Approach
Sales is a system.
Sales used to be a function: show up, present, bring back an order. Those days are gone. Today, sales emerges from the interplay of customers, market, strategy, leadership, organisation, people, roles, processes, data, CRM and AI. When one part changes, the system changes.
That has an uncomfortable consequence: the cause of a visible problem is often not where the problem becomes visible. A poor forecast need not be a forecasting problem. A poorly maintained CRM need not be a software problem. Too little new business need not be an activity problem. A lost customer need not be a salesperson problem. Shrinking margins need not be a pricing problem.
The task, therefore, is not first: how do we fix the symptom? But rather: what is actually happening within the system?
Gemeinsamer Bezugspunkt
Customer
People
- Vertrieb
- Führung
- Rollen
- Skills
- Verhalten
Process
- Customer Journey
- Sales Process
- Pipeline
- Lead Management
- Account Management
Management
- Strategie
- Organisation
- Steuerung
- KPIs
- Incentives
Technology
- CRM
- KI
- Automation
- Daten
Wenn sich ein Teil verändert, verändert sich das System.
The Outside View
The outside view.
Anyone who has been part of a system long enough eventually stops seeing certain things. Not from incompetence. But because the system shapes perception: quotas, routines, considerations, history. That is exactly why an external perspective can be decisive.
With me, that outside view is not a claim. It is biography. I know the corporate world from 35 years in sales and leadership — from operational sales to top management. And for years I have lived in a second world outside of it.
The Four Diagnostic Layers
In an intervention, I look at the system across four layers — from top to bottom.
1 — Symptoms
What is visible? Forecast, revenue, costs, margin, quota attainment, churn, CRM usage.
2 — Mechanics
How does sales actually operate? Pipeline, processes, CRM, data, roles, coverage, productivity, accountabilities.
3 — System Logic
Why does the system work this way? Quotas, incentives, organisation, historical decisions, target systems.
4 — Leadership Logic
Why is the situation not recognised or corrected? Communication, information filters, management behaviour, interests, priorities.
The cause is often one layer deeper than the visible problem.
Way of Working
Look. Understand. Act.
I don't start with a ready-made method. I start with the question: what is the real problem here? What follows decides what helps — an intervention, a transformation project, a workshop, or a single clarifying conversation. The interventionist's role comes before that: understand the problem. Recognise the system. Identify the levers. Enable the decision.
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