The Pipeline Fixer
Things I notice · 15 notes

Everything I notice goes on the board.

Not a blog. Each note is one question, answered plainly in the first hundred words and then properly. A new one goes up when I’ve noticed something worth writing down, which is roughly weekly.

// overheard We’ll follow up with them next week. Said on a Tuesday. Nobody owns the Tuesday after that. Note 04.
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The board

My notes, pinned as I wrote them.

// Pick a corner of the board. The first note is the map; the rest are what the map is made of.

A run of pipe with the five places deals leak marked on it Note 01·Pipeline & stages

Where do sales pipelines actually leak?

In five places, and almost never to a competitor. The Leak Map names them, maps each to a symptom and a case, and tells you which two are probably yours. Read the map

// the two you tick first are usually yours

  1. Note 02·Pipeline & stages What should sales pipeline stages actually measure? Buyer evidence, not salesperson optimism. Read
  2. Note 03·CRM & tooling Why does your team stop using the CRM in month three? It was built to report on them, not to help them sell. Read
  3. Note 04·Follow-up Why do deals go quiet after a proposal? Because the proposal was the last thing anyone owned. Read
  4. A whiteboard of deals before the process was written down Note 05·CRM & tooling Is your CRM the problem, or is your process? Ask three salespeople what happens after a demo. Read
  5. Note 06·Numbers What is a good demo-to-close conversion rate? 25–35% is healthy. Under 15% means demos before qualification. Read
  6. Note 07·Pipeline & stages How do you audit a sales pipeline? A pipeline audit is reading, not reporting. Read
  7. Note 08·The job What does a sales operations consultant actually do? Works on the system a sales team sells inside, not the selling. Read
  8. Note 09·The job RevOps or a sales manager — which do you hire first? A manager when it’s the people. RevOps when it’s the system. Read
  9. An adviser practice pipeline drawn as a run of pipe Note 10·Advisers & brokers What should a financial adviser practice automate? Pre-underwriting, a stale-application alert, a quarterly review trigger. Read
  10. Note 11·Numbers What metrics should an insurance brokerage track? Six numbers. Most brokerages track premium and nothing else. Read
  11. Note 12·Follow-up Is your existing book hiding more revenue than your lead gen? Usually, yes. Most pipelines end at ‘won’. Read
  12. The system after the fix: stages, owners and triggers drawn out Note 13·CRM & tooling Is your sales team AI-ready? Start with the CRM. Only if the CRM is. Readiness is a data-quality question first. Read
  13. Note 14·Answer engines Which AEO tactics actually work? Three survive a controlled test. Four fail one and are sold anyway. Read
  14. Note 15·Advisers & brokers If your tools already do the work, why does nothing change? Because nobody owns the space between them. Read

Want to know which one is yours?

Ten questions name which of the five places is yours, or whether it is the way in before them. Four numbers put a figure on it. No email needed.

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