Keeping It Simple
The fastest, simplest ways to grow your business - no jargon, no fluff. Practical strategies that actually work for SME owners in the USA, New Zealand, and worldwide.
Every SME salesperson has felt it — the meeting that goes brilliantly, the contact who says "this is exactly what we need," the deal that then goes quiet for six weeks and dies. Search "how to close more sales" and you'll find scripts for the pitch. Almost nothing addresses the real reason B2B deals stall: your champion isn't the one signing the cheque, and they were never going to be enough on their own.
The Enemy: Selling to One Person
Most SME sales training still centres on a single relationship — build rapport, understand pain, present the solution, close. That model works for consumer sales and small-ticket transactions. It breaks down the moment your deal size grows enough to involve a buying committee, which research on B2B purchasing consistently shows now averages six to ten stakeholders even in mid-sized companies. Your champion can carry your case internally, but they can't win an argument they weren't in the room for.
The Framework: Multi-Threading the Deal
1. Map the Room — Before you invest more time, ask your champion directly who else needs to say yes, and what each of them cares about.
2. Arm, Don't Just Ask — Give your champion a one-page internal case they can forward, written in the language of the person who'll actually read it, not a sales deck.
3. Get Your Own Seat — Ask for a short call with the economic buyer or final approver directly, even fifteen minutes. A champion who can't get you that meeting is telling you something about how strong the deal really is.
"Kevin is an absolute powerhouse! He doubled our business's profits in the first month alone with lots more of his recommendations still to be rolled out."
— Curtis Hacon, Give A Sh!t
The Execution Gap
Most SME sales teams know the deal has stalled. What they don't do is go back into the account and multi-thread it, because it feels like admitting the relationship they built isn't enough. It isn't a personal failure — it's a structural one, and it's exactly the kind of pattern a sales process review with a coach catches before it costs you the quarter.
Quick Wins
- Go through your current pipeline and flag every deal where you've only ever spoken to one contact.
- For each flagged deal, ask your champion this week: "who else needs to be comfortable with this before it moves forward?"
- Build one reusable one-pager your champions can forward internally without you in the room.
Key Takeaways
- Identify every deal in your pipeline with only a single point of contact.
- Map the full buying committee before assuming a stalled deal is dead.
- Equip your champion with material built for the people they're selling to internally.
- Request direct access to the economic buyer as a standard step, not an exception.
If your pipeline is full of deals that went quiet after a great first meeting, that's the pattern we fix first.
Kevin D’Ambros-Smith
Kevin is the founder of Simple-Growth and a business growth coach with experience at DDB, Ogilvy, and Saatchi & Saatchi. He has co-founded 9 companies, coached 200+ business owners one-on-one, and holds a 9.5/10 NPS. Every article on this blog reflects real-world experience - no theory, no fluff.
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