Real companies. Real numbers.

The problem

Multiple failed attempts at building a sales team. Sales remained founder-led, with dangerously low meeting volume and a small, stale target list.

What we did

• Recruited and hired salespeople who could execute on the vision
• Shifted the ICP from CEOs to operations managers and procurement leads
• Strict call discipline with daily activity standards
• Structured messaging around operational challenges

The results

• 17 qualified meetings in four months from a cold start
• One live opportunity worth over $250,000
• Pipeline quality improved dramatically
• Founder freed up to focus on closing

The problem

Strong product offering but no outbound sales motion. No ICP definition, no messaging framework, no KPIs. Heavy founder involvement in every conversation.

What we did

• Recruited a sales manager to lead the team and own the process
• Brought on two SDRs for outbound prospecting
• Hired an account executive to run demos and close
• Built outbound processes, demo frameworks and closing playbooks

The results

• A complete sales team of four with clear roles
• SDRs generating consistent outbound meetings
• AE closing $7,500–$15,000 annual deals
• Founder completely removed from day-to-day sales

The problem

Entirely dependent on inbound leads. No outbound engine, unclear accountability, inconsistent follow-up discipline.

What we did

• Recruited the right salespeople to build the outbound function
• Wrote and tested cold-call scripts for the benefits space
• Set clear qualification standards
• Weekly KPI reviews with transparent tracking

The results

• Predictable, measurable outbound activity
• A cleaner pipeline with qualified opportunities tracked
• Conversion rate up 35%
• Clear accountability and visibility for the team

The problem

A thriving business with no dedicated salesperson or outbound function. Growth was entirely dependent on inbound referrals.

What we did

• Recruited and hired their first dedicated sales representative
• Built an outbound process tailored to environmental services
• Trained the new hire on consultative selling and objection handling
• Accountability systems and KPIs from day one

The results

• First dedicated salesperson hired and onboarded
• Consistent outbound meetings and pipeline from the new rep
• Founders freed from sales responsibilities
• A repeatable process in place to scale further

The problem

A healthcare recruiting firm where the owner was the entire sales department and said so plainly. He had tried a senior sales hire before, at a package north of $300,000, and got nothing out of a full year. He was setting goals with no way to measure against them, and knew that was the problem. He had never hired a salesperson at this level before.

What we did

• Built Close from scratch: lead status ladder, pipeline stages and a working deal sheet
• Defined what a connect actually is, so the number means something: any call over ninety seconds
• Built a KPI dashboard and put the owner on it, so he could see the week without asking
• Connected the stack: Close, Instantly, Seamless, Apollo, PandaDoc
• Recruited and placed the first rep, then managed him day to day
• Set monthly targets: 20 hot leads, 30 warm leads, 50 emails a day

The results

• Two deals closed in month two, matching the target. Our own forecast going in had been one a month for the first three months.
• One of them closed eleven days from first contact.
• Seventeen hot leads the following month, and two more deals.
• The rep runs 50 to 70 calls a day and no longer builds his own lists.

Engagement started February 2026. Rep started June 2026. Figures from the September 2026 review.

The problem

A commercial insurance brokerage where the owner was the sales department and had largely stopped selling. No CRM. The pipeline lived in Excel and in his head. He had never spent a dollar on advertising, and what he wanted was to be out of the sales process entirely, not better at it.

What we did

• Built Close before the rep’s first day, not after: 292 leads with phone and email, profiled against a defined ICP
• Set the target market with him: home health and home care, multifamily real estate and construction, $1M to $50M revenue, NY, NJ and PA
• Built the opportunity pipeline around how he actually sells, from quote requested through submitted, quoted and closed
• Added the fields the business runs on: policy renewal date, current carrier, current broker, estimated annual premium
• Put a dialer inside the CRM on a local number, and started reviewing call recordings every week
• Wrote the cold-call script and set the daily number: 75 calls a day, four quote requests a month
• Recruited and placed the rep

The results

• 103 calls on day one, around sixty leads worked, every one logged.
• Policies collected and submitted to carriers inside the first two weeks.
• Lead database rebuilt and expanded from 230 to 530 profiled prospects.
• The owner is out of the daily sales process, which is what he asked for.

Rep started August 31, 2026. Figures from CRM activity reports through mid-September 2026. Insurance cycles run long and no policies have bound yet.

The problem

A packaging manufacturer with reps who sold well from relationships built elsewhere and no repeatable way to find anyone new. One sales meeting a month, no activity standards, and 4,500 leads sitting in HubSpot with most of them unassigned after previous reps left. The CEO wanted to hold people to a number and had nothing to hold them to.

What we did

• Recruited and placed three reps
• Rebuilt the HubSpot pipeline and fixed the email and calendar sync underneath it
• Wrote the rules down: lead ownership, the ninety-day rule, a new-account bonus and a nine-point discovery set
• Loaded 10,000 profiled leads against a defined target market
• Built a KPI dashboard pulling live from HubSpot: calls, emails, meetings, quotes and closed deals per rep, with click-through to the call recordings
• Started a weekly leaderboard that goes to the whole team
• Installed a weekly sales meeting and biweekly one-on-ones
• Set fully-ramped targets: 40 calls and 10 emails a day, 10 meetings, 12 quotes and 2 closed deals a month

The results

• Three reps hired, onboarded and working against a written standard.
• The newest booked five trade-show meetings in his first two weeks.
• The owner measures the team on activity he can see rather than on how a week felt.
• Every quote and every call recording is one click from the dashboard.

Reps started July and August 2026. Figures from the September 2026 reviews. This engagement is early: the system is in and the first deals have not closed yet.

The problem

A bathroom-partition supplier with install crews, one part-time rep and an owner who was still more than half the sales department. There was a Pipedrive subscription nobody had opened, due to be cancelled at renewal. Quotes lived in the rep’s email and WhatsApp. In the owner’s words: “I don’t hold him accountable. I’m not on top of him.” Two reps had already come and gone.

What we did

• Replaced the dead Pipedrive with Close: pipeline stages, lead ownership rules and a written territory policy
• Installed a weekly rhythm: Monday sales meeting, Wednesday lead review, one-on-one coaching
• Set a daily call target and put every quote on a follow-up date
• Ran a search and placed a second rep, then managed him day to day

The results

• First-half sales up 16 percent year over year, from $2.04M to $2.36M
• Every quote now sits in a pipeline stage with an owner and a date, instead of in an inbox
• The owner reads activity off a report each week rather than asking how things are going
• Nine months in, the weekly meeting has never been skipped, and the owner has referred two other businesses to us

Engagement started January 2026. Sales figures are from the client’s QuickBooks sales report, first half of 2026 compared with the first half of 2025. Company-wide growth over a longer window predates this engagement and is not claimed here.