In just 3 hours, we identified a revenue leak that was costing them $15 million annually.

We made three simple changes and their demo → close rate jumped from 11% to 28%.

And keep in mind this is without any new increase in lead volume, new hires, marketing spend.

Now - in this newsletter I want to share exactly how I FOUND it and what changes we made and why.

This way, you can do the same for your company.

Let's get into it…

This client was doing about ~$10M annually and wanted to scale faster.

The immediate request was, “we need more leads, more pipeline, more demos, etc… how do we do more?”

Maybe this was true, but I don't like to make assumptions until I do an audit.

And honestly, I've been doing this long enough to know that most businesses (and people for that matter), lose not necessarily because they don't know how to solve the problem.

It's usually because they're usually trying to solve the WRONG problem.

Or they don't even know what the problem is.

They misdiagnose and end up in this state of paralysis, spinning their wheels, trying to fix it.

This company thought they had a lead generation problem.

What they actually had was a massive conversion leak that was hemorrhaging revenue at one very specific point in the sales process.

Adding more leads would have been like trying to fill a bucket with holes in the bottom.

So I did what I normally do.

I use a two phase approach.

1 - Quantitative Analysis

This is purely the data.

For this to work, you have to be tracking as much relevant data as possible, the more the better.

It tells you that there IS a problem and WHERE the problem likely exists.

In other words, where to look.

For this client, I noticed:

Now I know where to look, I move on to phase 2.

2- Qualitative Analysis

This is the deep dive into WHY the problem exists and WHAT to do about it.

I binged call recordings from the AEs and SDRs and watched sales meetings with the team.

While I was doing that I mapped a visual of their entire buying journey.

There were 3 obvious reasons so many leads were dropping off.

Keep in mind this was a pretty complex sales process.

So it's very important that we only add friction where necessary (for quality purposes) but not so much that leads lose interest and urgency.

It's also important that each step in the process is congruent and stays on topic.

This wasn't happening.

I'll explain.

1- The demo

This was the MAIN culprit, but I noticed issues on the SDR team as well.

2- SDRs

So we needed to add the right level of friction on the call with the SDRs, sell them on the consult, and build buy-in on that first demo.

Keep this part simple.

We created a script for this.

Now - let's get into the demo.

So first things first…

We changed their 30min phone qualifier into a 60 minute discovery heavy demo.

New framework:

This way every demo became a personalized consultation, they knew what the company did and why, and they knew they were credible.

This build interest.

Then set the next call with the right stakeholders (decision makers) and collaborate on the proposal.

This actually eliminated 1-2 calls in the process later, so it actually shortened the sales cycle.

Pitch deck changes

We built a slide deck for the AEs.

Less is more though here.

We designed not for pitching necessarily, but more for objection prevention.

We did this with adding the backstory of the company, an FAQ section, case studies, and a section to "co-create" the proposal with the customer.

By the end of each demo, prospects had clarity on:

These were simple changes to make, but they're significant.

This resulted in…

Now - the reason this worked so well was accurate diagnosis and hyper customization.

Most sales audits / sales trainings just focus on "on demand" videos, they license their trainings, or they only review the metrics without any sort of qualitative analysis.

Look - this doesn't work for most companies.

Not saying you won't get some sort of benefit, but in my experience most B2B companies need custom tailored solutions that are relevant to their product / service and their market.

Especially if you already things that are working, but you KNOW there are inefficiencies.

Aka "sales leaks".

Some of your biggest revenue opportunities aren’t about getting more leads necessarily…

They’re about converting more of the leads you already have.

So I highly recommend following this framework.

I've done too many audits to count and I’ve noticed the same pattern repeatedly.

You find the problem, fix it, CAC decreases and conversions increase.

Now, one last thing that's pretty cool.

Once we fixed their conversion leak, this client could increase lead flow hyper profitably.

When you’re converting 28% instead of 11%, every marketing dollar works nearly 3x harder.

That’s how you build sustainable, scalable revenue growth.

And you can even apply this auditing process to any back end sales teams as well to increase LTV.

So…

Go take an honest look at your sales process:

Fix the leaks first, then throw gasoline on it.

The gap between where you are and where you want to be isn’t always about doing more.

Do that after fixing the leaks.

PS, you probably have a sense that there are leaks in your sales process, but finding them and actually fixing them are two different things.

If you’re curious about what hidden revenue might be sitting in your business, I do these audits for a handful of companies each quarter.

If that sounds helpful, hit reply and I’ll send you the details.

And if you found this breakdown useful, what’s your biggest sales conversion challenge?

I read every response and often turn them into future newsletters.

Till next time,