑off workshop, DUA chose a continuous learning approach built around monthly sessions.

This format allowed the team to absorb new ideas gradually, apply them in their day‑to‑day client work, and return to each session with reflections and real‑world examples to build upon.

Engagement & Solutions Delivered

• In‑person monthly training sessions focused on:

  • Mindset, communication, and commercial confidence.

  • Psychology of decision‑making.

  • Accountability to process and identifying what needs to change to get different results.

• Limited coaching with individual team members.
  

Inside the Journey (in the Client’s Words)

Why did Dua & Co decide to invest in developing their team’s commercial and interpersonal skills — moving beyond purely technical accountancy training to build empathy, confidence, and real-world advisory capability?

“If you’re going to offer that journey, you can only do it if your team are also developed… there’s the practical of them sitting in meetings, learning about the art of communication… so that they felt they were progressing as individuals and progressing as a firm.”

What’s holding professionals in the accountancy sector back from adapting to change, embracing commercial thinking, and evolving beyond purely technical work?

“Self‑beliefs between possible and impossible… accountants are cautious by nature… embrace technology, collaboration, teamwork rather than fighting change.”

What advice does Rakesh give to other accountancy firms that are not embracing transformation, and how can they start listening to their teams, modernising their culture, and rethinking their recruitment and development strategies to stay competitive?

How has DUA’s team changed in practice since the LSOS programme began — particularly in how managers now lead client conversations, own relationships, and proactively identify opportunities instead of waiting for partners to direct them?

“I want my managers to own the relationship… to say when to bring in an expert… quarterly meetings on data insights and tax planning… when clients start asking their opinion, you know you’ve reached a really good point.”

How did the team initially respond to the idea of ongoing training, and what shifts have emerged — from early hesitation to enthusiastic participation, continuous questioning, and visible behavioural progress across the sessions?

“We’re on the sixth or seventh session… I now hear them questioning proposals, the right client, the way they work with clients, why clients don’t share information, why go to the partner… slow and steady progression.”

Would you recommend LSOS?

“They care about getting results rather than just sucking you into a subscription… I got introduced to the owners of London School of Sales… they had good skill and experience, and they actually cared about getting results… We invited Vinit to speak at our conference — fantastic feedback. When I listened, I thought: my team can do with these wise words — hence the engagement. The SME audience loved it… LSOS have made DUA even sharper than we thought we already were.”

Rakesh Dua, CEO, DUA Accountancy & Business Consultancy

Results & Outcomes

• Cultural and behavioural shifts underway across the team: more confidence in client conversations, increased ownership by managers, and clearer pathways to introduce experts at the right moments.

• Improved collaboration and practical application of communication techniques in live client settings (e.g., quarterly business reviews, data‑insight conversations, and tax planning dialogues).

• Positive momentum recognised internally and externally (e.g., awards and finals cited by the client as markers that the shift is taking hold).

What’s Next for DUA

Looking ahead, DUA plans to continue the monthly training cadence and selective coaching that have already proven effective in building momentum.

The next stage focuses on tracking progress through both leading and lagging indicators of commercial confidence. Leading indicators will include actions such as manager-led follow-ups, proactive agenda-setting for quarterly business reviews, and improved on-time information sharing.

Lagging indicators, on the other hand, will reflect tangible outcomes like incremental project scoping, increased upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and more consistent payment timeliness.

Together, these measures will help DUA sustain growth, maintain accountability, and further embed a culture of commercial curiosity and client-focused value.

London School of Sales (LSOS) specialises in helping technically minded teams spot what’s not working, shape strategy, build process, enable managers, and train teams; creating the conditions for consistent commercial performance.

• Bespoke Team Training — tailored, role‑relevant learning that sticks.

• Manager Enablement & Coaching — practical confidence for leading commercial conversations.

• SMART Selling Accelerator — a structured 3-month programme that helps founders and leaders codify their sales approach, align strategy with process, and transfer knowledge across their teams.

Contact

If you’d like to equip your professional services team to hold confident, commercial conversations without feeling like they’re “selling”, let’s talk.

The purpose of this article isn’t to explore specific sales coaching systems or approaches. Instead, we’ll focus on the core coaching skills and effective coaching techniques that every sales manager needs.

Whether you’re here for coaching for sales managers or to get insight for advanced training for sales managers, today’s insights will help you elevate your impact.

These principles are at the heart of our sales training courses at the sales academy, and mastering them is key to becoming not just a competent coach but an exceptional one in any sales environment.

1. Listening Skills

Effective coaching for sales managers starts with mastering listening and communication skills, with listening being the first essential skill.

In sales, we talk about listening a lot. But as a sales manager, we have to adapt, both in how we listen to our sales team and to individuals. This isn’t just about active listening as we know it in sales.

We need to reframe what listening actually means for us as coaches. Remember: 93% of all communication is non-verbal. Only 7% is the spoken word, about 55% is physiology, your body language, and roughly 38% is tone of voice.

As a coach, you must pay close attention to body language, tone, and how someone articulates a challenge or responds during a coaching conversation.

As salespeople, we ask our teams to practice active listening:

• Paying attention

• Withholding judgment

• Reflecting before responding

• Asking clarification questions based on the client’s information

• Summarising what they’ve heard

• Socialising that information with their team

This type of active listening works in a sales environment. You need to take it a step further towards empathic listening.

Empathic listening means listening solely to understand. It’s not about judging or jumping in with a solution. This is difficult because our natural tendency is to respond, guide, or fix the problem immediately.

When we interrupt or dismiss what a salesperson is saying, they can feel deflated and unheard. Instead, give them the time and space to share their thoughts without cutting in.

Think back to a time when you were a salesperson receiving coaching. Did your manager give you the time to express yourself? Or did they keep jumping in? How did that make you feel?

When the roles are reversed, you may have solutions. But the key is to sit back and listen. At the right time, you’ll have the opportunity to ask powerful questions.

One tip: during a coaching conversation, ask yourself, “Why am I talking?” If the salesperson is sharing, encourage them to keep going and resist the urge to take over.

It’s easier said than done, especially in the heat of the moment when you want a solution quickly. But your experience and perspective aren’t the point here; the focus is on helping the salesperson think, process, and learn.

Give them space. Listen intently. Accept the silences, because those pauses can reveal a lot about their mindset and the situation at hand.

Listening is one of the most powerful coaching skills you can develop.

Level Up Your Sales Coaching Skills!

Master empathic listening, open-ended questioning, trust-building, and effective feedback through the LSOS Sales Training Academy, featuring CPD-certified e-learning, weekly live masterclasses, and real-world coaching strategies.

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2. Questioning Skills

Effective sales coaching starts with questioning your skills.

In sales, we talk about questioning a lot but questioning skills as a coach are very different from those of a salesperson. If you want to be an effective coach, your questions must enable you to explore issues in a much deeper way.

They should help you identify the root cause of the challenge and focus your understanding on it.

Secondly, your coaching questions need to uncover the salesperson’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions toward a topic.

Simply asking superficial questions that get superficial answers isn’t enough. You have to dig beneath the surface to understand the true cause of the issue and identify where any misalignment lies. The only way to connect with the salesperson is through the quality of your questions.

Of course, at the right time, you can share your own thoughts, opinions, and ideas—but before that, you need to use as much of the opportunity as possible to get them to speak.

Ask them the questions. In sales, we often talk about share of voice, where the client should be talking 70–80% of the time, and we, as salespeople, only 20–30%. The same rule applies here.

Your role as a coach is to direct the conversation and ask questions so the salesperson shares their knowledge and perspective with you.

The end goal is to help the salesperson arrive at a well-considered decision. The best ideas are often the ones we come up with ourselves, and your role as a coach isn’t to hand them all the solutions.

Yes, on occasion, you may have to guide them toward an answer, but in general, you want your team to think for themselves. The only way to do that is by asking the right questions that lead them toward their own solution—whatever that might be.

Even if you can already see the answer, giving it to them isn’t always helpful. You want to provoke their own thinking with effective coaching skills, so they begin to ask themselves:

• What do I need to do?

• How do I need to do it?

• What should I change to achieve my desired results?

If you keep giving them the answer, they’ll keep coming back expecting you to fix their problems, which isn’t what you want.

Throughout the coaching process, your questions will change just as they do in a sales conversation.

At the start, before diving into the topic, break the ice with simple, open questions:

• How are you doing?

• What’s on your mind today?

• Where should we start?

• What would be the most useful thing for us to focus on in this session?

Remember, your role as the coach is to guide the conversation, and the quality of your questions is what makes that possible.

The key to asking great coaching questions is to keep them simple. Don’t overcomplicate. Once you ask the question, stop talking. Give the salesperson time to think and respond.

Some people will jump straight in, while others will need more time so give them space.

Avoid leading questions, those designed to steer the person toward a specific answer or topic. Your role is to remain objective, curious, and open-minded. Don’t judge, and don’t move to problem-solving until you fully understand the situation.

Just like in a sales diagnostic conversation, you can keep the dialogue open by asking:

• Is there anything else you want to add?

• Is there anything else on your mind?

This gives the salesperson space to share as much as they want.

Also, choose your environment carefully. If the conversation requires sensitivity, hold it in a private office so they feel safe. If it’s more general, like discussing a deal, an open-office setting may be fine.

And don’t make it feel like an interrogation. No one likes that. Keep it conversational. Coaching isn’t just a back-and-forth Q&A session.

The goal is to go deep, uncover, and truly understand. Once you get to the heart of the challenge, you’ll be able to guide and support the salesperson in the best possible way.

3. Interpersonal Skills

The third critical skill you need as a coach is your interpersonal skills. The question to consider as a sales manager is: Why should that salesperson trust you?

Why should they share sensitive information with you? Why should they tell you what’s really holding them back?

You might say, “Because I’m their manager, I’m asking the question, and I want to help them succeed and hit their target.” That’s great, but you’re still their manager. So, what’s your intent?

Just like when you’re with a client, your intent matters. You must have the right intent with your team as well. Every team member needs to believe you have their best interests at heart.

Every person on your team has the potential to be a top performer. Your role as a manager and coach is to figure out how to bring out the best in each individual. You can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach.

The key is to build trust and not just superficial trust, but deep trust. That only happens when they believe you value them, will fight for them, help them, and support them. If they don’t feel that, they won’t open up. They’ll share some details but hold back others.

The foundation of great coaching conversations is a strong, positive relationship. Remember, as a manager, part of your results comes through your team. You must empower them, but they also need to know you trust them, and that the trust is mutual.

We’ve talked about the trust equation in previous workshops, and it applies here too:

• Credibility: Do your team members see you as a credible manager? Do you lead by example and practice what you coach?

• Reliability: Are you there when they need you? Do you respond when they ask for help or advice?

• Intimacy: Are they comfortable sharing information with you?

• Self-orientation: How much of your coaching conversation is about you, versus letting them share their thoughts and feelings?

Trust is a huge part of sales management. If you want your team to trust you, give them a reason.

One question that should be asked of every sales manager is: Do you care?

• Do you care about each person on your team and their results?

• Do you care about them as individuals?

• How do you show it?

Saying “I care” isn’t enough; you have to demonstrate it. Would you fight for them? Actions speak louder than words when it comes to showing your team you have their best interests at heart.

The more you get to know your team, the more they’ll share. But you’re not just their friend; you’re still their boss. The balance is in showing you care while maintaining your role.

Trust takes time to build. The key is to understand what motivates each person.

For example, a candidate once shared in their interview that their goals were to earn more money, buy a house, and take at least two holidays a year. On the surface, it might not seem like much. But knowing those goals gave me insight into how to motivate them, coach them, and connect their daily actions to their bigger picture.

Another part of building trust is demonstrating competence.

If you’ve just been promoted to sales manager, your team might still see you as a peer and could even resent or test you.

Avoid using authority in a heavy-handed way. Instead, rebuild the relationship and show why you’ve earned the role.

No one steps into a management position and knows everything. Be candid and say, “I’m learning, but here’s my approach and expectations.”

Earn respect and trust through reliability. Show what you can do to help them, and build rapport early.

When a team member is promoted to manager, Friday after-work outings with the team can initially feel awkward. Team members may hold back what they want to say in front of their new boss.

Relationships will shift, and that’s okay. Give your team space to have their own conversations without you present.

Above all, be authentic. Your emotional intelligence in coaching should match your intellectual intelligence (IQ). Don’t try to be someone you’re not, and don’t rely on “I’m the boss” as a leadership style.

Think about managers you’ve had in the past who didn’t connect with you. How did their approach make you feel?

My first manager out of university was highly autocratic—telling me exactly what to do and how to do it, without room for creativity. It didn’t build my confidence or allow me to learn.

Be mindful of the environment you’re creating. Authenticity and open communication are key. Always keep your team’s best interests at heart, and remember—trust is earned, not assumed.

4. Giving and Receiving Feedback

The fourth and final underlying skill you need to be a great, effective coach is your ability to provide feedback.

Now, regardless of what you might be thinking, salespeople love getting feedback. Why?

Because if they know something is or isn’t working, they can either continue doing more of it or change their behaviour to improve the process, system, or habit that might be holding them back.

Feedback is most effective when it’s delivered straightforwardly. And most salespeople want feedback.

They want it to reassure them that they are performing adequately and moving in the right direction.

And while you might feel that sometimes you don’t need to give feedback, think about it from the salesperson’s point of view.

You were one of those salespeople not too long ago, so think about what they need to stay motivated and ensure they keep getting that positive reinforcement and clear direction.

Feedback shouldn’t be something you give once a week. It has to be continuous. And feedback delivered in the moment is the most powerful.

Feedback is a powerful way to maintain focus and motivation. When you have an open relationship with your team and a continuous exchange of insights, it adds huge value to both performance and trust.

Nothing comes as a surprise; it’s an ongoing loop of feedback, ideas, and opportunities for improvement.

When a manager holds back on giving feedback, they’re essentially kicking the can down the road. They might be avoiding a difficult conversation because they’re unsure how the feedback will be received. That’s a problem.

By avoiding it, you’re not helping yourself, and you’re certainly not helping your team. Feedback is a critical part of sales management and coaching.

Even if you don’t enjoy it, you have to get good at it. It’s a key part of your role and essential for improving business results.

There are five elements to giving effective feedback:

1. Feedback must be behaviour-specific

You need to tell your team exactly what you liked or disliked. The more specific the example, the easier it is to coach. Keep it objective. It can’t just be your opinion without a reason. For example, when coaching a manager on feedback delivery, one simple but powerful change is to replace the word ‘but’ with ‘and’.

“You’re doing this really well, but you’re not doing this well.” Psychologically, everything before is forgotten. Instead, try:

“You’re doing this really well, and I’m confident that if you apply the same principles here, you’ll get even better results.”

2. Feedback should be timely

Don’t store up feedback for weekly or monthly meetings. If you can give it in the moment, do it. If you hear a salesperson on a call, speak to them right after. They’re far more likely to remember and connect the feedback to the situation.

3. Feedback should be balanced

Highlight positives as well as areas for improvement. Make it a two-way conversation. If they push back, don’t get defensive; instead, you can say: “Help me understand why you feel that way.” Balance builds trust and makes feedback constructive.

4. Give the salesperson ownership of the feedback

Don’t rush the process. After delivering feedback, give them time to reflect, even if that means 30 seconds of silence. Resist the urge to fill the space with more talking. Exceptional coaches slow down and let the person process, understand, and commit to change.

5. Close the loop

After giving feedback, check back in later. Set follow-up conversations if needed. If they require skills development, ensure they get it. Feedback is a continuous process, connect the dots and keep it situation-specific.

Feedback is not a one-time exercise; it’s an ongoing cycle. And remember, it’s a two-way process. Ask your team for feedback on how you’re handling coaching conversations. Is there something they need from you that you’re not providing?

Key Takeaways

We’ve covered four critical coaching skills: listening, questioning, building trust/interpersonal skills, and feedback. What brings them all together is your ability to be emotionally intelligent as a sales manager.

Regardless of your coaching approach or system, these are the fundamental skills you must consistently practise to be an effective leader.

Empower Your Sales Managers to Coach for Performance

Our bespoke LSOS team training equips leaders with emotional intelligence, coaching skills, and feedback techniques that drive sustainable sales growth.

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Time is your most valuable asset in sales, and it’s incredibly precious in every aspect of life. In sales, we can easily spend a lot of time on activities that keep us busy rather than truly productive.

In this piece, we highlight some of those activities and share practical ways to manage your time more effectively.

You need to be absolutely ruthless when it comes to dealing with distractions. It’s so easy to jump from one shiny new thing to the next. That’s why managing your time is not just important, it’s essential.

Why Productivity Matters

On average, there are 233 business days in a year for salespeople, give or take one or two days.

How do we get that number? There are 365 days in a year. Subtract 104 weekend days, 20 days of holiday, and eight bank holidays, and you’re left with 233 working days to hit your targets.

When you look at it this way, you realise you don’t have much time to do everything required for sales productivity, from building relationships to managing your sales pipeline.

Traditionally, we measure sales success by the value we deliver, the number of deals we close, and the revenue we generate. But to truly improve sales performance, we also need to look at how we work.

Our daily activities and behaviours drive results. How we use our time is critical to sales time management and long-term success.

Common Sales Productivity Challenges

We often spend too much time on unnecessary admin. Of course, some admin is essential in sales, but it’s our responsibility to manage it effectively.

The second issue is mindset. Sometimes our approach to certain activities isn’t quite right. We tend to see them reactively rather than proactively, and that mindset ultimately shapes how we tackle the tasks we need to complete.

Thirdly, one of the biggest sales productivity challenges is a lack of preparation. Too often, we try to figure things out in the moment. We arrive at a situation: it could be a discovery call or a conversation with a new client, and in the heat of the moment, we’re deciding what to do, what to say, and what the next step should be. This lack of preparation is a major productivity barrier.

Finally, qualification is critical. When we don’t properly qualify opportunities or understand where the buyer is, where we are, and where we want to take them, we set ourselves up for failure.

Here’s how it usually plays out: In many sales organisations, when we don’t ask the right questions, we might think a client is ready to buy, but in reality, they’re still in research mode. Two or three months later, when we ask, “Are you ready to close?” they reply, “No, we’re still researching.”

All of these sales productivity challenges ultimately affect our ability to be productive.

Other Time Wasters

There are many other time wasters in sales, and we need to proactively minimise these distractions.

For example, salespeople tend to be overly optimistic and rarely schedule enough time to complete all the activities they need to.

If you’re doing something for the first time, you might allocate 30 minutes or an hour, but realistically, it will take twice as long. My advice: when tackling something new, add an extra 30–60 minutes. At worst, you’ll finish early and gain extra time.

Optimism aside, we also tend to be people-pleasers. Drop-in visitors, quick questions, or casual chats can break our focus. Setting boundaries is essential. There are two types of time: selling time and non-selling time.

The hours between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. are the prime selling time. This period is dedicated to client calls, meetings, and demos, focusing on the client’s needs. Outside of these hours, dedicate yourself to admin, emails, proposals, and other non-client-facing tasks. Clients and prospects are less likely to engage outside of prime selling time.

Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes it’s worth calling a contact early to avoid the gatekeeper. The key is to plan and prepare, always thinking about how to maximise your productivity.

Another major distraction is a lack of self-discipline. Moving from task to task without a clear list of priorities creates ad hoc work and removes structure. Constantly switching focus prevents you from giving important work the attention it deserves, ultimately reducing productivity.

Individually, these issues may seem minor, but collectively, they can significantly hamper your effectiveness and limit the results you achieve.

Productivity Focus Areas

Let’s break this down into three key focus areas.

Firstly, mindset and motivation. Your mindset shapes how you approach productivity. When you change your mindset, you influence your behaviour, and that behaviour directly impacts the results you achieve.

If your mindset is “I’ll just handle things on the fly as they come”, your behaviour will be sporadic and unstructured. You’ll move from conversation to conversation without focus.

Conversely, if your mindset is about thinking ahead, preparing, and planning, your behaviour will reflect that. You’ll have more structured, meaningful conversations, and ultimately, your results will improve. Mindset and motivation are crucial for maximising the time you spend on client-related work.

Secondly, preparation and planning. Benjamin Franklin famously said, “If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” Planning is essential to achieving the results you want and being productive. Map out what good looks like and allocate time for each activity: calls, demos, admin work, internal reports, etc. Protect your time by setting guardrails so that your precious hours are spent where they matter most.

Finally, pipeline discipline and process adherence. A major productivity killer is a lack of a structured sales process. Simply having stages in your CRM is not enough. To be ruthless and productive, you need to understand the objective of each stage and the criteria for moving opportunities forward. If those criteria aren’t met, don’t advance the opportunity.

Be strict with qualifications. For example, if a client says, “Don’t worry, we’ll find the money,” don’t just accept it at face value. Sense-check it. Ask, “Can you tell me the range you have available?” This ensures you’re not surprised later and that you’re focusing your time on qualified opportunities.

Ultimately, this discipline drives your sales pipeline. More productive salespeople maintain higher-quality pipelines, ensuring opportunities are in the right place and moving efficiently. Technology and tools can support this process, but it’s critical to decide upfront how to leverage them to achieve the results you want.

Sales Productivity Frameworks

The first productivity tool is the Eisenhower Matrix.

Essentially, this sales productivity framework tool helps you understand where you spend most of your time. There are four quadrants, and you should think about which activities you’re doing proactively or reactively and which quadrant they fall into.

Top right: Focus.
This quadrant is not urgent, but it’s extremely important. In fact, I’d argue it’s your most important work. This is where you take time to plan, develop your personal strategy, reflect on your motivators, and evaluate what’s working well and what needs to change.

Ask yourself: How often do you spend time on these activities? Quarterly? Monthly? Weekly? My experience is that most salespeople know they should do this, but they don’t schedule it. This is the most important time you can block in your calendar proactively.

Top left: Priority.
This quadrant is for work that comes at you and must be done. Generally, it should account for about 20% of your activity, not 80%. This could be urgent client requests or managerial tasks. If everything feels like a priority, something is wrong with your process or environment.

Priority work is time-sensitive, often requiring work outside normal hours. That’s why measuring how much time you spend here is critical; it should be the exception, not the rule.

Bottom left: Busywork.
This quadrant involves tasks that are non-important but sometimes urgent, like sales admin. Many salespeople see admin as negative, but maintaining your CRM is crucial. The quality of your CRM input determines the quality of output. When set up correctly, it supports your work instead of hindering it.

Spend minimal time here, and reframe how you view these tasks. If you spend too much time in this quadrant, you’ll feel unfulfilled, lose motivation, and neglect your client-facing work.

Bottom right: Eliminate.
This quadrant is neither important nor urgent. Activities here sap energy and add no value. Examples might include requests from other departments unrelated to sales. Ask yourself: Is this urgent for me in my role? If not, eliminate it.

Reflect on your activities: Which fall into each quadrant, and how much time are you spending in each? The key is maximising proactive sales activities versus reactive tasks that drain your energy.

The second framework is the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle).

This principle states that 20% of your clients or activities will account for 80% of your results. For example:

• 20% of your clients may drive 80% of your revenue.

• 20% of your activities may deliver 80% of your results.

The goal is to identify which clients and activities contribute most to your results and focus your energy there.

Not all clients are in the same stage of readiness. Some are ready to buy, upgrade, or engage differently. By identifying those 20% of clients or activities, you can achieve 80% of your results more efficiently.

Over time, the 20% will shift, so continuously reassess and adjust your focus. This ensures that your time is spent on the highest-impact activities, driving maximum sales productivity and results.

Now, you might ask: How do we measure all of this and track progress effectively?

Sales Activity Funnel

It’s all about understanding the activity that flows through your sales funnel.

To do this effectively, you need to understand your ratios. Look at the calls you make or take: how many convert into meetings, how many of those convert into proposals, and finally, how many convert into wins.

You might use different terminology, maybe discovery call → demo → proposal → win. Whatever your process, the key is to visualise the input-to-output flow and measure your ratios. Knowing your ratios tells you exactly where your time is going and highlights what’s draining your energy versus what’s productive.

It can also be visualised as: calls → meetings → proposals → wins. A practical way to understand your time investment in each stage is to reverse-engineer it:

• How many wins did you have over a 3-, 6-, or 12-month period?

• How many proposals did it take to achieve those wins?

• How many meetings were required to generate those proposals?

• How many calls did it take to set up those meetings?

Once you have these numbers, you can identify where to make adjustments to improve your results. Even if some stages seem fixed, there’s almost always room for improvement.

For example, if your call-to-win conversion rate is 1 in 10, your focus should be on improving that to 1 in 8, then 1 in 7. Doing so will generate more revenue and close more deals, and ultimately improve your sales productivity.

Linked to this is deal velocity, a key metric every salesperson should track. Tracking this over time shows whether your sales process is becoming more effective and whether your productivity is translating into better results consistently.

Planning intentionally is crucial.

Productivity doesn’t improve by wishing for it; you need deliberate action. Start by changing your mindset toward productivity and the activities you perform. Reviewing your data and understanding where your time is spent allows you to identify areas for improvement, evolve habits, and ultimately change behaviour, which drives results.

A quarterly, weekly, and daily planning cycle can be used:

• Quarterly (13 weeks): Review metrics, pipeline, and proactive activities. Spend 2–3 hours reflecting on what worked, what didn’t, and identifying where to focus energy next.

• Weekly: Typically on Sundays, 45 minutes are dedicated to planning the week by reviewing the calendar, prioritising calls, and mapping out tasks. Even when travelling, this planning is maintained to ensure business development activities continue uninterrupted.

• Daily: Avoid back-to-back online meetings. Allow time between sessions to take action on tasks, process information, and prepare for the next meeting. Use tools like recorders and transcribers to capture notes efficiently.

The key is being intentional with your sales time management. Planning prevents wasted time, ensures follow-ups happen promptly, and maximises the productivity of your client-facing work. By consistently applying this planning cycle and understanding your funnel ratios, you can identify bottlenecks, enhance your sales effectiveness, and ultimately close more deals while making more effective use of your time.

Key Takeaways

Firstly, productivity = effectiveness × efficiency. Be ruthless with how you manage your time. Planning and preparation for sales success is absolutely crucial.

Secondly, planning. Know your ratios and your deal velocity. This insight will guide you in focusing your energy and effort for maximum impact.

Finally, process and pipeline. Discipline and adherence to your process are essential. Look for small, incremental changes you can make. These are what move the needle and improve results.

It’s not about massive overhauls. Even small adjustments, like improving your sales qualification or refocusing on the right opportunities, can have a big impact. If you find yourself spending too much time on opportunities that aren’t ready to progress, bring them back to the right stage and prioritise better.

Build a productivity-first sales culture. Even strong sales teams lose momentum without structure. At LSOS Sales Academy, we design sales training courses that help you:

• Strengthen sales qualification consistency

• Turn time management tips for salespeople into daily habits

• Build scalable processes that drive long-term results

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As a proud Membrain Impact Partner, we support organisations in building high-performing sales systems. By embedding proven sales approaches directly into Membrain, teams can move quickly from “theory to practice” and make new behaviours stick, through pre-configured processes, in-workflow training, coaching, and analytics, without the complexity of a traditional CRM.

In this episode, Vinit shares insights from his experience across industries like manufacturing, market research, and sales education. Key topics include:

• Why training alone isn’t enough – diagnosing deeper structural issues within sales organisations.

• Helping founders and technical experts succeed in sales – reframing sales as a structured system rather than a personality-driven game.

• The SMART Selling Framework – a practical, scalable methodology to transform fragmented sales efforts into integrated systems that support consistent growth.

🎧 The podcast is now also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

We’re proud to be a Membrain Impact Partner and to contribute to meaningful conversations on sales effectiveness.

In this blog, we will take you through a six-step process to understand and develop your ideal customer profile (ICP), a critical part of any effective sales ICP framework.

Now, you may be thinking this is a topic typically associated with the marketing team, something they focus on when trying to generate awareness of your brand. And you’re right. However, working with top-performing teams and delivering sales training courses at our sales academy, the best businesses and sales organisations proactively contribute to this process.

Why? Because if marketing works in isolation and generically targets a certain type of company or buyer, the quality of leads that sales receives often falls short.

When sales and marketing align, especially through shared involvement in ICP development and buyer persona creation, the quality of those leads improves significantly. That’s why having sales involved in creating a B2C or a B2B ideal customer profile is so important for consistent B2C or B2B lead qualification.

Essentially, your ICP for sales becomes the foundation for identifying and reaching the buyers and organisations you genuinely want to work with.

This includes understanding both firmographics vs demographics, the roles of different B2B buyer personas, and even applying psychographic segmentation for deeper insight into customer behaviour.

In a startup, you might begin with a broader or scattergun approach. But in an established business, it becomes vital to narrow in on the right customer segmentation strategy—identifying not just the organisations but the ideal buyer profiles within them.

Knowing how to create a customer persona, based on real buyer roles by industry, supports smarter sales strategies and more successful outreach.

At the end of the day, this isn’t just a marketing task; it’s core to sales leaders training and a critical component we emphasise in every high-impact sales training academy or business.

Six-Step Process for Developing ICPs

The ideal buyers are within those businesses as well. So the first step of creating an ICP for sales is really understanding who your best customers are today.

You will have a database of your existing customers and a CRM system. You know what types of roles are buying your products, services, and solutions.

You will also have an idea of what industry they come from. And by industry, the job title might vary. So, this step is also about considering how to create a customer persona.

1. Analyse Existing Customer Data to identify Common Traits of Loyal Customers

The first step of developing a sales ICP framework involves evaluating the data available to you, analysing it, and looking for trends.

What you’re trying to understand is: who do we provide exceptional value and service for? Who do we enjoy working with, and who gains real value from our services, solutions, and products?

The key questions to consider are:

• Who are your top-performing customers today?

• Who gets the biggest value from you, renews every year, refers you, and organically expands the relationship over time?

• What characteristics do these customers share?

2. Distinguish Between Firmographics (B2B) and Demographics (B2C)

Now, firmographics are characteristics used to understand and segment at an organisational level.

When you’re working with B2B (business-to-business) companies, these are essential at a high level. Why are they essential? Because generally speaking, most organisations, products, and services can support and service multiple industries. Hence, the reason why segmentation is essential.

In the food industry, we might be working with marketing teams or research and development teams. But in financial services, we might be working with strategy teams.

And in advertising agencies, we might be working with insight teams. While they perform similar functions, their profiles are slightly different. The way they do their work and who they report to is also slightly different.

Hence, the better the quality of your segmentation and your understanding of firmographics vs demographics at an organisational level, the easier it is for you to develop your ideal customer profile.

That said, it is equally important, if you are targeting B2C, to understand demographic data as well. This includes age, income level, gender, where they live, where they work, lifestyle traits, and so on. So, it isn’t just a case of firmographics or demographics.

At a high level, first and foremost, it is about firmographics. Then you start thinking more granularly about demographics.

The key goal here is to identify those external qualifiers that describe your ideal customer profile.

Marketing generally takes the lead on this first step. However, sales must be involved in this process because sales already have lots of customers.

They know what those customers look like, what they like, and what they dislike. So it’s important that sales plays a key role and contributes to this process.

Now, taking this a step further and looking at understanding your audience and your focus, from a B2B perspective, it is really about logic. It is a longer process that brings with it a certain set of criteria.

On the B2C side, it is generally about one person making the decision. That one person may buy based on emotion as opposed to logic.

From a B2B perspective, sales cycles are longer. Generally, the bigger the organisation, the more people are involved. The likelihood is that there will be a committee making the decision.

Because of that, when you work with B2B organisations, you need to add another layer to your profiling. That layer is about knowing who the different types of buyers are within the organisation you are serving.

Generally speaking, there are five buying roles you need to consider.

The most important is the economic buyer, the person who will sign the contract and make the ultimate decision on whether or not to take your product or service.

Before that happens, there are other profiles you also need to proactively manage and understand. By proactively managing and understanding, you might be selling at the organisational level, and yes, the economic buyer makes the ultimate decision, but other profiles like the value buyer, the technical buyer, the user buyer, and the influencer buyer all have a vested interest in the process. You need to create profiles for each of these characters in parallel.

Going back to the market research example: in a finance organisation, someone buying market research could be in strategy, while the economic decision maker might sit in a completely different area.

You might have to go through a procurement team as well, and the users could be someone else entirely. Understanding how information flows within those organisations, the role each person plays, and having a profile for each buyer type is super important. This will vary organisation to organisation and industry to industry, which is why it’s important to break this down by industry.

This is the second layer you need. Once you understand who those different profiles and buyers are, you can move to the third step.

3. Understand Psychographics, Behaviours, and Attitudes Driving Buyer Decisions

The goal here is really about understanding what drives and motivates those profiles and buyers to act. That is one of the most important goals in buyer persona development.

What is it that will make the difference for them to say yes to your product, service, or solution?

Essentially, we’re looking at psychographics, behaviours, and attitudes. Let me explain what psychographics are. Psychographics is the study of consumers based on their activities, attitudes, interests, and opinions. Generally, it goes beyond demographic data.

What we’re trying to do is add a level of understanding around the cognitive factors that drive their decisions and behaviours. Psychographic information includes things like personality traits, communication preferences, lifestyle choices, principles, beliefs, and more.

On your screen, you can see examples of the types of information we want to collect. For me, one of the most important aspects is understanding their problems and challenges.

This will differ by role. The way a user looks at a problem is completely different from how their manager sees it, and that differs again from how a director or department head, who might hold the budget, views it.

For example, if you’re selling software or a platform to improve productivity, the user might instantly see the value: “Great, I’ll save 15 minutes every hour with this solution.” The manager might think, “If we save that time, we can get through other tasks and ensure they’re done.”

But the decision maker sees it differently; they have a holistic overview of competing priorities and other factors to consider. That’s why you need to go through this exercise at multiple levels and for all buyers involved in the process.

This is all about understanding their motivations—business goals, personal goals, values, and beliefs that influence their decision-making process. Where do they go for information? These criteria are really important.

Of course, in your business, there may be specific elements to add to this process.

The six factors we will mention here are examples: a fantastic starting point to get you thinking about what you need to do and how.

Remember, the motivation for each profile will be subtly different. At the user level, it might be about saving time. From a manager’s perspective, it might be about accomplishing more.

Higher up, it might be about profitability or revenue generation. By the way, these examples are business motivations, but there will also be personal motivations.
For instance, the person making the decision might have aspirations for another role in the future.

So, this isn’t a one-dimensional view. It’s about understanding the profiles, how they evolve, adapt, and what they might be aiming for in the future.

4. Identify Triggers and Buying Signals Indicating Readiness to Engage

The fourth step is about identifying the triggers and buying signals. The goal here is to understand and list the signs or indicators that your ideal customer or profile is ready to buy, ready to engage you in the buying process.

They might have done their research, but now they come to you, ready for you to guide them through the buying journey.

The key thing is to understand their compelling reason to act. What events or conditions need to be met for this to happen?

For example, we worked with a managed service provider. In that space, the point at which a provider is engaged by an organisation can differ greatly from when the organisation actually decided to review its services.

In the example of this managed service provider, generally, before a customer engaged with them, the process started about nine to twelve months before their existing contract or agreement came up for renewal.

They would start exploring the idea of switching services, collate information, do due diligence, and research.

It would probably be four or five months into that process when they actually engaged other companies to review whether they wanted to switch providers.

Sometimes, this process started even up to two years in advance—especially when a change management process was complex or required a significant transition, naturally extending the timeline.

So, you need to understand:

1. The compelling reason to act

2. The timing

3. The behavioural patterns

4. The explicit needs that drive this process

For each type of organisation and industry, this will be slightly different. That’s why it’s important to break this down depending on the industries, profiles, and customers you are selling to and supporting.

5. Recognise Red Flags and Wrong Personas to Avoid Wasting Resources

The fifth step might sound trivial, but it’s something most organisations don’t do: understand the red flags or the wrong personas. What personas don’t you want to work with? What types of organisations are not a good fit for you?

This goes back to reviewing all your historical data. Who have you had bad experiences with? Sometimes it sounds like a great idea initially to work with certain types of organisations, but in reality, you’re just not well set up to serve them.

For example, we worked with an insurance company that realised it didn’t want to work with organisations that used an RFP (Request for Proposal) or RFQ (Request for Quotation) process.

This process involves receiving a detailed document, filling it out, sending it back, and then waiting for procurement to decide if you’re successful.

This insurance company knew that its best sales came from adding value through conversations and relationships, not by responding to complex, time-consuming RFPs.

So, whenever they received an RFP, they’d review it but politely decline about nine out of ten times, knowing their approach wasn’t suited for that process.

Other examples include organisations that refuse to work with governments due to convoluted processes, or those unwilling to work with large enterprise clients because of regulations and compliance requirements.

It’s crucial to make a list and criteria of the types of companies you don’t want to work with. This list is just as important as the one for companies you do want to work with.

When qualifying leads or opportunities, you can use this list to disqualify unsuitable organisations early, or at least manage their expectations upfront, so you don’t waste time and resources on the wrong type of opportunity.

Struggling to find and convert the right buyers? A clear, well-defined ICP is the foundation of focused, high-performing sales.

At LSOS Academy, you’ll learn how to:

• Identify and prioritise your best-fit customers

• Develop precise ICPs that guide sales and marketing

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6. Continuously Validate and Iterate on Profiles with New Evidence

The final, all-important step in this process is validation and iteration. Essentially, this means consistently refining your buyer profiles with new evidence.

Every year, as you generate sales and collect information, you should validate your profiles. What’s changing? Are things stable? Do you still maintain the same relationships, or do you need to build new personas or adjust existing ones?

Business development professionals are fantastic at what they do, but sometimes they aren’t great at reporting back successes to the business.

Good business developers will find adjacent markets to target. Adjacent markets might have completely different personas and industries. When this happens, those profiles need to be recreated.

They might get some success initially, but to achieve more and ensure marketing targets the right personas, you need to create new profiles and understand the criteria and buyers within those new segments.

It’s important not only to review and validate your existing profiles and buyers but also to look at adjacent profiles and personas for new sectors or industries you might target.

Research shows that the larger the organisation, the more people are involved in the buying process, often around 10 people or more. That’s why understanding profiles is so critical.

When an organisation decides on a platform or software, it’s no longer just about the business unit or department using it.

There’s usually:

• IT, to check compliance, support, and regulations

• Legal, sometimes for GDPR or other requirements

• HR, if relevant

• Procurement, to ensure contracts are sound and manageable

• And the department that actually needs the software

Because of this, many stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process. Hence, consistently validating and iterating on your profiles is crucial.

A great practice is to give each buyer profile a name and maintain an ideal customer profile (ICP) canvas for each, including thermographics, demographics, and any other specific criteria. Add a picture and create a visual to bring it to life for your team.

This ongoing work helps ensure you stay on track. For example, at the London School of Sales, we created a high-level ICP focusing on company size, turnover, and challenges. Later, we validated and refined it by buyer types and stakeholders.

Pay close attention to the adjectives, descriptors, and emotions in the profiles—they help communicate and identify your target audience.

There is no silver bullet here. This is an iterative process, and you must constantly review, adapt, and adjust because markets move—and if you don’t move with them, you get left behind.

For instance, we worked in an industry where R&D was once the key decision maker. But the industry shifted, and R&D responsibilities moved to marketing. Overnight, decision-making shifted from the R&D director to the CMO. You must capture these types of changes in your ICPs and personas.

Key Takeaways

1. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. The more precise your persona and profile, the easier it is to target, personalise messaging, and qualify leads. Focus on who benefits most and who is most likely to buy and engage.

2. It’s not just about industry, size, or location. Understand your ICP’s goals, challenges, buying triggers, and values. Psychographic and behavioural insights help you connect deeply and influence decisions. Go beyond thermographics.

3. Proactively use your ICP to say no. A strong ICP guides marketing and sales on who not to pursue, saving time and money, improving conversion rates, and strengthening positioning. Identify red flags and wrong personas early.

Great salespeople aren’t born, they’re trained. Whether you’re building your pipeline, leading a team, or refining your strategy, LSOS Academy gives you the tools to grow with purpose.

• CPD-certified, flexible online courses

• Live masterclasses grounded in real sales challenges

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In today’s economic climate, the sales environment is incredibly demanding, and the pressure to perform is higher than ever.

The truth is that pressure has always existed in sales. Market conditions, competitive threats, and shifting priorities are constants in our work. The context may change, AI, and economic uncertainty, but the underlying challenge of adapting and performing under pressure remains.

That’s why managing expectations is one of the most important skills for a sales manager.

In challenging times like these, sales management skills become even more important. Sales performance generally either peaks or drops. The peak session feels fantastic, and we probably don’t pay as much attention. We let go of the reins slightly.

But during a trough, when things are more difficult, we have to dot the i’s and cross the t’s more carefully. It becomes even more important to manage expectations effectively. And the reason it matters is that there’s greater scrutiny on everything we do. There are more eyes on the sales organisation.

For sales managers, managing expectations is a fundamental part of the role, and it helps drive better results.

Key Elements of Managing Expectations in Sales

With that context, managing expectations means ensuring that every single conversation you have is focused on the right objectives and that the desired outcomes are clearly understood.

Whether you’re having internal conversations with team members or other departments, about performance, behaviours, or processes, it’s critical that expectations are crystal clear in terms of both objectives and outcomes.

Similarly, if you’re having conversations with external partners, clients, or suppliers, it’s equally important to manage those expectations. Especially, managing client expectations is about defining the objectives and outcomes.

Objectives must be identified, and the outcomes you’re aiming for should be discussed and documented.

The most important thing, regardless of whether it’s an internal or external conversation, is that the criteria for success are set. Everyone should know what the expectation is, what their role is, what the objective is, and what specific actions they need to take to help achieve those goals.

For example, if you’re in a group discussion and someone says, “We need to review our marketing plan and ensure we follow this new sales process,” that’s a generic statement. There must be accountability. Someone needs to take ownership of that activity, whether it’s from marketing or sales.

It cannot be a vague statement with no one responsible. Everyone might think it’s being handled, but if no one owns it, it won’t get done.

This is about setting clear, critical criteria that someone takes ownership of, takes control of, and is responsible for executing, putting in the effort to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved.

And the key to all of this is getting mutual agreement on objectives and outcomes.

Challenges for Sales Managers

Now, it might sound trivial in principle, but the reality is that sales managers are operating in a pressure-cooker environment.

Sales management is one of the two most challenging roles in sales, the other being cold prospecting. Those two roles are, for me, the most difficult in this field.

From a manager’s perspective, you’re under pressure from above, senior sales leaders and business executives expecting results, especially when things aren’t going well.

At the same time, your team may be struggling and asking for more support. Other departments are requesting your time and your team’s input. They want feedback, collaboration, and customer-facing engagement. They’re constantly vying for attention.

On top of that, clients might be dissatisfied, and they, too, are demanding your time. All of this creates a perfect storm for sales managers.

That’s why managing expectations is so important. Your expectations must be clear, realistic, and well-communicated. Everyone needs to understand the objectives and outcomes.

And this applies to every conversation you have. Managing expectations isn’t just about your team or clients. It also means managing upward. You need to say what needs to be said, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Sometimes you have to ask tough questions to clarify expectations, especially when a senior leader gives vague direction. If it’s not clear, it’s your responsibility to ask:

• What is the objective?

• What’s the measurable outcome?

• What needs to be delivered?

• By when?

• Who needs to be involved?

If those things aren’t discussed, it becomes subjective. Misunderstandings happen. Expectations go unmet.

You might assume one thing, while your leader expects something else entirely. So you must ensure assumptions are cleared up. Know exactly what’s expected of you, and make sure others know exactly what you expect from them.

Be clear about what needs to be done, by when, why, and how success will be measured. These things are critical.

It may sound simple, but in the heat of the moment, it’s not always easy. The pressure is real, and it takes a toll.

That’s why it’s so important to recognise when you’re under pressure and need support. In uncertain times, don’t shut down, share more. Overcommunicate.

If you don’t manage expectations, imposter syndrome can creep in. You start doubting yourself, fearing conversations, and avoiding decisions, and that’s damaging to both you and your team.

You might think you need to have all the answers, but you don’t.

Find someone to talk to: your line manager, a peer, a mentor. Have regular check-ins. Talking things through helps you process the pressure. If you keep it all in your head, it builds up until you can’t think clearly.

Everything you’re feeling is normal. But the key is to talk about it. And finally, in new or high-pressure situations, it’s natural not to know what to say or do. That can lead to avoidance and procrastination, which only hurts your performance and your team.

Effective Communication Strategies

The solution to all of this is quite simple, and that’s communication. I know it sounds trivial, and the natural inclination is to either slam on the brakes or accelerate through everything. But what you need to do is find the balance in the middle.

And the only way to do that is through clear communication by defining objectives and understanding what success looks like. If you don’t know what that is, talk about it. Ask, “What does success look like in a week? In a month? In three months?”

The key is to check in constantly. You don’t just set an objective today and wait a month to follow up on it. You need regular check-ins.

Something I used to do in tough situations was talk to the team daily. Ask simple things like: “How’s the mood? What’s working? What’s not?” Because it’s not just about setting the goal and letting people run with it. It’s about staying engaged.

I’d rather know upfront if something isn’t working. I’d rather address it there and then. What you don’t want is to assume everything is fine, only to find out a month later that the results haven’t been delivered. And then ask, “Why didn’t you come to me?”

That blames them, when really, it’s also your responsibility. As a sales manager, you need to take accountability. You can’t assume your team knows how to handle every situation, especially if they’re newer or less experienced. You’ve been through this before. They haven’t.

You’ve got to align your expectations with theirs, and regularly check in, not just on performance, but on emotions and energy levels too. If something needs to be reset, you do it then, not after the deadline.

One really important point: the mistake many sales managers make is thinking they need to have all the answers.

Let me be clear: that is not your job.

You’re never going to know everything. Most of the time, you’ll be directionally correct, but you won’t have it all figured out, and that’s okay.

When your team member comes to you with a challenge, it’s about understanding, showing empathy, and asking, “What have you tried so far?”

If you don’t know the answer, that’s fine. What matters is how you think through it together. Your team is looking for your logic, your way of approaching the issue, not a ready-made solution.

Don’t throw out suggestions just to fill the silence. Walk the path with them. Say, “Let’s think this through. What might happen if we try A or B?”

That’s coaching. That’s leadership. That is one of the most important things for sales management training. Your role is to validate, support, and guide, not to be the answer machine.

If your team sees you as someone who always has the answer, they’ll become dependent, and you won’t be developing them.

Here’s a strategy I used: when facing a big decision, especially in tough environments, I would go to the person on the team who was the complete opposite of me.

Why? Because I didn’t want to get stuck in my echo chamber. I already knew how I viewed the problem, but I needed someone with a different perspective.

By sharing my idea with them, I’d get feedback I hadn’t considered. It opened my eyes and helped me see how others might perceive the message. It also helped me adjust my communication so that all angles were covered.

Is it tough to hear, “You haven’t thought about this or that”? Of course. But what’s worse? Hearing it one-on-one from a teammate, or being caught off guard by the whole team in a meeting?

So, as a manager, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you must know it all. That’s not your job. Your job is to guide the team, coach them, and take them on the journey with you.

Set a clear vision and direction. Your team will have questions—you need to be prepared to answer them. That means thinking things through, planning, and stress-testing your ideas with others before you roll them out.

Don’t change direction every day. Be thoughtful about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and who needs to be involved.

Remember: just like you’re on a journey, your team is too. If you give them all the answers, you’re not adding value.

Master the human side of sales management. Learn how to coach different personalities, hold your team accountable without taking on their problems, and lead with clarity even under pressure.

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Perfect for those looking into salesman training courses, B2B sales training, or exploring how to become a sales manager.

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Handling Team Dynamics

In sales management training courses, one key theme is always emphasised: while you need to push your team to perform, you can’t manage everyone the same way. Every personality is different, which is why training for sales managers stresses the importance of tailored leadership.

Managing expectations effectively starts with truly understanding the individuals on your team. Some need encouragement, others need a challenge, and a few may just need quiet support. Great salesman training courses teach you how to recognise these differences quickly and act on them.

That said, one of the most common challenges we cover in sales managers training is accountability. Many salespeople look for the path of least resistance, and that often means trying to pass their problems up the chain. This is where the “monkey” metaphor comes in.

Passing the monkey is when someone hands you their responsibility: “Here you go, boss, it’s your problem now.” But if you want to lead effectively, especially in B2B sales training environments, you can’t accept the monkey.

Your role as a manager is not to solve every issue but to empower your team to find their solutions. A great approach (and one taught in the best sales training courses) is to say, “Thanks for sharing. What have you already tried? What do you suggest we do next?”

You’ll find this technique promoted across many top sales training academies. That’s because successful leadership depends on aligning expectations to individual mindsets and behaviours, not taking on everyone’s burdens.

But managing expectations isn’t just tactical, it’s deeply personal. That’s why the top sales academy programs emphasise three softer, but critical, elements:

1. Know Your Values

Under pressure, your values act as your internal compass. Good sales management training courses help you identify these values and use them to guide decisions.

For example, if honesty is a non-negotiable for you, as it is for many sales leaders, then you’ll quickly recognise when team members are withholding information. And if you don’t set the expectation for transparency, you’ll never be able to support your team properly.

2. Recognise Your Unconscious Bias

Self-awareness is crucial to becoming a sales manager who leads with integrity.

Your biases, if unchecked, will affect how you manage, coach, and evaluate performance. In sales managers’ training, we often refer to the bell curve: most operate in the middle, but it’s worth listening to views from the outer edges too. It widens your perspective and deepens your judgement.

3. Seek Different Perspectives

If you’re facing a challenge, don’t just speak with your sales team. Talk to people from marketing, finance, HR, and operations.

The best insights sometimes come from outside your bubble. This approach is promoted in every advanced salesman training course because it sharpens your narrative and gives you tools to lead with clarity.

Ultimately, sales training academy programs reinforce one core idea: managing expectations is a continuous process. Set crystal-clear objectives, create regular check-ins, and define success metrics.

And most importantly, communicate. Don’t leave things unsaid. If you’re unsure, ask. Just as you’d clarify with a client, do the same with your internal team.

The most effective training for sales managers doesn’t just teach strategy. It prepares you to have better conversations, build stronger teams, and drive meaningful results.

Key Takeaways

1. Clear and consistent communication, always. Have absolute clarity. Don’t make assumptions. Make sure you validate any expectations, whether they’re yours or your team members’. Set clear objectives.

2. You don’t need to have all the answers. But you do need to guide your team either by showing them what to do or pointing them to where they can find the answers. That’s crucial.

3. Be proactive in managing expectations. Don’t leave things to chance. Don’t assume someone has understood, ask. Ask them to explain what they’ve taken away, what they believe the expectation is, and what the objective is.

Join our weekly live masterclasses, part of LSOS Academy’s sales training for sales managers, to get practical tools for:

• Navigating conflict with emotional intelligence

• Communicating during peak stress periods

• Managing expectations without micromanaging

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Technology has been a game-changer. It has revolutionised sales and countless other industries. But the question we need to ask is: has it pushed us too far? Are we becoming overly reliant on technology in sales? Are we losing our intuitive edge and struggling to engage in meaningful conversations with clients and prospects?

This blog aims to emphasise the importance of balance and why emotional intelligence, especially empathy, is fast becoming a key competitive differentiator. Most importantly, it’s a skill that must be actively practised.

We will focus on three key areas:

1. The impact of technology on sales

2. Why do we need to rebalance the scales

3. How to proactively use empathy and emotional intelligence in sales

The Impact of Technology on Sales

Technology that adds value by automating repetitive tasks is invaluable. Without it, staying competitive is nearly impossible. From that perspective, technology is essential. However, the sales technology landscape is evolving at a breakneck pace.

To illustrate this, let’s look back. In 2011, the marketing technology landscape was relatively small. Sales automation occupied a minor space with only a handful of companies involved.

Fast forward to 2020, and the landscape had transformed. New niches emerged, and entire industries formed within the ecosystem. This shift was driven by personalisation, customisation, and the need for granular data. Companies became more comfortable using sophisticated tools to meet these demands.

By 2022, reports indicated nearly 10,000 marketing tech solutions existed. In 2024, that number surpassed 14,000, marking a 9,304% increase since 2011. This translates to an astounding 41.8% compound annual growth rate.

From 2023 to 2024 alone, over 3,000 new solutions emerged—likely driven by the AI boom. Within the sales tech space specifically, more than 1,000 tools were introduced in 2024 alone.

One of the main drivers behind this growth is customisation. The “one-size-fits-all” model no longer works. Buyers now seek bespoke solutions tailored to their specific industry needs.

For example, rather than using all-in-one CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot, some companies prefer niche software built exclusively for industries like manufacturing. These tools are more intelligent, collect more data, and offer increasingly targeted insights.

This explosion in tools aligns with a 2020 McKinsey report, which highlighted enormous automation potential across the value chain. Where automation and AI can do the heavy lifting, they absolutely should.

A Real-World Example: We’ve been working with a manufacturing client that offers both high-end and transactional products. Each year, they receive around 70,000 transactional orders—a massive volume requiring manual processing.

To manage this, they’ve started implementing an AI-powered solution to automate the processing of these orders. However, for their high-ticket, complex sales, they continue to rely on human expertise.

This reflects a growing trend: companies aren’t expecting AI to solve every problem. Instead, they’re applying it strategically, targeting specific parts of their value chain where automation offers real gains in efficiency.

The key takeaway here is that AI isn’t a silver bullet. Success lies in having a thoughtful strategy. Know where and how technology can help—and integrate it in a way that complements your broader business goals.

Rebalancing Technology and Human Touch

While technology has been a powerful enabler, we need to rebalance the scales. There’s currently too much emphasis on leading with technology in sales. So, why is rebalancing necessary?

Buyers today are more informed than ever. There’s more choice, more competition, and greater buyer awareness. Most sales organisations already know their audience well and engage with them across multiple platforms.

Technology can open doors, but it cannot hold meaningful, nuanced conversations—especially in complex, high-value sales. When organisations rely too heavily on automation without proper checks and balances, they risk undermining the very relationships they’re trying to build.

One major challenge is bias. AI systems are built by humans and inherently reflect their creators’ perspectives. Ask the same question to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Grok, and you’ll receive different answers because each model is based on a distinct set of data, algorithms, and assumptions.

This leads to another critical point: the quality of input determines the quality of output. If the person prompting the AI lacks a deep understanding of the customer, product, or market, the results will be suboptimal. In transactional scenarios, AI can help. But in complex sales, it often falls short.

Another issue is data inconsistency. Businesses now collect vast amounts of data across different tools and platforms. But comparing metrics from one system to another is often like comparing apples to oranges.

Each tool measures and reports differently, leading to misaligned insights. Without a clear understanding of how data is generated and used, companies risk making flawed decisions.

Buyers, especially in complex sales, are increasingly aware of the role of technology in their experience. While they do extensive research independently, they still seek human interaction to validate their understanding.

If your sales process doesn’t accommodate that need at the right time, you’re missing a critical opportunity to connect. To illustrate, here are four relevant statistics:

• Gartner reports that 77% of B2B buyers found their last purchase complex or difficult. Sales aren’t getting simpler—buyers must now consider integration, data requirements, legal compliance, and privacy issues.

• In 2019, Gartner illustrated a non-linear, looping B2B buying journey, involving multiple stakeholders simultaneously. It’s even more complex today.

• The number of stakeholders involved in B2B buying rose from 5.4 in 2015 to 10.2 in 2019, and is likely even higher now.

• Gartner also notes that 33% of buyers prefer a seller-free experience, rising to 44% for millennials. While this suits transactional sales, it’s impractical for complex B2B decisions.

Buyers are overwhelmed, and sales processes must adapt accordingly.

It’s not about abandoning technology, but about striking a balance. Use the best of AI and automation, but don’t lose sight of the human essence of sales: solving problems, building trust, and communicating with empathy.

We may no longer have long discovery calls at the very beginning, but when a buyer engages, that interaction must count. Your sales process should align with their buying journey, not follow a rigid, outdated structure.

If you’re still operating with a 2019 process, it’s likely out of sync with today’s buyer behaviour. Ask:

1. What research has the buyer already done?

2. How are they interpreting that information?

3. What assumptions have they made?

Often, buyers will already have placed your company in a “category”—right or wrong. You need to be ready to shift that perspective. This requires emotional intelligence, adaptability, and the ability to read the situation in real time—none of which can be done by a bot.

Ultimately, technology should support, not replace, human interaction. Know when to use it, and when to step in personally. Without that awareness, you’re just operating on autopilot.

Sales is about guiding buyers through a complex process. That requires thoughtful, high-quality conversations.

So let’s get back to basics. Let’s make sales more human again.

Leveraging Emotional Intelligence in Sales

To truly connect with buyers, we must go beyond just hearing them—we need to actively and empathetically listen.

This means being genuinely curious, asking thoughtful questions with the right intent, and resisting the urge to jump into solution mode at the first “trigger word.” Instead, we should pause, fully understand their decision-making process, and qualify before prescribing any solution.

Rather than pitching prematurely, the goal is to co-create the solution with the buyer.

Hypothesising potential directions and allowing them to guide the conversation fosters alignment and trust. That’s where emotional intelligence (EI) becomes an indispensable part of any modern sales training programme.

If you’re exploring how to learn sales effectively, this is a vital concept taught across leading sales academies, sales training courses, and sales training academies.

The best programs don’t just teach you scripts—they build your sales skills by developing your ability to read emotional cues, build rapport, and adapt in real time.

Sales success isn’t just about systems. It’s about sensing. Can your team read the room, not just the script?

In complex B2B sales, tech alone isn’t enough. You need emotional intelligence and adaptability. Take our Capability Assessment to uncover blind spots with instant insights and go deeper with our expert sales audit.

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The Five Pillars of Emotional Intelligence in Sales

Psychologist Daniel Goleman outlined five core components of emotional intelligence in sales, all of which are essential for which are essential in B2B sales training and high-impact selling environments:

• Self-Awareness: This is about knowing yourself—your strengths, limitations, emotional triggers, and how you come across to others. It’s about understanding not just what you say, but how and why you say it.

• Self-Management: Once you’re aware of your reactions, self-management helps you regulate them. For example, when you hear a potential need and want to jump in with a solution immediately, self-management enables you to pause, stay curious, and ask a follow-up question instead.

• Motivation: This is your internal drive, your personal “why.” Whether it’s about achievement, credibility, or purpose, understanding what motivates you helps you stay resilient and focused.

• Social Skills: Strong communication, rapport-building, teamwork, and trust are essential in sales. Social skills allow you to connect with clients and colleagues in meaningful ways and move relationships forward.

• Empathy: Often emphasised in leadership, empathy is even more essential in sales qualifications and real-world client interactions. It allows us to step into the buyer’s shoes, understand their emotions and point of view, and respond appropriately.

Empathy: The Sales Superpower

Empathy is more than just a buzzword; it’s a competitive edge taught in every high-quality sales academy.

It allows you to pick up on subtle emotional cues, reframe your approach based on what the buyer is experiencing, and ultimately build stronger, trust-based relationships.

Empathy can shift your focus from “How do I close this deal?” to “What does this person truly need from me right now?” And that shift can make all the difference. Goleman, along with researcher Paul Ekman, breaks empathy into three distinct types:

• Cognitive Empathy: Understanding the other person’s perspective intellectually—great for interpreting complex buying dynamics in B2B sales training scenarios.

• Emotional Empathy: Feeling what the other person is feeling. This helps you emotionally connect and align in the moment.

• Empathic Concern: The highest form of empathy. It’s not just understanding or feeling, but caring. It’s about wanting to help and taking action with compassion.

Imagine this: you’ve sent a proposal and scheduled a follow-up for Tuesday at 2 p.m. The client shows up but has no update. Rather than pushing hard or expressing frustration, empathic concern means asking:

What’s happening on their end? What’s changed? What do they need from me now? You adjust accordingly. That’s empathy in action—and it can transform the relationship.

Practising Emotional Intelligence

Like any skill, empathy and emotional intelligence must be practised deliberately. They’re fundamental components of effective sales training courses and a central part of most modern sales training programmes.

In every conversation, take a moment to ask:

• What is the other person thinking?

• How are they feeling?

• What’s the right course of action—not just for me, but for them?

Sales is not just about closing deals; it’s about human-to-human conversations. And where EI is lacking, relationships suffer—trust fades, conversations become transactional, and opportunities are lost.

Final Takeaways

• Greater customer satisfaction starts with emotional intelligence. Empathy re-humanises the sales process and makes it more meaningful for both sides.

• Empathy builds stronger relationships and trust. That trust leads to deeper engagement and better long-term outcomes.

• Emotional intelligence sets you apart. In a world increasingly driven by automation and data, the human touch is what makes you memorable and effective.

If you’re rethinking your sales approach, you’re not alone. Buyers are overwhelmed. Tech is evolving fast. And emotional intelligence is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must.

Whether you’re building a team, revamping your sales process, or looking for the right sales training programme, the next step is clarity. And that starts with a conversation.

If you’re ready to shift from transactional tactics to trust-based selling, let’s talk. Schedule a call to:

• Pinpoint what’s not working

• Introduce emotional intelligence into your process

• Align sales training to real buyer behaviour

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In this blog on improving mindset and driving better outcomes, we explore how our mindset affects our mental attitude, inclinations, habits, and dispositions.

These internal patterns ultimately determine how we interpret and respond to events, circumstances, and situations.

Mindset shapes how you see the world, both internally and externally. It influences how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. As a result, what you believe directly contributes to your sales manager skills and success or failure in sales.

Whether you’re exploring how to learn sales, seeking formal sales qualifications, or leading a team through a sales training programme, the mental approach you take shapes your performance more than any other factor.

If you want to change, that change must begin with your mindset, not just your behaviours. Mindsets drive behaviour, and behaviour influences the results you achieve.

As human beings, we have a unique ability to reflect, to evaluate what has happened, and to consciously choose whether we want to change. No other living being has that capacity. But sustainable change comes from a shift in mindset, not just a change in actions.

Let’s look at some B2B sales examples. You might be managing existing accounts. You might be starting to prospect within a new segment. In either case, the way you’ve operated so far is likely based on your interpretation of your role, possibly in a reactive way: you wait for information, process it, and then follow the established process or playbook.

But if the business now asks you to take a more proactive approach, that’s a fundamental shift. It demands a change in how you perceive your role and how you process and act on information.

Five Critical Sales Mindsets

1. Mutual Value

Value is multifaceted and deeply personal. It’s rarely one-dimensional, especially in sales conversations. In sales training courses, our job is to uncover what clients and prospects value, because we can’t assume we already know. Every individual defines value differently.

From a business perspective, value might mean profitability. But for the individual you’re speaking to, value might mean performing well enough to earn a promotion or bonus.

There are additional layers too, such as supplier or solution value, and the value you, as a provider, bring, which could include your expertise, stability, or reputation.

The key is mutual value. If your actions are solely focused on what you want, you’ll never truly uncover or deliver what your client values. A mutual value mindset is about creating a win-win outcome: it has to work for them and for you.

Sales, at its core, is about helping people and solving problems. If I help my clients succeed, I will naturally succeed in my business wins, my team wins, and everyone grows.

2. No Guessing

This one sounds simple, even obvious, but it’s much harder in practice.

Too often in conversations, we hear familiar words or phrases and think we know what the client means. Our brain jumps to conclusions. Instead of pausing to qualify or validate, we assume we’ve already got the answer.

But this is where mistakes happen. Even if the terminology sounds familiar, we need to ask:

“When you say [X], what exactly does that mean for you?”
“How does that challenge affect your role or your team?”

No matter how experienced you are, you must always validate. Assumptions are shortcuts that lead to misalignment.

Personally, whenever I caught myself thinking “I think I know” in a client conversation, I took it as a signal that I didn’t know and it was time to ask a better question. It’s a small internal habit, but it makes a big difference in developing the right sales skills.

3. Differentiation

Differentiation is in the eye of the client. Three key elements create real differentiation: you must be distinct, relevant, and memorable. It’s the combination of all three that sets you apart.

It doesn’t matter what product or solution you’re selling; you are the differentiator. The way you engage with clients, the way you deliver service, and the way you solve problems make all the difference.

I spoke with a client recently in the construction and manufacturing space. They supply glass. One of their salespeople said he called the delivery site to ask how the glass should be packaged.

It’s a small gesture, but incredibly impactful.

That client told him, “You’re the first supplier who’s ever asked us how we want it packaged.” Everyone else just creates the product and ships it, without considering what happens on-site.

That’s what differentiation looks like: thoughtfulness in service and attention to the client’s experience.

4. Integrity Matters

We’ve all experienced moments where we felt misled or disappointed, and we know when someone isn’t being honest with us.

Integrity means aligning what you think, say, and do. If those things aren’t in sync, people will see through it. The basic principle? Treat people how you want to be treated. This is one of the most essential things we teach in sales academies.

Yes, it sounds cliché. But applying that consistently, in every action, conversation, and decision you make in sales, is harder than it sounds. And it matters.

5. Always Be Learning

This is a foundational mindset. Growth in sales comes from continuous learning about yourself, your clients, your market, and your craft.

Every conversation is a chance to learn something new. Every challenge is an opportunity to grow.

The most successful sales professionals I know never stop learning. They ask questions, seek feedback, reflect often, and stay curious.

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Practical Examples for Mindset Shift

So, what does a mindset shift look like in real life? Let’s explore practical scenarios that bring the five critical sales mindsets to life, insights you might encounter in top sales academies and sales training programs designed to develop sales key skills and sales soft skills.

These examples illustrate how the right mindset supports effective sales skills development and the successful application of key competencies taught in sales training courses online or in person.

1. Mutual Value: Focus on the Long Term

As salespeople, account managers, or business development professionals, your focus must be on the long term.

Too often, people get caught up in the “here and now.” You might respond to a client email quickly, but if that’s the extent of your interaction, you’re missing the bigger opportunity.

The mindset shift here is about intent. Are you simply delivering what’s been asked? Or are you trying to build a long-term relationship?

For example, I aim to respond to my clients within two hours. It’s not always easy, but it sets the tone. It shows I care, I’m engaged, and I’m reliable.

Even when I can’t provide a full answer, I’ll acknowledge the email and say, “I’m working on it and will get back to you.” That small gesture builds trust over time.

Think about your behaviour, how often do you ignore, delay, or forget to acknowledge a message? That’s where differentiation begins. Long-term thinking creates stronger, more loyal client relationships. Short-term thinking gets the job done, but rarely builds lasting impact.

2. No Guessing: Shift from Reactive to Proactive

If you view your clients purely as sources of revenue, your behaviour will naturally become transactional. You’ll only respond when something is asked of you.

But if you see your clients as strategic partners, you’ll begin to engage with them proactively, seeking to understand their objectives, challenges, and evolving needs.

We worked with a client whose team was entirely reactive. Their customer service staff waited for requests to come in, then acted. We helped them reframe their mindset, encouraging proactive outreach, curiosity, and ownership.

Instead of just fixing issues (e.g., a missed delivery), they started asking:

• What caused this issue?

• How can we prevent it from happening again?

• Is the current process effective?

• Have we spoken to the right stakeholders?

That’s the shift, from a reactive fix to a preventative, solution-oriented approach. Once you adopt this mindset, it becomes second nature. You stop simply responding, you start anticipating.

3. Always Be Learning: Immersion, Not Just Information

You’re surrounded by data, insights, and resources. But it’s up to you whether you skim the surface or immerse yourself deeply.

Let’s say you manage a territory or a portfolio of accounts. You have two choices:

• Superficial knowledge: You know just enough to complete your tasks.

• Immersive understanding: You stay informed on industry trends, market challenges, client reports, competitive positioning, and more.

That deeper level of knowledge allows you to have richer, more strategic conversations with clients. You’re not just another vendor. You become a partner who “gets it.”

This proactive mindset shift strengthens client trust, enhances your service, and ultimately leads to better outcomes. It takes effort, but it pays off in loyalty, relevance, and results.

4. Success Metrics: Redefining What “Winning” Means

Short-term thinking often focuses only on weekly, monthly, or quarterly numbers—sales volume, revenue, and quotas.

Long-term mindset shifts the focus to more meaningful success metrics:

• Client satisfaction

• Retention rates

• Lifetime value

• Perceived value of service

Why do clients stay even when a competitor offers a better product or price? Because of the relationship and service experience. That’s what long-term thinking is about.

Yes, short-term numbers matter, but sustainable success is built on trust, value, and experience.

5. Mindset Drives Everything

Ultimately, your mindset shapes your behaviours, and your behaviours determine your results. If you’re not happy with the results you’re getting, start by reflecting on your actions. Then, go deeper and question the mindset behind those actions.

Let’s say your manager asks you to adopt a new approach. If you don’t understand or agree with the “why” behind it, you won’t fully embrace it. True, lasting change only happens when it’s aligned with your internal belief system.

To change behaviour, you first need to change how you see.

One final, more provocative example: think about a polarising public figure like Donald Trump. Most people don’t feel neutral about him; you either support him or oppose him.

Why is that? Because your mindset is shaped by media, personal values, and experiences frames how you perceive his actions. But true objectivity would require stepping back and asking: What don’t I know? Could there be another perspective?

This doesn’t mean agreeing—it means understanding that our beliefs influence our judgments. The same applies in sales. If you want to shift from being reactive to proactive, you need to change how you interpret your role, your clients, and the problems you solve.

Strategies for Changing Mindset

How can you change your mindset?

First, don’t get stuck in default mode. Just because you’ve always done something a certain way or because your boss or organisation says, “That’s how we’ve always done it”, doesn’t make it right.

If something doesn’t feel right or if you disagree with it, question it. Challenge it. And if you don’t understand the reasoning behind it, change the way you approach it, because ultimately, you are the one doing the work.

Sales is personal. It’s about you: your mindset, your approach, your integrity. And if something doesn’t align with who you are, it won’t feel authentic. So make sure you’re comfortable with how you’re responding to the situation.

Remember, you always have a choice:

• You can be reactive or proactive.

• You can be short-term focused or long-term oriented.

• You can be transactional or strategic.

Every action you take stems from a mindset. If you want different results, you have to shift the way you think about the situation.

1. Ask Better Questions

One of the most effective ways to shift the mindset is to question and challenge, starting with yourself.

When someone says, “We need to do this,” don’t blindly accept it. Ask:

“What’s the objective behind this?”
“Can you help me understand the purpose?”

This isn’t about being difficult. It’s about gaining clarity. The more you understand the “why” behind a task, the more intentional and aligned your actions will be.

Without understanding, you’re just following instructions on autopilot. When you connect action to purpose, your behaviour and results become much more meaningful.

2. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Growth doesn’t happen inside your comfort zone. The most powerful mindset shift is this: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Change is difficult. It’s messy, unfamiliar, and often unsettling. But that’s where growth happens. When you’re challenged, when you’re forced to think differently, you’re expanding your capability and evolving.

It’s not always enjoyable. But it’s necessary.

3. Seek First to Understand

As Stephen Covey wrote in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

This mindset is key to growth in communication, leadership, and sales. Instead of rushing to explain your viewpoint, listen to others. Try to understand their perspective before offering your own.

This doesn’t mean you agree with everything. It just means you’re open to learning. And that openness builds trust, respect, and better outcomes.

I’m happy being the least knowledgeable person in the room, because it means I get to learn. That mindset allows me to ask better questions and grow faster.

Final Thoughts: Three Key Takeaways

Your mindset shapes how you make sense of the world. It influences how you think, feel, and behave. And ultimately, the sales skills required and the results you achieve.

To create meaningful change, mindset comes before behaviour. You can follow orders, but true alignment only happens when your mindset supports the actions you’re taking, whether you’re honing your sales assistant skills, developing salespeople's skills, or advancing through a sales academy training program.

Seek first to understand. The more perspectives you explore, the more effectively you can communicate, influence, and grow. This is at the heart of effective sales skills training and the foundation of any reputable sales academy.

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As a manager and leader, you must embrace change. If you don’t, it will consume you. The challenge is that, as human beings, we are often creatures of habit.

Embracing change is one of the most important skills for sales managers. Most people don’t like change. Suppose you had to change jobs or move to a new place. You had to learn your way around — the new town, the local shops, the coffee spots — everything.

Most people do not naturally welcome change. We tend to prefer the familiar, and the uncertainty that comes with change can often push us away from it. Generally, we perceive change negatively because it forces us to do things differently—to think differently.

The Majority of individuals resist change, especially when its impact is unclear. When change isn’t managed effectively, it can create uncertainty, doubt, frustration, and resentment. If the rationale behind a change isn’t clearly understood, people are less likely to support or engage with it. This is why strong change management strategies are essential.

Any significant change often requires rewiring behaviours and habits. Without sufficient motivation or engagement, the change may never get off the ground. Change is hard, especially in sales teams, and we must be careful about how we implement it.

The Nature of Change in Sales

It’s important to understand that successfully navigating change requires planning the change management process carefully. Change management planning includes evaluating the impact of the change on any relevant departments and stakeholders. The bigger the change, the greater the level of planning required. As sales managers and leaders, we must remember that change is a process.

If you’re currently undergoing sales management training, this concept will resonate with you. Imagine you’ve been asked by the business to review your department. As a result, a major decision is made, perhaps affecting your role, your team, or even your organisational structure. That’s a significant change that can’t be implemented overnight.

You need time to process what the change means, and ideally, access to clear information explaining why the business is making the change. Before you communicate anything to your team, you must fully understand the reasoning behind the decision. If you don’t, you won’t be able to answer their questions or earn their trust.

A piece of advice: before passing any change onto your team, take the time to ask all the necessary questions.

Ensure that you’re completely clear on what the change means for you, your team, clients, and any other relevant areas. This applies directly to those who have completed a sales manager course or are in the process of sales managers training — clarity is key.

Don’t rush. The more informed and prepared you are, the better positioned you’ll be to communicate effectively with your team. And even before that communication happens, remember: change in sales is constant. Everything around us is evolving, and this is where skills for sales managers become critical.

But in sales, change also creates opportunity. Without change, progress rarely occurs. As part of B2B sales training, it’s important to understand that change management strategies will guide how you handle such opportunities.

The key is to ask: how will your team process this change? What message do you want them to take away? Simply announcing a change isn’t enough.

You need to think about what you want the change to achieve and how to gain buy-in because, without it, you won’t get the outcome you’re hoping for.

With that in mind, remember this: the foundation of any successful change is communication. Instead of diving in headfirst, talk to people. Gather context. Ask questions. If your manager can’t answer your concerns, there’s a disconnect. And until you’re comfortable with the answers, don’t move forward.

I’ve been in situations where a top-down directive was handed to me, and I was expected to act. But if I felt uneasy about it, I knew I owed it to my team to get clarity before passing anything on. If you want to know how to become a sales manager, it’s about being proactive, informed, and confident in the decisions you make.

That’s your responsibility. It’s not just about relaying information. It’s about making sure everything you share is in your team’s best interest. You need to have your i’s dotted, and your t’s crossed, so you’re ready for any follow-up questions that may arise.

Finally, let’s acknowledge a universal truth: we all prefer ideas we’ve come up with ourselves. If your team feels ownership over the change — if they’ve been involved, consulted, and understood the reasoning — you’re far more likely to achieve a smooth and successful transition.

Ideal Buyer Profile

Your ideal buyer profile is critical because today’s buyers have more choice, more awareness, and way more access to information than ever before. Technology and the internet have broken down geographic barriers—competition can come from anywhere now.

Let’s be clear: buyer personas are not the same as marketing personas.

• Marketing personas are focused on generating awareness and interest; they’re top-of-the-funnel tools. Their job is to cast a wide net and bring in potential leads who might be interested in what you offer.

• Buyer personas, on the other hand, focus on the actual buying process. They’re about understanding the moods, motivations, and decision-making criteria of the stakeholders involved in the sale.

Gartner found that most buyers are already 60% of the way through their research before they even speak to a vendor. That means they’ve likely compared you to competitors, read reviews, and maybe even looked at pricing before you get a chance to make your pitch.

And if you’re in B2B? You know that the B2B sales process is rarely a one-person decision. You’ve got:

• An economic decision-maker (focused on budget and ROI),

• A technical decision-maker (focused on integration and functionality),

• A user (focused on usability),

• And potentially, influencers or stakeholders who need buy-in, too.

It’s your job to understand:

• Who each stakeholder is,

• What they care about,

• When they show up in the process,

• And how to engage each of them.

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Effective Change Management Strategies

Change management 101 is about inviting input rather than simply telling people what to do.

If you do that, you’re far more likely to get them thinking about the topic. For sales managers training, this is one of the first lessons in understanding change management strategies.

Let’s revisit the example I mentioned earlier, moving from selling products to selling verticalised solutions. Instead of announcing a decision outright, try asking your team: “Look, we’re facing certain challenges and need new ideas.

Here are some suggestions from the business — what do you think?” This approach is in line with sales management training, where skills for sales managers include the ability to involve the team in the decision-making process.

Approaching it this way means you’re not enforcing a decision. You’re involving your team in the process. So, instead of jumping straight into implementation mode, take a step back.

Ask for their opinions. Encourage them to reflect on it. Help them become more comfortable with the idea. This is a great way to enhance sales managers training, especially for those interested in developing effective change management strategies.

By doing this, you’re allowing them to connect with the concept emotionally. You’re giving them time to consider what the change could mean for them — how it might impact their day-to-day work. This is an important part of sales training and helps build skills for sales managers that are critical for long-term success.

In turn, you’ll start to gain a deeper understanding of the impact the change might have — not just on your team, but on the wider business, the client, and the organisation as a whole.

When you involve your team in this way, you’re likely to receive a range of emotional responses. Some people will be enthusiastic. Others may be hesitant or even resistant. This is a good place to be — it gives you a sense of where people stand, which is an essential part of change management.

Another strategy I’ve found incredibly effective is to engage with the person in your team who is your polar opposite.

Go to them and say, “I’ve been thinking about something. If this change were to happen, how would you feel about it? Do you think it’s sustainable? Do you think it would work?”

This is an approach I highly recommend for those in sales management training, as it allows you to address concerns early on in the change management process.

Here’s a real example: I worked with someone older than me, someone who had previously held my role as a sales manager but had since moved into a different area. He had deep experience and was always the first to challenge ideas, pointing out all the reasons something wouldn’t work.

I regularly used him as a sounding board. His feedback is a crucial part of learning how to become a better sales manager. It’s about validating your approach.

Rather than simply informing him about changes, I involved him early in the process. That made him feel included, and his insights helped me anticipate objections. His feedback allowed me to refine the way I communicated with the wider team, addressing concerns before they were even raised. This is a sales manager course best practice.

This is a crucial part of managing any change. You must validate your approach. Otherwise, you risk staying in your echo chamber.

Yes, your ideas might seem solid in your head, but they may not resonate in the same way with your team or others. Also, bear in mind: you’ve probably been thinking about the change for quite some time. Your team hasn’t had that same luxury.

So it’s not fair to expect immediate buy-in. You need to give them the appropriate amount of time to digest, question, and ultimately get comfortable with the change, whatever that change may be.

The change management process takes time, and it’s essential to remember that sales managers training involves learning how to guide a team through this journey.

Psychological Impact of Change

A useful tool: Force Field Analysis. This simple yet powerful method was developed by Kurt Lewin.

It helps you assess the impact of change by evaluating the pros and cons of any decision. The model is based on Newton’s law, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In this context, it means the benefits of taking a specific action must outweigh the benefits of not taking it. This approach is essential for sales managers training, particularly when facilitating change management strategies.

The tool is quick and accessible. You can use it by yourself, in pairs, or as part of a team brainstorming session.

The process involves placing the change idea in the centre, for example, “We need to change our proposal template” or “We should restructure the team.” This is a great exercise for sales management training and helps sales managers evaluate change management on a personal and team level.

On the left-hand side, you list all the reasons the change would be beneficial. On the right-hand side, you capture all the reasons it might be resisted or perceived negatively. You then score each point to assess its weight.

This exercise is particularly valuable because it captures input across the spectrum, not just from the middle 60–80%, but from the outliers as well. These diverse perspectives help you build a complete view of the change’s potential impact, a process that is central to sales training and sales managers training.

As you carry out this process, observe how your team responds. Most people instinctively consider, “What does this mean for me? What will I have to do differently?” This is natural, and watching how your team processes the idea gives you important insight into their mindset.

This is also an important part of change management, where you assess how to manage emotions during change, a critical aspect of sales manager courses and training for sales managers.

Here’s a real (but anonymised) example: a client wanted to introduce a new account management structure, separating portfolio accounts from key accounts.

When we ran a Force Field Analysis, we surfaced ideas, scores, and reasoning that, from a manager’s point of view, might seem like no-brainers. But by involving the team, we validated our assumptions and uncovered valuable perspectives that shaped our communication and planning.

This is how sales managers can take advantage of skills for sales managers to foster better communication during change.

This process also helps people get comfortable with change, even if they aren’t fully on board. And while not everyone will embrace the change, the key takeaway is that you’re not operating in an echo chamber.

You’re engaging with your team’s real concerns and ensuring the change is implemented with their best interests in mind. This is an essential part of sales management training, which helps you guide teams through difficult changes in ways that align with change management strategies.

One framework I find incredibly helpful here is Bruce Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development, introduced in 1965. This model outlines the phases teams typically go through during significant changes:

• Forming – The team comes together, ground rules are established, and relationships begin to form.

• Storming – Team members start expressing differing opinions. Conflict and confusion often emerge as people try to reconcile various expectations, processes, or client needs.

• Norming – Gradually, the team works through challenges. They align on shared ways of working and accept the realities of the new structure.

• Performing – At this stage, the team is aligned, focused, and achieving strong results.

• Adjourning (or Transforming) – The team evaluates their performance and looks for ways to continue improving.

We used this model during a major transition from product-led sales to a verticalised approach. It was a big shift involving a large team, and we made sure to communicate openly about the journey ahead.

We acknowledged that it wouldn’t be smooth sailing and shared this model with the team to help them understand that discomfort and resistance were normal parts of the process. This is also critical when implementing change management processes.

By doing this, we normalised the emotional ups and downs and kept the team moving in the right direction, even if not everyone was moving at the same pace.

This aligns with skills for sales managers, as it helps you recognise the emotional phases your team will go through during change management.

We’ve recently been through a process with a client who is undergoing a significant transformation. We were quite taken aback by how reactive their sales process had been, and now they’re shifting towards a proactive sales approach.

Through this transition, we’ve noticed a large sales team that’s genuinely concerned about whether they’ll be able to meet the new demands of the process. Previously, they would wait for a client to place an order—an email would arrive, they’d process it, maybe speak to someone on the phone, and that was it.

Now, however, they’re being asked to proactively build prospect lists, initiate outreach, and think about conversation topics to engage their customers with. They’ll need to establish rapport instantly during calls.

These are major behavioural shifts for people who haven’t worked this way before. That’s why it’s so important to understand the psychological impact of change, which is a key part of sales managers’ training and sales manager courses.

As managers and leaders, we’ve all been through change. Think back to a time when a significant change was introduced to you.

How did you feel? Anxious? Skeptical? Uncomfortable? How did you eventually come to terms with it? Reflecting on our responses helps us better empathise with our teams and understand the emotional spectrum they might be navigating. This is an important part of change management strategies.

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Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience, Vinit shares why sales today must shift from outdated playbooks to systematic, ethical approaches rooted in real buyer understanding.

He explores the most common challenges sales teams face, from lack of process to under-supported managers, and explains why one-off training doesn’t lead to lasting results.

Vinit also highlights how LSOS helps businesses bridge performance gaps, shape sales strategy, and embed capability across teams through its blended learning model.

Sales Vision, Goals, Tactics, and People

Have you ever really thought about these elements? What kind of sales culture do you want to foster? How do you want your team to talk about your company—the brand they represent? These questions are key when it comes to defining the vision, setting goals, and choosing the right tactics for sales and marketing plans.

These elements are all tied to setting a strong vision and building the right infrastructure and logistics to help your team succeed. It’s important to have this documented and easily accessible for your team.

There are four key elements I want you to think about here. First, you need to focus on translating your overarching business strategy into a clear sales vision.

Take Tesla as an example. Everyone knows Elon Musk and the massive brand that Tesla has become.

When they started, their business strategy was centred around attracting investment. So they targeted high-net-worth individuals—people who were passionate about both technology and cars.

That was the big-picture strategy: generate interest and excitement around their innovative, tech-driven car products. But their sales vision and sales strategy were a whole different story.

They wanted to disrupt the automotive market—an industry that hadn’t seen a new, bold manufacturer in a long time. So, from a sales perspective, they took a different approach. They set up showrooms. They made it possible to order a Tesla online—something that had never been done in the industry before.

That disruption came from how they executed their sales strategy. The business strategy was one thing, but the sales vision and execution brought it to life in a way that completely changed the game.

Every organisation has a value proposition. But part of this process is about translating that value proposition into a selling proposition.

How do you want to position your organisation for success? Your value proposition is great from a marketing standpoint, but we also need to think about what the sales-focused elements are.

What messaging are we going to use, when are we going to use it, and which types of customers is it intended for? Because each sales scenario will be different.

The more clearly we define these pieces of the puzzle, the easier it becomes for our teams to execute effectively.

The third element is about team roles and values. We’ve got to clearly define what those roles are. We need to put the infrastructure in place that shapes how we want our teams to sell.

What qualification frameworks might they use? In many cases, how you think through and set this up will directly influence the success you achieve. We need to get granular:

• How will we do outreach?

• How will we retain clients?

• What model are we applying?

• What frameworks are we using consistently, and how will we report back?

These are critical when it comes to setting and defining your sales planning and strategy. The final point here is about your sales tactics and engagement. What’s the plan for outreach? What boundaries and expectations are we setting for the team?

Whether you are a B2C sales manager or a B2B sales leader, it’s your role to set that direction and those expectations. And the key piece that ties all of this together is sales enablement.

Sales enablement aligns these elements. It creates a control mechanism inside your sales organisation that allows you to set, maintain, and manage that sales vision and strategy.

Market Analysis and Distribution Channels

The second component is market analysis and your distribution channels. Before we dive into distribution channels, let’s focus on market analysis. It breaks down into four components.

The first is market knowledge. This is all about understanding the market you’re operating in—inside and out.

It’s about identifying your USP, doing the necessary research to understand how you’ll serve your clients, what their expectations are, what the trends in the market look like, and what the current distribution channels are.

The more you understand about your market, the easier it becomes to determine the best strategies and tactics to use—whether you’re trying to break in, acquire new customers, or scale your efforts.

This also helps you identify adjacent markets—markets you could potentially move into if your core one becomes saturated or starts to plateau.

The second component is market sizing. This is where you evaluate the size of your market. What is your total addressable market? What portion of that is serviceable for your business? And most importantly, what’s the segment you can realistically go after right away to start winning deals?

A great example here is schools in the UK.

According to the government register, there are around 32,000 schools across the UK. That’s more than any small business—or even many larger businesses—could hope to target in a reasonable timeframe.

So what do you do? You start segmenting.

Out of that 32,000, maybe you decide to focus only on high schools. From there, maybe you narrow it further—perhaps by schools with a certain number of pupils, or by location, or even by the subjects they offer.

By getting that granular, you can shrink that massive number down into something much more targeted and manageable, giving you a clearer strategy for how to reach out, how to communicate, and how to penetrate those accounts effectively.

Market sizing is crucial, but only if you do the research. Understand your total market, your serviceable market, and then carve out a segmented target list you can actively work with.

The third element of your market analysis is competitive context. It’s crucial to understand who your competitors are. You need to know where you win, where you lose, and—most importantly—where your clients see value to make your sales and marketing plans.

Features don’t matter. What matters is what’s important to the client. If you and your competitors are perceived as offering the same thing, how will your client make a decision?

By understanding your competitors in depth, you can distinctly position yourself and speak directly to your clients. That’s the real purpose behind this analysis.

Your competitive landscape is always evolving. This isn’t a one-and-done activity.

I’d strongly recommend reviewing and updating your competitive insights and sales strategy format regularly. Also, empower your team to gather competitive intel as they go. Feed that information back into your sales strategy so it’s always current and actionable.

The fourth and final element in this exercise is a SWOT analysis.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It’s a classic strategic planning tool and still one of the best brainstorming exercises you can do with your team.

The key is to make sure we highlight our strengths in our communication and messaging.

At the same time, when it comes to weaknesses, we need to put tactics and strategies in place to ask, “How are we going to overcome these?”

Then with opportunities, it’s about figuring out how we’re going to capitalise on them—how we can take full advantage and make them work in our favour. And for threats? We need to ask, “How can we defend our position so those threats don’t evolve into something bigger that impacts us?”

Once you’ve gone through this entire analysis, you’re in a much stronger position to decide which distribution channels to focus on—and more importantly, why you’re focusing on them.

When you’re starting as a small business, it’s tempting to take a scattergun approach—try everything, be everywhere. That might be okay in the very early stages. But as your business grows and becomes more established, that approach just doesn’t cut it anymore.

You’ve got limited resources, and you need to make sure you’re focusing them in the right places. People are often the toughest part of sales, so you’ve got to use their time wisely. If you’ve already completed the market sizing exercise, this process becomes so much easier.

You’ll be able to guide your team confidently: “Based on all of the analysis we’ve done, here are the distribution channels we’re going to prioritise. Here’s where we’re focusing our energy.”

That clarity simplifies everything. Because now, instead of chasing everything, you can focus on what you need to make those selected channels work.

Once you’ve identified the most relevant and effective channels for your products and services, you can start building out cadences for communication, plan your outreach strategies, and set your team up for success.

The key is often to use a multi-channel approach. For example, if you’re doing outreach through email marketing, the language you use there is going to be completely different from the language you’d use in a social media campaign.

And even within social media, it varies by platform.

LinkedIn? That’s a whole different tone and structure compared to Facebook or Instagram.

So this is really about understanding two things:

1. Where your clients spend their time—where they’re most active and most engaged.

2. Which distribution channels are best suited to the products, services, or solutions your organisation offers?

Once you’ve got that alignment, you can tailor your messaging, tactics, and cadence to match each channel.

Ideal Buyer Profile

Your ideal buyer profile is critical because today’s buyers have more choice, more awareness, and way more access to information than ever before. Technology and the internet have broken down geographic barriers—competition can come from anywhere now.

Let’s be clear: buyer personas are not the same as marketing personas.

• Marketing personas are focused on generating awareness and interest—they’re top-of-the-funnel tools. Their job is to cast a wide net and bring in potential leads who might be interested in what you offer.
  
  

• Buyer personas, on the other hand, focus on the actual buying process. They’re about understanding the moods, motivations, and decision-making criteria of the stakeholders involved in the sale.

Gartner found that most buyers are already 60% of the way through their research before they even speak to a vendor. That means they’ve likely compared you to competitors, read reviews, maybe even looked at pricing, before you get a chance to make your pitch.

And if you’re in B2B? You know that the B2B sales process is rarely a one-person decision. You’ve got:

• An economic decision-maker (focused on budget and ROI),

• A technical decision-maker (focused on integration and functionality),

• A user (focused on usability),

• And potentially, influencers or stakeholders who need buy-in, too.

It’s your job to understand:

• Who each stakeholder is,

• What they care about,

• When they show up in the process,

• And how to engage each of them.

Mapping the Customer Journey

The customer journey is the fourth critical component of your sales strategy. Because if you understand the journey your customer is on—from the moment they start looking into a solution to the point they make a purchase—you can:

• Ask better questions,

• Guide them more effectively,

• And manage the relationship with more confidence.

Here is one of the B2B sales examples: I worked with an IT company that was struggling to convert leads. After digging into the issue, we discovered something crucial—by the time a prospect contacted them, that prospect had already been considering a provider switch for 12 months.

It wasn’t a spontaneous decision. It was the result of a long-term, strategic shift happening within the business. They’d already done extensive internal work:

• Analysed existing legacy systems,

• Identified inefficiencies,

• Evaluated what needed to change,

• And began aligning stakeholders.

This internal process generated a lot of valuable information, which ultimately formed the foundation of their RFP (Request for Proposal) document. That document was then managed and distributed by the procurement team, and from start to finish, this pre-engagement process took 9 to 12 months.

Once the B2B sales planning team understood this journey, they completely changed their approach.

Rather than pitching themselves as just another vendor responding to an RFP, they began positioning themselves as strategic partners who could contribute value earlier in the process. That shift from a transactional to consultative B2B sales strategy made all the difference.

So when we talk about mapping your customer journey, we’re not just referring to a series of steps. We’re talking about uncovering the real story behind the buying process—understanding what’s happening before a prospect reaches out, and aligning your sales approach with that journey.

That insight drives your engagement strategy, messaging, timing and sequence, and even how you position your solution and who you’re speaking to.

That reason is the fuel for your entire sales engine. Understand it, and you’ll be able to: build trust faster, shorten your sales cycle, and increase your chances of closing the right deals with the right clients.

Defining Your Sales Process

The fifth component of your sales strategy is defining your sales process.

Once you’ve mapped out your customer journey and identified what drives decision-making, you can build a B2C or B2B sales process that aligns with how your clients buy, not how you want to sell.

Your B2C or B2B sales process should be:

• Structured – with defined stages from first contact to close,

• Repeatable – so your team can follow it consistently,

• And flexible enough to account for differences in journey stages or buyer personas.

Think in terms of:

• What happens at each stage (Discovery, Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation, etc.),

• What milestones need to be met

• What questions to ask at each point

• And how you’ll know when a prospect is ready to move forward.

A well-defined B2C or B2B sales process lets your team work more efficiently, manage opportunities more effectively, and provide a better, more aligned experience to your customers.

How well you define the sales process is going to have a significant impact on the results that you achieve.

There might be six stages in the sales process. There doesn’t have to be six. I have worked with organisations that have a three- or four-step process.

I’ve worked with organisations that have gone up to a six- or seven-stage process. I would generally say that once you get more than seven, it starts becoming a little bit more complicated to manage, and you’re becoming granular.

Complex sales environments demand clarity and structure.

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What the sales process enables you to do is also understand your pipeline management principles as well, because through this, you’re able to forecast better, and manage pipeline health a lot better as well.

Think of your B2C or B2B sales process as another roadmap. It is your guide for the buying journey—either when you engage with a prospect or a prospect engages with you. The role of the sales process is to guide them through that process.

In addition to that, what you need to do here is think about how you’re going to qualify each opportunity. And there are some key elements that you’re going to use to qualify. You’re going to qualify things like your budget, the timing, their motivation, the value they see, the competitors they may have also engaged with, who your champion is, and so on.

There are lots of elements that you might want to qualify. The elements that you qualify are going to be unique to what you’re selling.

The better you define your sales process, the easier it is to understand the criteria that you’re going to follow.

The key, again, is to map it out. If you don’t map it out, it’s haphazard.

And everyone in your team, your organisation, is going to be doing their own thing. So, having a process is important, but putting some guardrails there in terms of what the objectives are is equally important as well.

And a useful thing to do is to overlay that buying and selling process. Because the better aligned they are, the easier it is going to be for you to help your prospect and your client through that journey.

And that’s the role that you want your sales team to play—to guide your clients and your prospects through that process.

Measures of Success

The sixth component of the sales growth strategy is about defining your measures of success. Numbers are important in sales and marketing plans, but they are not the only factor that determines success.

Sales is a performance game. It requires a combination of skills, techniques, awareness of numbers, and more. Solely focusing on the numbers can lead you to become inefficient and focus on the wrong activities and the wrong behaviors.

The way I describe it is that there’s often far too much emphasis on the output—the result. Yes, we want the numbers, we want to hit the targets. Now, the numbers are important, the results are important—but at what cost, right?

If you want to achieve that success, if you want to hit the numbers, then you’ve got to start reframing it in your mind. Because what you put into your system and your processes is ultimately what’s going to help you get the output that you want.

So, if you put rubbish into your process, the result is that you’re going to get poor quality customers coming out.

If you’re scattergun and decide to take any customer that comes to you, with a strategy that’s just “revenue, revenue, revenue”—then guess what? Yes, you can take them, but it’s going to create other challenges and problems later down the line. And this is the big mindset shift.

I’ve been in sales long enough to know that numbers ultimately drive performance. But—it’s a mindset shift. If you are operating that way today, then you’ve got to start thinking: What do we need to do to attract the type of quality customers that we want on a long-term basis?

Your inputs are super important. To put that into perspective: we’re all aware of the sales activities, objectives, and results we want.

That’s the right-hand side here. You can see the results as the objective of those activities. Now, you’ve got to think about what the performance drivers are. What is in your toolkit, at your disposal, that’s going to help you drive the desired results?

Every single action, every single activity, has a knock-on effect on performance. It’s either going to accelerate it or slow things down. So, the more defined we are, the more structured we are,

The easier we make it for our teams to be a little more tunnel-visioned, so to speak, to set boundaries so they can just focus on the things we want them to. If we keep adding too many variables to that process, we make it harder for our teams to achieve those results.

And why am I saying this? Well, ultimately, this is what you need to focus on at a minimum. These are the most important things: know your sales velocity.

Sales velocity is a calculation: Number of deals × Average order value × Win rate ÷ Sales cycle time. Those four metrics are what drive your sales velocity. And they are the four metrics that, at a minimum, you should be tracking.

You should know them. Every single one of the people on your team should know them as well.

Account Management and Customer Success

You have to make sure that you’ve got an account management model in place. Account management is a proactive task that you can do.

If you’ve done all that work to secure that customer, think about the service you’re going to offer to help proactively manage that account. Oftentimes, what happens is that an organisation might have a portfolio of accounts, so they will assign that portfolio to a person to manage.

The responsibility that person has is not only to renew those accounts, but also to start thinking about how they’re going to organically grow those accounts. Where is the opportunity? How often are they going to communicate with those accounts?

How are they going to create those conversation opportunities, understand the objectives and the direction, and how might your organisation be able to help them more?

A key part of this process is: the better you understand the objectives of the client, the better you can align yourself with their needs on an ongoing basis.

Now, I’m not saying that you’re going to have to do this with every single client—because in a portfolio, there will naturally be some clients with growth potential, others in the middle, and some where the engagement is lower. However, the key is to be proactive with this process.

Alongside that, I think a lot of organisations have customer success teams.

They’re experts in your business who can help your clients get the best out of the products, services, or solutions they are purchasing.

It is crucial that the customer success team and the account teams—whether it’s the individuals responsible for managing or owning the account relationship—work hand in hand.

Customer success teams are generally not sales-savvy, and they sometimes tend to share information or participate in conversations without fully understanding the value of what the client is telling them.

For this reason, they must work alongside a salesperson. The salesperson—whether it’s an account manager, account executive, or account director—should proactively engage and interact with the customer success person.

Because the better they can understand the work that the customer success person is doing, the more compelling an argument they might be able to build for an upgrade, upsell, cross-sell, and so on.

What I also tend to find is that client-side individuals are often more open to working with the customer success person, because there’s a certain technical level of detail involved.

They enjoy getting into the details, getting into the weeds, and talking about technical aspects they might not discuss with the account manager. So, it’s good to split the roles but it’s equally important to ensure that internal feedback mechanisms are in place, so that information flows properly.

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LSOS Wins Silver at the LCCI SME London Business Awards 2025!

We are thrilled to share that London School of Sales (LSOS) has won Silver in the Business of the Year (Less Than 50 Employees) category at the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry SME London Business Awards 2025!

Monday, November 4th, 2024

We’re delighted to announce that the London School of Sales (LSOS) has been selected as a finalist for the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) SME London Business Awards 2025!

This recognition reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional business solutions to help small businesses navigate sales challenges. We empower SMEs across the UK and beyond to create sustainable, growth-oriented sales processes.

We are a proud member of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. LSOS recognises LCCI’s dedication to supporting the growth of SMEs in London, and we’re honoured to be acknowledged alongside other impactful businesses.

What are the LCCI SME Awards?

The SME London Business Awards celebrate the success, talent, and dedication of small and medium-sized businesses across the capital. Open to firms with up to 250 employees, these awards feature 22 diverse categories, from Best Entrepreneur to Exporter of the Year. A national panel of judges evaluates entries, with finalists competing for Gold and Silver awards in their respective categories, as well as the coveted title of overall SME London Business Awards winner.

The 2024 awards highlighted exceptional businesses across various sectors. Notable winners included:

• Recorra: Overall Winner for their work in sustainability and commercial recycling.

• Trilateral Research: Gold Winner for Best Enterprising Business.

• OakTree Power: Gold Winner for Business Innovation.

• Anna Fiorentini Performing Arts School: Gold Winner for Community Business of the Year.

As London’s largest independent representative organisation for SMEs, LCCI recognises the hard work and ingenuity of businesses driving innovation and growth across industries.

LSOS: Unlocking Sales Potentials with Tailored Solutions

At the London School of Sales (LSOS), we’re committed to transforming the perception of sales and equipping small businesses with the tools to thrive. Our unique approach combines practical insights with flexibility, allowing businesses—whether just starting or expanding—to build lasting sales foundations and drive measurable results.

Our business solutions address the unique challenges faced by SMEs, including some of our key offerings:

• Small Business Sales Accelerator: Designed to unlock value for small enterprises, this program provides a strategic foundation for sustainable sales processes and growth.

• 360° Sales Impact Assessment: A comprehensive tool that gives organisations critical insights into strengths and areas for improvement, empowering them to drive growth effectively.

In addition to business solutions, sales professionals benefit from our CPD-accredited online sales training courses, which are self-paced and adaptable to diverse schedules. Programs like Essential Sales Skills, Account Management, and Sales Process & Prospecting equip salespeople with strategies and tools to enhance performance and achieve long-term success.

At LSOS, we believe in the power of collaboration. Our partnership opportunities – including License Partner, Referral Programs, and Joint Collaborations – allow like-minded organisations to join us in redefining sales education.

LSOS’s Journey to Excellence: Our SME Awards Finalist Journey

Over the past year, LSOS has continued to empower companies and professionals through our digital, interactive online sales programmes. By providing practical, accessible, and continuous learning, we help businesses navigate a dynamic market landscape with confidence.

Being named a finalist in the LCCI SME London Business Awards validates our mission: to transform the perception of sales from the inside out. We are incredibly grateful to our team, valued partners and clients, and supportive community.

To every client who has trusted us with their business development, every partner supporting our vision, and each team member contributing their expertise: your dedication fuels our success.

As we look forward to the SME Awards event, we invite you to explore our modern sales solutions and join us in the journey to #LearnMoreSellMore.

Documenting your sales plan helps you

• Translate the business goals into a commercial plan.

• Validate and customise your value proposition.

• Outline expected sales behaviours and rules of the road.

• Construct your target market and distribution channels.

• Create a plan to win against the competition.

• Clarify the buyer’s perspective and motivations.

• Develop and implement a repeatable sales process.

• Identify and track critical sales metrics.

• Set priorities and a roadmap for success.

Plus, detailing your sales plan will boost your ability to grow and scale your business effectively. When you’re a solo seller, you can get away with doing what feels natural and intuitive, as the only person impacted by the decision is YOU.

But as your team and business grows, it’s YOUR responsibility to set the foundations and give them access to the tools, instructions, and know-how to be successful.

Business Growth Lifecycle

Here’s one sales planning truth:

No small business owner who didn’t already have a business has successfully scaled their business without a clear sales plan.

Here are three examples of companies that have failed for not having a well-defined sales plan in place.

The names probably don’t look familiar, and that’s because they failed! But the reasons why they struggled were straightforward, right?

There is a reason it’s called sales planning! Now, how should you start to build your sales plan? Before we get to that, here are some common pitfalls to avoid that can hinder your success.

1. Setting high targets without backing them up with realistic assumptions or detailed analysis. Overly optimistic goals can lead to missed expectations and put a strain on resources.

2. Assuming all prospects are the same and can be reached with a single approach. Neglecting to define your distinct customer segments and channels results in unfocused messaging and poor engagement.

3. Focusing too much on YOU and assuming the quality of the Product / Solution’s features will drive sales. Instead, distil your understanding of the customer’s needs and pain points.

4. Not having a clear unique selling proposition versus your key competitors. Without a clear positioning strategy, it’s hard to stand out in a crowded environment.

5. Don’t assume that your old network will bring in sufficient business. A sales plan that doesn’t actively target new prospects will stagnate over time.

6. Working without a formal sales process is like trying to navigate a forest without a map. The absence of structure and systems will lead to inconsistent outcomes, wasted effort, and frustration in the long term.

7. Not using data to determine priorities and make decisions will result in post-traumatic sales regret. Analysing sales metrics and data is fundamental to adapting, iterating, and continuously improving.

Instead, use these steps:

to develop a purpose-built sales plan that is tailored to your business needs.

Step 1: Translate Your Business or Company Strategy into a Sale’s Specific Strategy and Vision

Aligning your sales vision with overall business goals is essential for driving growth and ensuring everyone is working towards a common objective.

If sales teams don’t have a clear understanding of how their targets contribute to broader company goals, they risk pursuing activities that aren’t aligned with long-term strategic priorities.

By translating business objectives into specific, actionable sales goals, you create a roadmap that guides decision-making, prioritises the right activities, and fosters a sense of shared purpose.

This alignment not only boosts performance but also improves cross-functional collaboration and helps maintain focus on what truly matters for the company’s success.

Start by focusing on how you want to be known in the market that you operate in. For example, do you want to be known for great customer service, your speed, or something else? Make this central to your sales vision.

Now, list the quantifiable results that you want to achieve. Use the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound) goal-setting system.

For example, you may want to achieve £500k of revenue for the coming year. If you have a team, then set team-specific SMART goals.

Where possible, break down new business (growth) and account management targets (retention).

Now let’s think about the culture you want to promote. You might be thinking, What’s this got to do with planning?

Well, this will help to embed the foundations for your team’s success and set the sales expectations.

Think about:
– How do you want your team to navigate sales conversations? Do you want them to:
* sell at all costs (short-term focused)
* be considered and consultative (progressive focus)
* Pay attention to understanding their challenges, needs and driving value (long-term focused)

– How do you want your brand to be spoken about? Everyone in your business is a ‘brand ambassador’ and needs to be aware of how to position the company and the unique products, services, and solutions offered.

– What values and behaviours are important to you? Whether you like it or not, your values are important to how you run and operate your business and team.
* Understand why they matter to you.
* Communicate their relevance.
* State the behaviour you expect from your team.

For example, if you value honesty, then your expectation is for your team to tell the truth. Your intentions matter, but your actions are even more important.

Step 2: Define Your Value Proposition for Your Ideal Customer Profile

A value proposition that is tailored to each of your ideal customer profiles is the key to standing out in a crowded market.

It clearly articulates why your product or service is the best fit for their unique needs. Generic messaging falls flat because it fails to connect with the specific pain points and priorities of different customer segments.

By crafting targeted value propositions, you show customers that you understand their challenges and can deliver a solution that meets their expectations.

This focus increases trust and engagement and ultimately leads to higher conversion rates and customer loyalty.

We recommend using the value canvas template below, which is a great way to understand an ideal client’s specific challenges and focus your messaging effectively.

By understanding the ‘VALUE’ YOU deliver to clients, you can identify areas where you can improve or where solutions can be iterated to create incremental value.

Additionally, the insights from this exercise will help you communicate effectively with internal and client stakeholders, i.e. It will inform your key messaging.

Complete the VALUE CANVAS for your ideal customer profiles.
Start with the right-hand side client jobs (1), pains (2), and gains (3), and then focus on the left-hand side, i.e., your company’s solutions (4), pain relievers (5), and gain creators (6).

Rule of thumb:

If you are unable to answer the questions related to your sales vision, goals, culture, selling style, and value proposition, then before fast-forwarding to the next section, spend the appropriate time doing the work you need to get the results you want!

Step 3: Defining and Validating Your Market and Distribution Channels

Understanding your market and identifying the right distribution channels are fundamental steps in your sales planning process.

Without a clear definition of who your ideal customers are, you risk wasting resources chasing the wrong audience.

Validating your market ensures there is areal demand for your product or service while choosing the right distribution channels determines how effectively you can reach your target customers.

By focusing on these elements early, you can refine your approach, minimise costly missteps, and create a streamlined path to revenue growth.

Who did you develop your solution for?
A solution that has multiple applications and can be used across sectors sounds great, but to be effective, you need to be targeted and specific. Focus on 2 critical areas:

1. Consider the problem your solution solves and focus on a single industry or market sector initially.
2. Do your research and identify the size of that market.

• What you’ll likely find is that there are thousands of companies in that space and that you believe may benefit from your solution.

• Whilst that is music to your ears, it poses another challenge. To be effective, you need to be more focused on a specific group within your chosen market.

• For example, if you have developed scheduling software for schools, there are approximately 32k schools in the UK.

• To segment and find the ones that you want to focus on, you need to segment the market-perhaps by type of school, geography, number of pupils, etc.

In completing this exercise, you now have a more refined and manageable target list of prospects.

Now you have your market and a target list, but what prospecting channel will be most effective to reach your target audience?

There are proactive and reactive channels, and your strategy needs to consider both.

Your goal should be to select the channel based on your target audience and where they ‘hang out’.

Using the school example reference previously, the most effective way of accessing the school decision makers might be through regular events that Head Teachers attend.

By attending the events, you can network, collect their information, and then communicate with them via email, referencing the event and your conversation.

Step 4: Understanding the Stakeholders Involved

In any sales process, knowing your stakeholders—the people who influence or decide the outcome—is critical. This includes not just the decision-makers but also the influencers, end-users, and gatekeepers who play a role in shaping the deal.

Without a clear understanding of who these stakeholders are, what their needs and priorities might be, and how they influence the buying process, you risk misalignment and missed opportunities.

By mapping out key stakeholders early on, you can tailor your approach, address specific concerns, and build stronger relationships, ultimately leading to a more effective and efficient sales strategy.

Don’t confuse marketing personas with the buyer or stakeholder personas. There is a subtle difference.
1. The marketing persona’s objective is to generate awareness and interest and attract the right type of prospects.
2. The sales or buyer persona’s objective is focused on understanding the buying process, needs, and motivations for the decision-maker.

As part of your sales planning, you must identify who’s involved in the process and what their role is. In smaller businesses, the same stakeholder is more likely to be responsible for carrying out the different roles.

For example, in a small business, the owner will be the decision-maker and is more likely to be involved in evaluating the solution’s effectiveness, whereas in a larger business, a user may be assigned the role of evaluating the effectiveness, and the decision-maker may be the department head.

Step 5: Mapping Your Customer Journey

Understanding and mapping the customer journey is fundamental to the sales planning process. It gives you a clear view of how potential customers interact with your business at every touchpoint, from awareness to purchase and beyond.

By mapping this journey, you can identify the moments where prospects are most likely to engage, hesitate, or drop off. This insight allows you to tailor your sales tactics, messaging, and support to meet the prospect’s needs at each stage.

When your strategy aligns with the prospect’s buying process, it reduces friction, shortens the sales cycle, and boosts conversion rates, leading to better outcomes for both your business and your clients.

Bridge the gap in your understanding of the buying journey and your selling processes by taking time to understand where your prospect has come from and what they may or may not know.

Due to the plethora of choices and readily available information available, it’s estimated that before a buyer engages with a business about a solution, they have typically completed 60% of their research independently (Gartner).

• Make a list of questions to help you understand their journey and what research they have completed.

• Qualify their understanding and needs.

• Keep updating this list as the buying process will vary depending on the channel.

Step 6: Map Your Sales Process

Mapping out your sales process with clear, defined stages is critical to building a scalable and predictable sales strategy.

It gives your sales team a structured pathway to follow, ensuring consistency in how deals are managed.

By having specific steps that every sale must progress through, you create a shared understanding of what actions need to be taken at each stage, reducing confusion and guesswork.

This clarity allows sales reps to focus on what matters most: advancing the opportunity and meeting the prospect’s needs.

Moreover, a well-defined sales process makes it easier to measure performance, identify bottlenecks, and refine your approach over time.

It also provides reliable data for forecasting, giving you a better sense of when deals are likely to close and what factors might be affecting your sales pipeline.

Ultimately, having a mapped-out process not only improves your team’s efficiency but also helps create a better experience for your prospects by ensuring a consistent and professional approach to every sale.

Your sales process is a roadmap for taking qualified prospects through a set of defined stages and converting them into paying clients.

The best sales processes acknowledge both the buying and selling journey and ensure the critical validation checks (qualification) are in place. The optimum number of sales stages is 5 to 6.

The key to developing your sales process is in understanding and setting guardrails, including:

• The objective at each stage

• The information exchange and action or commitment required

• Qualification criteria to progress from stage to stage

• Roles and responsibilities

If your challenge is with generating the right leads, or converting prospects to paying clients, or retaining clients,

Then the chances are that there is a disconnect within your sales process, and it needs to be better defined and mapped!

A lack of detail can often leave room for ambiguity, and that is not what you want in your sales process.

Step 7: Knowing What Sales Metrics to Track

Tracking critical sales metrics is essential for making informed decisions throughout the sales strategy and planning process. These metrics provide the data-driven insights needed to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy, understand your sales team’s performance, and measure progress against your goals.

By regularly monitoring metrics like lead conversion rates, average deal size, sales cycle length, and customer acquisition costs, you can identify trends, uncover bottlenecks, and quickly adjust tactics to stay on course.

Metrics also serve as a feedback loop, helping you validate whether your strategy is working or needs refinement. Without tracking, you risk operating on assumptions rather than facts, which can lead to poor decisions, wasted resources, and missed opportunities.

In essence, tracking the right metrics turns your sales plan from a static document into a dynamic, living process that can evolve and improve based on real-world data.

The single most important calculation we recommend you make is with regard to your sales velocity.

Sales velocity is a measure of how quickly deals move through your pipeline and generate revenue.

The four metrics used to calculate sales velocity are critical for you and your team to know and focus on.

When utilising a CRM, these metrics are critical to ensuring consistent appraisal.

As your business and sales team grow, there are a range of sales benchmarks that become increasingly important to monitor and track.

Ultimately, what these allow you to do is review and update your sales plan to better define your prospects, measure effectiveness, diagnose bottlenecks, and optimise to scale and grow effectively.

Step 8: Account Management

Account management plays a pivotal role in the sales strategy and planning process because it focuses on nurturing and growing relationships with your existing clients. While acquiring new customers is essential, many small businesses overlook the
significant revenue potential within their current customer base.

Effective account management helps ensure client satisfaction, builds trust, and opens the door for upselling, cross-selling, and long-term retention.

By including a strong account management focus in your sales strategy, you create a proactive plan for customer engagement beyond the initial sale. This approach not only improves client loyalty but also increases customer lifetime value (CLV), which can be more cost-effective than constantly acquiring new clients.

Additionally, it provides valuable insights into customer needs and feedback, which can inform product development and sales tactics, making your strategy more customer-centric.

You’ve done the hard work in acquiring a new customer; now make sure you have the right systems and processes in place so that they receive continued value and stay as a valuable client for the long term.

Why should you invest in this...

• The first source of feedback for existing and new developments

• Upselling and cross-selling opportunities

• Strengthens your brand positioning

• Compounding impact… it makes business sense

Imagine two businesses: one retains 90 per cent of its customers—the red line—and the other retains 80 per cent—the grey line

If they were both adding new customers at a rate of 20% per year, then company A would achieve a 10% net growth in customers per year, whilst company B would achieve 0%

If we extrapolate this over 7 years, company A will nearly double in size, whilst company B will see no actual growth

That 10% increase in customer retention from company A to B will continue to create a doubling of customers every 7 years, assuming the new customer acquisition rate is maintained.

Now, how can we make all this easier for you?

If you’re committed to building your sales plan and a repeatable process, let’s talk.

Book Your Strategy Call

No cookie-cutter approaches.
Just a tailored discussion about your unique situation.

• Need an independent assessment of your sales operations?

• Want to create the systems and structures your business needs to thrive

• Thinking about training your team for better performance?

• Not sure where to start and want to explore what’s possible?

We’ll take the time to understand your challenges and outline your options.
This isn’t just a call. It’s the first step in crafting your Sales Playbook: a detailed guide tailored to your business needs.

Because we believe in empowering you to
Learn More, Sell More.

Sales Planning Toolkit

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While cash flow difficulties may be the immediate concern, a deeper analysis reveals that the root cause lies in ineffective sales strategies for products or services.

In this blog post, we’ll delve into the critical role of the sales process in business success. We’ll explore how an effective sales process can improve customer experience and their buying process, and ultimately help businesses drive revenue growth.

The Hidden Link Between Sales and Cash Flow

Sales play a crucial role in maintaining healthy cash flow, not just generating revenue. Poor sales performance can threaten the business’s stability, while an effective sales process can positively influence a company’s financial management capabilities.

Effects of poor sales that undermine cash flow include:

• Revenue Delays: Slow sales cycles or low conversion rates can postpone income, making it difficult for businesses to meet their financial obligations, such as payroll, rent, and supplier payments.

• Cost Inflation: Inefficient sales practices, such as pursuing unqualified leads or spending excessive time on non-converting prospects, can inflate expenses related to sales staff, marketing team, and customer acquisition.

• Customer Dissatisfaction: Poor sales interactions can damage customer relationships and lead to reduced loyalty. It can result in negative reviews and lower customer retention rates, impacting the business’s reputation and long-term revenue.

• Excess Inventory: For product-based businesses, poor sales can result in excess inventory. This locks up funds, raises warehousing expenses, leads to outdated stock, and may reduce profits over time.

Companies can ensure sustainable cash flow and avoid the risks associated with poor sales performance by creating a well defined sales process and empowering sales teams.

The Importance of Sales Structure in Small Businesses

Small businesses and startups often struggle to convert leads into sales due to a lack of structured sales processes. Businesses without a clear roadmap to guide potential customers through the sales funnel, risk losing valuable opportunities.

The absence of standardised sales systems leads to several issues. Without proper procedures for tracking potential leads, follow-up management, and customer relationships, businesses can fail to maintain sales momentum. It can also impede accurate sales forecasting and efficient resource allocation.

To achieve long-term success, sales managers must establish comprehensive sales processes that focus on streamlining lead management and improving conversion rates. Implementing such systems not only enhances operational efficiency but also ensures that valuable opportunities are effectively captured and developed.

Unlock the power of a structured sales process with LSOS 90-Day Accelerator!

Implement a well-defined sales process that drives revenue, builds customer relationships, and ensures business longevity.

Discover Our Accelerator

Mastering the Art of Sales Execution

While many founders focus on product or marketing, neglecting sales, a strong sales strategy is crucial for business success. It drives revenue, builds relationships, and strengthens market position.

Here’s a series of steps to implement a successful sales strategy:

1. Define the Ideal Customer

Conducting thorough market research to gain a deep understanding of the sales targets, audience’s demographics, psychographics, needs, pain points, and buying behaviours is crucial. It lays the foundation for effective growth and development in sales, enabling the tailoring of offerings and communication strategies to resonate with ideal customer profiles.

2. Tailor a Sales Process

Design a structured sales process for prospecting, lead qualification, needs assessment, solution presentation, objection handling, closing, and follow-up. Ensure that the sales process is flexible enough to be tailored to specific industries, product/service offerings, and target market challenges.

3. Build and Nurture a High-Performing Sales Team

Recruit individuals who possess not only the necessary skills but also the personality traits and values that align with the company culture. Invest in developing a team capable of driving revenue growth and scaling the business. Foster a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and healthy competition to keep the sales force motivated and performing at their best.

4. Use Advanced Sales Tools and Technology

Implement CRM software and advanced sales tools to streamline lead management, track sales progress, and analyse performance metrics. These technologies are essential for optimising sales processes, boosting team productivity, and maximising efficiency. Stay ahead of the curve by regularly evaluating and updating the tech stack.

5. Provide Ongoing Training

Develop a robust training program that ensures the sales reps stay updated on industry trends, product knowledge, and best practices in sales techniques. Consider incorporating a mix of training methods, such as interactive e-learning modules, in-person workshops, role-playing exercises, and mentorship programs.

6. Measure and Analyse Performance

Establish a comprehensive system for tracking and analysing key sales metrics, including conversion rates, average deal size, sales cycle length, and customer acquisition cost.

Use advanced analytics tools to gain deeper insights into sales performance, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions to refine sales strategies continually.

7. Foster a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Foster a growth mindset within the organisation by continuously reviewing and adapting strategies based on performance data and market shifts. Encourage innovation, experimentation, and learning from both successes and failures.

Implement a post-sales feedback loop with sales representatives to facilitate ongoing refinement of sales processes. This ensures long-term sustainability and adaptability in a dynamic market.

Conclusion

A well-structured sales process can help startups and small businesses overcome common challenges, such as limited resources and competition. ,

By focusing on continuous improvement, data-driven insights, and adaptability, organisations can unlock the potential for sustainable growth.

Adopting a strategic approach to sales, focused on continuous improvement, data-driven insights, and adaptability, unlocks the potential to overcome challenges and capitalise on new opportunities.

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Team upselling tactics drive an average of 21% of company revenue. Therefore, the importance of creating high-performing sales teams cannot be overstated.

In this blog, we’ll explore the founder-led sales challenges while examining sales tactics for building a successful team, attracting top talent, and driving sustainable growth for startup founders.

Building a Sales Team from the Ground Up: Key Challenges

Founder-led sales can be a daunting prospect for many startups. While it offers the potential for rapid growth, it also presents unique challenges.

Unlike established companies with existing sales infrastructure, founders must simultaneously achieve product marketing objectives and build a sales process from the ground up.

This dual responsibility places immense pressure on the founding team. Establishing a solid sales strategy requires overcoming numerous challenges, from clearly defining team responsibilities to fostering a high-performing sales culture.

Here are the most common pain points in startup growth:

1. Decentralising Knowledge for Exponential Growth

As startups scale, a common pitfall is the founder’s trap: becoming a knowledge silo. While a founder’s deep expertise is often the catalyst for early days, it can also significantly impede growth.

Relying too heavily on a single individual can create bottlenecks, limit innovation, and slow the company’s ability to adapt to fast-evolving market conditions. To build a resilient and successful business, it’s crucial to implement effective knowledge transfer strategies that spread expertise throughout the company.

To unlock exponential growth, founders must shift their role from knowledge hoarders to knowledge enablers. By delegating authority and fostering a culture of shared knowledge, they can build a resilient organisation capable of outperforming competitors.

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2. The Myth of the Superstar Salesperson

In the early stages, startups often struggle to achieve product-market fit and generate revenue. Thus, many founders believe that hiring an experienced salesperson can be a silver bullet for these challenges.

While a strong individual contributor is valuable, relying solely on one person to close deals is a risky strategy. To achieve sustainable growth, founders must shift their focus to building a well-rounded sales team.

This involves fostering a collaborative environment through effective communication, where multiple team members contribute their unique strengths. Regular meetings and open feedback help build a team dynamic that fosters knowledge sharing.

When everyone understands their role and how it fits into the bigger picture, the combined efforts of the team can far exceed what any single star performer could achieve.

3. Lack of Sales Process and Consistency

A lack of consistency in sales conversations and processes is a common pitfall for startups, especially when they don’t have a manual or well-defined process.

This “how-to guide” for sales is crucial for maintaining efficiency across the team. While some elements of this guide may be similar across organisations, specific details can make a significant difference in its effectiveness.

A comprehensive sales playbook is essential for providing the structure needed for consistent, repeatable success.

Here are some key components to consider when creating a sales playbook:

• Define step-by-step processes for each sales cycle stage.

• Create on-brand scripts and templates.

• Outline strategies for handling product-specific objections.

• Include relevant case studies and success stories.

• Implement a system for regular updates based on new insights and feedback.

By implementing a well-defined process, sales professionals can improve efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and ultimately lay the foundation for sustainable growth that aligns with the company’s goals.

4. Aligning Input and Output in Sales Team Performance

In the fast-paced environment of a startup, founders often struggle to align their expectations with the realities of sales, frequently relying on past experiences at the expense of data-driven decision-making.

This approach can result in unrealistic goals and a lack of focus on the processes that drive revenue. To overcome this challenge, founders need to adopt a more data-centric sales approach.

By setting achievable sales targets informed by historical data and market trends, they can develop a more realistic and actionable growth strategy. Tracking key input metrics—such as sales activities, opportunities, and conversion rates—provides crucial insights into performance and highlights improvement areas.

5.Importance of Defining the Target Market

Founders often mistakenly believe their product or service is for everyone, which impacts the effectiveness of messaging, how the solution is perceived by potential customers, and the sales team’s ability to convey the value proposition.

Establishing a clear customer profile and identifying and understanding their needs allows the sales reps to adopt a tailored approach. This helps avoid the “spray and pray” method, where resources are spread too thin in the hope of reaching a broad audience.

Instead, a well-defined target market enables more strategic communication, allowing the sales team to deliver a compelling and relevant value proposition that truly connects with the customers.

6. Maintaining Focus and Providing Effective Leadership

Another key challenge in founder-led sales is staying focused amid distractions. Founders often shift their attention to new ideas before completing existing strategies, which can disrupt sales momentum, delay critical tasks, and dilute the company’s efforts.

Effective leadership requires focus, time investment in the team, and wise delegation of responsibilities. In sales, providing clear direction, offering one-on-one support, and conducting regular pipeline reviews are crucial.

These practices keep the team aligned, minimise distractions, and maintain accountability. Moreover, they prevent team members from second-guessing their approach to deals, ensuring a confident and consistent sales strategy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, navigating the challenges of founder-led sales is a pivotal journey for startups aiming for sustainable growth and success. Achieving this requires implementing structured strategies, using data to drive decisions, and clearly defining a target market.

To build a scalable sales framework, founders must decentralise knowledge, avoid over-reliance on a single top performer, and establish a consistent sales process. These steps are essential for creating a resilient and high-performing sales team.

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