See where you broadly sit, before anyone talks to anyone.
Seven quick reads on your own selling — a gut answer to each. There's no right answer and no score to chase. The scorecard asks for no email and no sign-up, and nothing you place is saved or sent anywhere. It is useful whether or not we ever speak.
The owner-led sales scorecard
Seven capacities decide how far your growth can run without you. For each, read the statements, then place the marker from least to most true — as the business runs today. Don't labour over it: your first, gut reaction is almost always the truest, and precision isn't the point. There's no score to chase — at the bottom you'll get a read on where you broadly sit and where it's thinnest.
How far your growth can run without you in the room. Leaning on you — and on warm introductions — is the comfortable path, because an introduction takes the sting of rejection out; the question is only whether the business can also create opportunities on its own.
- New business can be won without me in the conversation.
- My senior people can carry a key sales conversation on their own.
- If I took a month away, the pipeline would keep moving.
- Growth doesn't slow the moment I step back from selling.
A growth target the team can act on: a specific number, built from named clients and named work, that everyone who sells can repeat back. Some owners light up at setting that number; others carry a rough idea; others trust that good work will simply bring the growth — and "more" is not something anyone can aim at.
- We have a specific growth number for the year, not just a hope of more.
- That number is made of named clients and named work, not a round figure.
- Everyone responsible for selling knows exactly what they're aiming at.
- We're clear on which clients and segments we're actually going after.
A way of winning work you can repeat on purpose — one you control — rather than activity you hope adds up or referrals you hope turn up.
- We know who reaches out to whom, how often, and in what way.
- There's a defined way we move an opportunity from first contact to won.
- Our growth doesn't depend on referrals turning up by chance.
- Selling here feels like a genuine offer of help rather than pressure, so the team isn't afraid to do it.
Whether the people responsible for selling have the time, the tools, and clear ownership to keep the motion running — even when delivery work gets busy.
- The people responsible for selling have the time and tools to do it.
- We're clear on what has to be true for our sales actions to happen.
- We don't abandon selling to delivery work every time we get busy.
- Ownership for bringing new work in is clear, not assumed.
Whether the aim and the weekly commitments are genuinely held — revisited the next week, with slippage surfaced rather than quietly absorbed. Most plans don't fail from neglect; they soften because holding someone to a commitment means a slightly uncomfortable conversation, and it's easier to let it slide.
- There's a named person answerable for each part of the growth number.
- We set commitments each week and actually revisit them the next.
- When something slips, it gets surfaced and dealt with, not absorbed.
- We can talk plainly about a missed commitment without it going unsaid.
Steering by the leading activity — the conversations and opportunities that come before the revenue — not only by revenue that's already landed and can no longer be changed.
- We track leading activity — conversations started, opportunities created — not only revenue.
- We capture why deals were won and lost while it's still fresh.
- I can see the real state of the pipeline without having to ask.
- We measure the inputs we can control, not just the outcome we can't.
Growth that survives its own success: the motion keeps running when new work pulls everyone toward delivery, so the result holds year over year rather than spiking and falling back.
- We hold a weekly sales rhythm that actually drives action.
- The selling motion runs whether or not I'm in the room.
- When we win more work, selling doesn't stop while we deliver it.
- Our growth holds year over year rather than spiking and falling back.
Place all seven to see where you broadly sit.
This isn't a test you pass or fail — plenty of good businesses score low and have simply never needed the structure until now. If it's shown you a gap you'd rather not carry alone, that's the conversation worth having, and it's a two-way one.
Three territories, honestly named.
On the plateau. The business runs on you. The growth is real — but it is yours personally, and the ceiling is your own capacity. This is the most common place for a good business to sit, and the most fragile, because the value lives in your head and your relationships.
Owner-held. Some of the structure is built, but it still leans on you at the moments that matter. The gaps tend to cluster — most often in what you can see and whether anyone is held to it.
Built. The business attracts and wins work without you in every conversation, and holds the result rather than relapsing. The work now is deciding where your freed attention goes, and protecting the rhythm.
If the result stung a little, that's worth a conversation — not a pitch.
Tell me where it feels stuck and I'll tell you, plainly, whether this is the right fit and what I'd look at first. If it isn't a fit, I'll say so — and where I can, point you somewhere that is.