Accelerate your pipeline

Design a closing workflow with clear next steps, e-signatures, and handoff procedures that turn verbal yeses into signed contracts efficiently.
Chapters16Books2About

Chapters

  1. Article2 min

    Common failures

    The mistakes that slow a pipeline, from mistaking seller activity for progress to keeping zombie deals alive, and how to judge each deal on the buyer's last step instead.

  2. Article2 min

    FAQs

    Straight answers on sales cycle length, stalled deals and follow up, starting from where in your own cycle deals lose momentum rather than what is normal.

  3. Article1 min

    Follow-up is a system, not a personality trait

    Deals rarely die from a no. They die in the silence between conversations, so never end an interaction without the next one already booked in the calendar.

  4. Article1 min

    Multi-thread or watch the deal die when one person leaves

    A deal that rests on one champion fails when that person leaves. Build real relationships with several people in the buying group so the deal survives a reorganisation.

  5. Article1 min

    Price and propose to close, not to inform

    Most proposals inform when they should close. Present the proposal live, be clear on price and make the decision easy, so the document does not start a fresh internal debate.

  6. Article1 min

    Qualify out faster than you qualify in

    Slow pipelines are mostly deals that should have been killed weeks ago. Good qualification looks for the reason a deal will not close, and looks for it early.

  7. Article1 min

    Review the pipeline by movement, not by size

    Pipeline value predicts little. Review deals by velocity instead, tracking how fast they move between stages and how reliably each stage converts.

  8. Article3 min

    Speed is a function of stage clarity, not effort

    Rebuild your pipeline stages around actions the buyer has taken, then audit every open deal against them so you can see exactly where deals stall and fix that step.

  9. Article1 min

    The buyer sets the pace, so give them a path

    You cannot make a buyer move faster than their own approvals and politics allow. What you can do is map their path and remove the friction that slows each step.

  10. Article3 min

    Build the sales-to-delivery handoff

    Build a handoff that gives the delivery team the signed scope, assumptions, customer dependencies and promises, with a short internal meeting and a clear gate before a deal counts as won.

  11. Article3 min

    Sales to customer success handover

    Write a one-page handover that moves account ownership from sales to customer success within 24 hours of signing, so the new owner knows why the customer bought and what was promised.

  12. Article3 min

    Define post-close follow-up

    Design a short, customer-facing follow-up sequence for the first 30 days after signing, with a message for each touchpoint, an owner and a trigger in your CRM.

  13. Article3 min

    Analyse lost deal reasons

    Set up a lost reason field, review it every month, and sort the reasons into the few you can fix, so each quarter you change one thing that raises your win rate.

  14. Article3 min

    Improve your negotiation approach

    Prepare a one-page negotiation playbook with a response, a trade and a limit for price pushback, competitor comparisons, scope changes and stalled deals, so you protect margin without souring the relationship.

  15. Article3 min

    Reduce time from proposal to close

    Map the days between sending a proposal and receiving the signature, find the step where deals wait longest and remove it with a close plan agreed before you send.

  16. Article3 min

    Review closing techniques

    List the closing approaches your team uses, check them against your last 20 to 30 deals, keep the ones that work for each buyer type and write them down as a short playbook.

Books

About this playbook

I've coached sales teams through hundreds of deal closings, and the best closers I've worked with all share one trait: they don't rely on pressure. They rely on process. If your discovery was solid and your proposal was clear, closing becomes a natural next step rather than a high-pressure moment. But that doesn't mean you can sit back and wait. You still need a system that keeps deals moving forward, handles last-minute objections, and gets the contract signed without dragging things out for weeks. This playbook walks you through the practical side of closing B2B deals. Setting up contracts and e-signatures, designing a follow-up rhythm that maintains momentum, and building a handoff to delivery that starts the relationship on the right foot. The goal is to make buying from you feel easy, professional, and worth it.