Every deal still goes through you

The agency was growing steadily, and I realised I had a horizon for when I wanted to sell the business. I had a sales team at the time, but 50% of the revenue was still coming through me. I decided quickly that if I wanted to get the biggest valuation, I needed to reduce that 50% down and fast, so that if the business was sold and I was unplugged, it could continue to grow.

For the next nine Sundays I'm writing about building, scaling and selling a B2B business, and not just the sales part. Week one is sales, because it's where most founders are stuck without realising it.

Three founder insights

Every deal still goes through you.

Founder-led sales is how almost every B2B business gets off the ground. Building a sales team doesn't fix it on its own. I had one, and half the revenue still came through me. The problem isn't that you sell. It's that the business can't grow, or be sold, without you doing it. I got that 50% down to 15%.

Your sales process only exists in your head.

What you ask on a first call, when you send the proposal, how you handle "it's too expensive". It's all instinct, and nobody else can use your instinct until it's written down.

Don't hire a salesperson yet.

A new hire with nothing written down either copies you badly or invents their own way, and you end up back on the calls.

One thing to try this week

Write down your first call. It's the most repeatable thing you do in sales, and the easiest to hand over.

From the archive

What happens when a founder stops relying on referrals: From £0 Pipeline to £350k in Proposals. In Under 4 Months.

P.S. Next Sunday: why revenue isn't the number to watch.