Case Study: Building a Scalable B2B Sales Engine
SITUATION
A rapidly growing B2B software company with a promising product had reached $3.2M in annual revenue through founder-led sales and referrals. Despite strong product-market fit and high customer satisfaction, the company struggled to scale beyond its initial success. The founder-CEO recognized that continued reliance on his personal relationships and ad-hoc sales approach was creating a growth ceiling, preventing the company from reaching its $10M revenue target and potentially limiting valuation in upcoming funding discussions.
CHALLENGES
The company faced several interconnected obstacles to sales growth:
Founder Dependency: 78% of new business came through the founder's direct relationships, creating a bottleneck and limiting scalability.
Inconsistent Sales Process: Each deal followed a different path, making performance unpredictable and new hire onboarding nearly impossible.
Reactive Lead Generation: The company relied primarily on inbound inquiries and referrals, with no proactive outreach strategy to maintain pipeline consistency.
Technology Underutilization: Despite investing in a robust CRM, the system was poorly configured and adoption was minimal, resulting in limited visibility into sales activities.
Misaligned Compensation: The existing commission structure incentivized high volume of smaller deals rather than the enterprise accounts needed for sustainable growth.
MY APPROACH
I implemented a comprehensive sales transformation:
Process Documentation and Optimization: I mapped the current state sales process, identified best practices from successful deals, and created a standardized sales methodology with clear stage definitions and exit criteria.
CRM Reconfiguration: I redesigned the technology infrastructure to support the new sales process, implementing automation for routine tasks and creating dashboards for actionable insights.
Multi-Channel Lead Generation: I developed an outbound strategy targeting ideal customer profiles, complementing existing inbound channels and creating predictable pipeline growth.
Sales Playbook Development: I created comprehensive playbooks for prospecting, discovery, demonstration, proposal, and negotiation stages, providing scripts, templates, and objection handling guidance.
Incentive Restructuring: I redesigned the compensation plan to reward both deal size and total contract value, aligning sales behaviors with business objectives.
RESULTS
My fractional sales leadership delivered meaningful outcomes:
Consistent Revenue Growth: The company achieved 73% year-over-year growth, reaching $5.5M in annual revenue within 12 months.
Decreased Founder Dependency: Founder-sourced opportunities decreased to 42% of total pipeline while overall revenue increased.
Improved Sales Efficiency: Average sales cycle decreased from 87 days to 71 days, with 18% higher average contract values.
Pipeline Predictability: Forecast accuracy improved from 53% to 76%, enabling more confident resource planning and investment decisions.
Successful Funding: The systematized sales engine contributed to a successful Series A round at a valuation 1.6x higher than initial projections.
CONCLUSION
Through strategic fractional sales leadership, this growing B2B software company transformed from founder-dependent sales to a scalable, predictable revenue engine.
By implementing structured processes, optimizing technology, and aligning incentives with business goals, I helped establish the foundation for sustained growth and successful fundraising.
Is your business ready for similar transformation?
Schedule your complimentary consultation today to explore how I can help you build a scalable sales engine for sustainable growth.
