Table of Contents
Key Points
- Lead with the buyer’s problem. Use a clear point of view, cost-of-inaction, and signal-based targeting (with tighter ICP and hyper-personalisation upmarket).Build the three pillars and codify them.
- Offering-specific sales process (with buyer exit criteria), a consistent qualification model, and a problem-centric sales method—captured in a playbook and reviewed weekly.Make inspection BAU.
- Replace Letters of intent with mutual action plans, track progression metrics, enforce Commit standards, and run a forecast cadence where evidence, not opinion, drives ±10% accuracy.
- Shorten cycles by design. Map approval paths, co-create business cases, surface build-vs-buy economics early, and anchor to an urgent, quantified problem; multi-thread from the start.
- Lift win rate through execution quality. Sharpen messaging, onboard AEs on know/show/do/say/use/avoid, narrow territories, multi-thread buying groups, and use activity scoring to sustain outbound.
- Use AI to support (not replace) the motion. Signal based prospecting, digital sales rooms, AI for research and deal inspection (against your custom playbook) and role play scenarios.
We ran a live GTM Q&A with founders and sales leaders. Below is what we heard, what to do, and a simple “try this” for each question with the outcomes each action improves.
Q1 - How do we win our first 100 customers?
What we heard. Three “glass ceilings”: the first customer, the next ten, and the next ~eighty. The plan changes at each stage. Budget and stage dictate how you blend inbound, outbound, and hiring.
What to do
- Codify why you win with early, risk tolerant customers; turn those proofs/insight into collateral for the next stage. Repeat.
- Match messaging to stage; don’t force an enterprise motion during early product market fit. Don’t chase enterprise logos too soon, it burns time and runway.
- Stand up a high level First-100 customer plan; 3 stages.
Outcomes improved
- Win rate. Clear “why we win” improves targeting and message market fit.
- Sales cycle reduction. Stage matched process, value prop and a focused plan removes rework and stalls.
- Forecast accuracy. Weekly plan reviews add inspection and reduce surprise slippage.
Try this. Draft a one pager point of view and send a straw man cost of inaction and ROI estimate to your top ten prospects. It provokes correction and therefore engagement.
Q2 - We have inbound and outbound. How do we make sales led growth repeatable and move upmarket?
What we heard. Volume tactics are degrading. Repeatability comes from discovering and codifying the process, method, and message then making that BAU.
What to do
- Moving up to mid-market/enterprise needs sharper messaging and the ability to create decision consensus across a buying unit. This drives five needs:
- Sellers who have run these processes and can create and close (process experience > domain expertise).
- A buyer focussed sales process; designed around how and why buyers buy.
- A sales method.
- A sales qualification model tuned for each motion.
- Deal inspection against your pre-defined models (sales qualification, process and method).
- Sellers who have run these processes and can create and close (process experience > domain expertise).
- Narrow your ICP and identify signals that say when an account is more likely to be in the market. Use hyper personalisation for mid-market/enterprise to put them into the market.
- Create an A/B/C territory split. Offload C-tier accounts to semi personalised, lower touch, semi automated approaches.
- Lead with value from first touch; layer Challenger style insight through a buyer lens.
- Multi thread early committees, not single champions, make decisions.
- Build an inspection rhythm as BAU (reviews, deal hygiene, next steps).
Outcomes improved
- Win rate. Multi-threading and consensus creation raise proposal→close conversion.
- Sales cycle reduction. Signal based targeting and inspection remove dead time.
- Forecast accuracy. Consistent qualification and deal inspection improves accuracy.
Try this. Run a sales team diagnostic to test whether sellers can run these processes.
Q3 - How do we make a net-new data opportunity a priority inside a large financial institution, and accelerate the decision?
What we heard. Banks change slowly. Without an internal map, deals drift and cycles extend.
What to do
- Map the approval process and stage-gate it with the buyer.
- Qualify readiness early; don’t educate for months with no path or commitment.
- Put strong POV + metrics on the table from the start; increased perceived risk and cost of inaction with peer stories and “what worked vs what failed” contrasts.
- Co-create the business case with more than one champion.
Outcomes improved
- Sales cycle reduction. Buyer-gated stages and early readiness checks cut drift.
- Win rate. Co-owned business cases and proof reduce no-decision.
- Forecast accuracy. A mapped approval path creates predictable milestones.
Try this. Build a one-page business case linking goals → impediments → how you solve → your proof. Ask where it’s wrong; edit it together.
Q4 - Prospects stall with a build-vs-buy decision. How do we cut decision time?
What we heard. Build vs buy is often emotional and political. “Build” is frequently a defensive position.
What to do
- Surface build economics-time, cost, risk, and opportunity cost.
- Ask for success criteria if they build; measure it against your offer now and in +12 months.
- If the topic is inevitable, address it early; don’t let it live only in conversations you’re not in.
- Widen and quantify the negative impact: who else is affected by delay? Who pays the cost of inaction?
Outcomes improved
- Sales cycle reduction. Early, quantified TCO/time-to-value shortens debate.
- Win rate. Clear success criteria favour a proven path over uncertain build.
- Forecast accuracy. Evidence-based trade-offs reduce late surprises.
Try this. Send a side by side TCO & time-to-value comparison and ask, “Is this about right?”
Q5 - We keep stalling at LOI (letters of intent). How do we get to signatures faster?
What we heard. LOIs extend cycle time and lower win rates unless tied to real progression.
What to do
- Convert any LOI into a mutual action plan (MAP) / close plan with steps, owners, signatories, and dates (their buying process, not your sales process).
- Track progression metrics; remove tasks that don’t move the close.
- Bias towards SOW clarity: support costs, ongoing fees, acceptance criteria.
Outcomes improved
- Sales cycle reduction. MAPs and SOW clarity remove back-and-forth.
- Win rate. Tasking owners and dates builds consensus and commitment.
- Forecast accuracy. Progression metrics stabilise Commit→Close conversion.
Try this. Put the close plan in writing and ask the buyer what else needs to be done and who else is impacted by the problem.
Q6 - We’re too dependent on inbound. How do we get AEs to 40%+ outbound and onboard them well?
What we heard. Outbound works when it’s targeted, signal-based, and lives in the workflow.
What to do
- Diagnose inbound gaps; don’t abandon it-shore it up while you build outbound.
- Stand up a signal-based outbound campaign framework that’s repeatable.
- Create an AE onboarding playbook focused on deal execution; what to know, show, do, say, use, and avoid for each stage. Trained and coached and grouped across early, mid and late stage deals to align with their deal progress. Base it on sales process, sales method, and sales qualification. Reinforce continually; use deal inspections as a force multiplier. Model it on the equip, train, coach, analyse enablement approach.
- Ensure new recruits understand core B2B principles: why change, why now, why us; pain, gain, cost of inaction; current vs future state; problem identification and quantification.
- Tighten territories if spread thin, depth beats breadth. Be uncomfortably narrow.
- Incentivise and target outbound. Activity scoring can shift behaviour; “prospecting power hours” work when treated as “in this together”.
Outcomes improved
- Win rate. Better onboarding and territory focus improve proposal→close%.
- Sales cycle reduction. Focussing on deal drivers (COI, pain, gain etc) reduces sales cycle length.
- Forecast accuracy. In-depth deal inspection reduces variance.
Try this. Create your own activity based scoring model to weight high-value prospecting behaviours. Or adjust this one. LINK.
Q7 - How do we sell to a very large merchant on a major e-commerce platform?
What we heard. Without urgency, big merchants won’t move.
What to do
- Anchor to an active problem now (margin leakage, fraud spikes, conversion drops).
- Use credible evidence and bring a fast path to value point of view.
Outcomes improved
- Sales cycle reduction. Urgent problem + near term path compresses time.
- Win rate. Account specific POV and evidence improves engagement across the process.
- Forecast accuracy. Early buyer actions (call, data share) improve predictability.
Try this. “We believe you’re leaving £X–£Y on the table because of the root cause problem. Here’s how we’d fix it in 30 days.”
Q8 - Which AI tools actually help the sales process?
What we heard. Tools help when they support a value-based motion, not replace it.
What to do
- Verify you have the right process and buyer understanding before adding more AI.
- Use account-research prompts that build a POV connecting goals → challenges → root cause → how you solve; make them part of the cadence.
- For outbound, detect signals that put prospects into market; base targeting on those signals.
- Examples we’ve seen used (not endorsements): signal/contact tools (Common Room, UserGems, Clay, Lemlist); digital sales rooms (e.g., valuecase); conversation/qualification capture (e.g., Attention, Curvo) when driven by your custom playbook; AI-coaching (e.g., Yoodli, Replicate Labs) with good inputs; agentic platforms (e.g., Dust, MindStudio); and, at the upper end, workflow orchestration (e.g., Momentum, Playboox).
- Detect signals programmatically; trigger outreach when change is happening.
Outcomes improved
- Forecast accuracy. Deal inspection improved forecast accuracy.
- Win rate. Better POVs and personalised DSRs improve proposal→close%.
- Sales cycle reduction. Shared digital sales rooms and coordinated actions improve decision consensus.
Try this. Deal inspection is a critical success factor. Start simple: load a call transcript into an inspection workflow (MEDDPICC / SPICED) and review gaps; better still, integrate your own sales-process schema.
Link: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-68bc5ab8bd7481918c9a6a8e81d5d664-b2b-deal-qualifier-coach-spiced-meddpicc
Conclusion
The pattern repeats: start with a clear point of view on the customer’s problem, prove progress with buyer actions, and run a simple, inspectable rhythm (stages with exits, weekly reviews, clear next steps). That’s how you turn good prospects and solutions into repeatable revenue, while cutting cycle time, lifting win rates, and improving forecast accuracy.
