From 5% to 120% of target.
In 12 months.
A strong business. A broken sales engine.
An Australian B2B technology business , founder-led for years, serving global customers. $10M revenue. A 50-person team. Strong product. Loyal clients. Real category expertise.
Then the founder sold to a PE firm. A board was installed. A new CEO took the helm. And the growth plan got sharper: scale to $13M in three years, in a competitive global market.
The pressure was immediate. The PE firm needed confidence in the numbers. The board needed visibility. The new CEO needed proof the business could be run commercially , not on founder instinct. The team was capable and committed. The sales engine wasn’t built to carry that weight.
Not a talent problem. A system problem.
The team wasn’t underperforming because they lacked talent. They lacked a system.
The sales strategy lived in one person’s head. The Sales Leader was capable, but had never been taught how to build a strategy, run a forecast, or lead a team commercially. Processes were dated. Systems were patched together. Pipeline conversations were based on gut feel, not data.
Deals were taking 12 months to close. The sales process was bloated with unnecessary steps, qualification was weak, and sellers were stuck in long cycles without the methodology or coaching to move deals forward with conviction.
Three BDMs had been hired and lost inside a month each , no onboarding, set up to fail. Existing customers, the company’s strongest growth lever, were being serviced instead of grown. And leaders were spending hours every week in meetings that produced activity, not decisions.
Understand first. Then fix.
The first month was about understanding the business, not changing it. We ran workshops, one-on-ones, and full reviews across people, process, systems, reporting, positioning, and revenue. We worked closely with the CEO, the board, and the Sales Leader to understand not just the numbers, but the dynamics behind them.
Then we presented a roadmap , seven priority actions grouped into three simple lists: what to stop, what to start, and what to keep doing.
- Restructured the team , replaced BDM roles with an Account Manager to grow existing customers, and freed the Sales Manager from admin to actually lead.
- Ran an end-to-end review of the sales process. Stripped out steps that added no value, tightened qualification criteria, and rebuilt the process around how customers actually buy.
- Coached sellers on closing deals strategically using proven sales methodologies, and on building genuine trust and credibility with customers earlier in the cycle.
- Coached the Sales Leader on building a sales strategy, managing pipeline, and leading a high-performing team.
- Advised the CEO and board on the commercial operating model with clear visibility on pipeline, forecast, and growth.
- Designed simple, measurable KPIs the team could understand and run against.
- Rebuilt the meeting rhythm , time-boxed, prepared, decision-focused. The team got 25 hours back every month.
- Built a proper onboarding program so the next hire would stay, ramp up, and contribute.
Same team. Same market. A different engine.
Founder-led businesses don’t stall in transition because the team isn’t good enough. They stall because the way they sold at $10M won’t get them to $13M. The fix isn’t more effort. It’s a sales engine built for the next stage.
If you’re a CEO, board member, or PE-backed leader looking at an ambitious growth number with a sales engine that wasn’t built for it, let’s have a 30-minute conversation. No pitch. Just a clear read on where your engine is, and what it would take to scale it.
Book a 30-minute Sales Engine Diagnostic →