If you want to grow your business and eventually sell it for a premium, here’s the most critical thing investors and buyers are looking for: 

Predictability.

Predictable growth is what separates high-value companies from founder-dependent gambles. It’s the difference between a business that prints money and one that burns through it, then tries to get another round of funding or takes on loans.

 So, how do you create predictability?

You build a repeatable, trackable marketing and sales engine. You want a process that doesn’t depend on you, your gut, or especially luck. 

Here are four steps you can take to get there:

Step 1: Build a Reliable Top of Funnel

The first question (that you might have considered in the last email) is, where do your leads actually come from?

Too many business owners have only a vague sense of this. Or worse, they think they know, but don’t have data to back it up. You need to know this as a matter of fact, and not opinion.

Your customers may be coming to you from:

• Referrals

• Paid ads (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

• Cold outreach (calls, emails, LinkedIn DMs)

• SEO and inbound content

• Trade shows or local events

When you get a new customer, ask them how they discovered you. Make this a part of your process. 

Not every channel works for every business. Once you find out where they’re coming from, you need to test, measure, and double down on what works.

Step 2: Map the Customer Journey

Once a prospect enters your ecosystem, what happens next? You need a clearly defined pipeline with measurable stages so that you can look at the metrics for every touchpoint and every step of their journey.

For example: 

1. Lead generated

2. Discovery call completed

3. Proposal sent

4. Contract signed

5. Onboarded

Each stage should have a documented process and a person at your business who knows that it’s their job to take care of it. This allows you to track progress, spot bottlenecks, and forecast revenue.

Step 3: Eliminate Sales Bottlenecks

Here’s where many businesses get stuck:

• Anything that requires the CEO’s input

• Long delays for approvals from a committee or team

• Complex discounting rules

• Relationship-based selling that only one team member can do 

These bottlenecks kill momentum and make your process impossible to scale. If you find that anything is holding up your process, you need to find a different way of doing business that eliminates the bottlenecks and makes it easy for your team and your customers. 

Ways to boost efficiency:

• Leaving some decisions to team members (and trusting them)

• Pre-approved pricing packages

• Delegating authority to close deals

• Simplified offers that don’t need custom work every time

• Documented scripts, decks, and proposals

Most importantly, remove yourself as the bottleneck. If every big deal needs you to close it, you don’t have a sales system. You have a job. And at the end of the day, you can’t sell your job to anyone. Buyers want a working company that they won’t need to become employed at for success.

Step 4: Make the Process Visible

Every member of your team should be able to answer:

• What stage is this lead in?

• What needs to happen next?

• Who is responsible for it?

• How many deals are likely to close this month?

That means tracking your pipeline in a CRM (more on this in the next email) and running weekly sales meetings that focus on movement, and not just “updates.” 

When sales become a system instead of a series of heroic acts, you can:

• Forecast company growth

• Hire more predictably (and find a better fit)

• Invest in marketing with confidence because you know your ROI

• Build a business that’s actually worth something to a buyer 

Next up: we’ll show you how to turn that system into a powerful engine with the right CRM and automation tools. 

Until then, take 15 minutes to walk through your last 10 closed deals and ask yourself:

“How did they find us, and what steps did they take before they signed?” 

If your answers are inconsistent or unclear… there’s your homework to do. Go through the entire process from start to finish and make it easier for everyone involved (especially you).

When you’re ready to consult with a professional and build the right plan for your business, you can get a complimentary meeting right here:

👉Book a call with an expert