Questions founders often ask me

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Deals sit open and buyers stop responding. You chase, offer a discount and wait. Drag usually traces to one of three causes. The buyer sees no clear reason to change. The wrong person sits in the conversation. Nobody agreed the next step. Your won and lost deals show which cause applies. The Diagnosis reviews your sales process against what your customers tell me. 

Prospects compare you on price. They tell you the three quotes look the same. Founder-led selling wins deals, but it stops working when you step back. Three things usually sit underneath. Your message describes your services, not the problem the buyer has. Buyers see little proof from customers like them. Only you know the sales process. I ask your won and lost customers what decided it. Their answers show which of the three applies. 

Sales says the leads are poor. Marketing says sales ignores them. Both sides describe what they see. Usually nobody agreed what a good lead looks like. The two sides track different numbers. Neither hears from the customer. Fix those three and the blame drops away. Start with customer evidence, because it settles who you sell to. 

Growth slows and you can't say why. Firing the agency feels like action. So does hiring a sales lead. Both moves rest on a guess. Talk to your customers first. A short round of customer listening shows where you win deals, where you lose them and what customers value. Sometimes the agency is the problem. Often the message, the product fit or the handover to sales is. The Diagnosis exists for this reason. It gives you a commercial view across product, customer satisfaction and pipeline before you spend on a new agency or a new hire. 

I start at 3 to 3.5 times your target. Your win rate and deal size move that number, so use it as a check. The bigger question comes before a sales hire. A new salesperson adds overhead, and you need extra growth to cover it. You need marketing spend that brings in enough pipeline for that person to work. You also need a marketing function you scale up and down as they ramp. If you can't answer all three, you risk a new hire sitting in front of an empty pipeline. 

An NPS score on your brochure doesn't tell you. Customer listening does. It shows you what kind of relationship you have with each customer. Do you connect with them at the right level? Is a contract at risk without your relationship manager knowing? What do customers value in your product set? Is it what you thought they valued? If not, does your product roadmap support what they buy from you? Those answers show you where to invest. 

 Check your pipeline first. If you close every deal yourself and leads arrive thin, a salesperson has nobody to call. Fix the source of leads first. If leads arrive and you lose them through slow follow-up, hire the salesperson. Both hires add cost. Work out how much growth you need to cover that cost before you choose. I help founders make this call with customer and pipeline evidence, not instinct 

The Diagnosis costs $7,500 AUD. It runs four weeks at a fixed fee. The Fix is priced dependent on your needs and runs 90 days at a fixed fee. Neither bills by the hour, so you know the cost before you start. 

It runs four weeks. I review five areas of your business: pipeline and sales process, marketing and messaging, retention, voice of customer and team structure. You finish with a clear view of what holds growth back and where to act first. The Services page has the full detail. 

 The Fix runs 90 days. I take one or two areas and fix them with you and your team. You choose the areas, such as pipeline, messaging or retention. Then I hand back and leave. The Services page has the full detail. 

 Yes. I'm based in Melbourne and work with MSP, IT services and B2B tech founders in Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.