Was Shakespeare a sales leader?

You can’t coach results if the opportunity was never real

Ever been reviewing an opportunity thinking...

"Why are we even talking about this?"

You're not alone

Too many teams waste time chasing 'ghost deals' that were never qualified properly in the first place

That’s got to be on the leader

Great sales leadership starts with helping your team focus on the right opportunities.

- Which match ICP
- Where there’s a clear problem to solve
- With stakeholders that can actually say yes
- And a compelling reason to move forward

Not everything that looks shiny belongs in the pipeline

(Willy got it with "All that glisters is not gold")

The job is NOT to ask

“When’s it closing?”

It is to ask

“Should this be here at all?”

Instead of measuring salespeople on how fast they move rubbish through the funnel... build the discipline of validating deals early and often

This isn’t about being negative.
It’s about being focused

Validate is part of the VALUE Framework to do with 'right opportunities'

To coach this:

🔸Ask “what’s the problem we’re solving here?”
- if they can’t answer it clearly, the deal isn’t real

🔸Look for multi-threading
- one contact is a risk, not a strategy

🔸Challenge urgency
- “Why now?” has to be stronger than “It’s quarter end”

🔸Track disqualification with pride
- walking away is a sign of a mature seller

🔸Build a culture that values pipeline clarity over pipeline padding

If you let anything into the pipeline, don’t be surprised when nothing comes out

The best teams win more by chasing less

How do you coach your team to validate opportunities properly?

(The VALUE Framework can be 'installed' in 90 days with a performance guarantee using the Collaborative Selling Accelerator... message to learn more)