I'm the only one who can close a sale. How do I fix that?
Get the way you sell out of your head and into a process other people can learn. You close because you know what to say, who to call, when to push and how to handle pushback. Write that down, measure it, and coach people on it. Hiring more salespeople before that exists usually just adds people who can't close.
Why can't anyone else close?
Usually because what you do was never written down, so nobody else can do it. Take an honest look at what the people around you have to work with. If the leads are weak, the marketing behind sales is thin, there's no playbook, and nobody's coaching reps week to week, even a great hire is going to struggle. When most of that is missing, the problem probably isn't the people.
Should I just hire more salespeople?
Not yet. If one rep didn't work out, maybe it was the hire. If two or three in a row haven't, it's probably the system. Hiring reps into a way of selling nobody's proven means paying people to figure out what you already know.
What goes in a sales playbook?
Who you sell to, and who you don't. The questions you ask on the first call. How you answer the handful of objections you hear every week. What happens after the call, and when. What a good deal looks like, and what a deal to walk away from looks like. Keep it short enough that people actually use it.
How do I know if it's working?
Measure it, per person. Close rate, time to close, deal size, and how many follow-ups each lead gets. Then coach to the gaps.
Pick one sales method and stick with it until you've measured whether it works. Switching every quarter means you never find out.
Can't a great salesperson fix this?
Great salespeople do close. But they tend to work at companies with a product people want, a real market, and somebody who trained them. They got great because somebody taught them. So what are you doing to develop yours?
Getting sales out of the owner's head is one of the first things I work on in GTM strategy.
Talk it through with me.
Bring the problem, even if it's still fuzzy. We'll talk about what's going on, what might be behind it, and whether I'm the right person to help. If I'm not, I'll tell you.