I still close all of our largest enterprise sales because of my personal industry reputation. How do we systematically hand over these critical sales relationships on our exit runway without causing our revenue to drop?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If you are the primary sales engine of your company, a buyer will discount your valuation heavily. They are terrified that when you exit, the revenue will exit with you. You must design yourself out of the sales process.

Begin by defining the sales seat on your Accountability Chart. If you are currently sitting in both the Visionary seat and the Sales Director seat, you must hire or promote someone to take over Sales. They must fully GWC™ the seat.

Next, productize your sales process. Document the exact steps you take to close a deal, from initial discovery to proposal and closing. Turn your personal relationship-based sales approach into a repeatable system that your new sales lead can run.

Transition your major accounts systematically. Introduce your sales lead to key clients as the person who will be managing their strategy moving forward. Attend the next few meetings together, but gradually step back. Let your sales lead run the presentations while you act as an executive sponsor.

By the time you enter due diligence, you should not be leading any sales calls. When you can show a buyer a predictable sales pipeline managed entirely by your team using a consistent process, you convert personal goodwill into institutional goodwill.