Client: A founder-led New Zealand B2B financial services business · Divisions: Marketing and Sales · Services: Company social media, founder-led content, Sales Growth Session, sales system build, fractional sales leadership, CRM implementation, Sales Manager recruitment · Timeframe: Several years of social media, plus three months of sales leadership (ongoing)
The challenge
Growth depended heavily on the founder's own relationships and a small sales team. There was no documented sales process, each person sold in their own way, and most of the knowledge about how a deal should move sat with the founder. In practice, the founder was the system.
The business sells to two very different audiences: referrers, who introduce clients, and the buyers themselves. Its sales also carry a constant tension. Prospects need to be qualified properly, but they may be speaking with competitors at the same time, so the team also has to move quickly.
Underneath all of this sat a belief shared across the team. Their process was seen as too complicated to systemise, with every client being different.
The journey
Stage 1: Company social media. The relationship started with Blackjet managing the company's LinkedIn page and regular posting. It was a low-risk way for the client to see how we work before committing to anything larger, and over several years it kept the brand visible to referrers and business owners. Company content built awareness, but it couldn't carry the founder's credibility, which is what clients and referrers buy into in a relationship-led business.
Stage 2: Founder-led content. In a business where trust decides who wins the work, people want to hear from the person making the decisions. Blackjet added personal brand content in the founder's own voice, sharing their view of the market and how they approach the businesses they work with. This lifted their profile with referrers in particular and deepened trust with Blackjet, which opened the door to a conversation about sales.
Stage 3: The Sales Growth Session. The session mapped how deals came in and progressed, where the process lived in people's heads, and how to balance thorough qualification with pace. It nearly didn't happen (more on that below). It ended with a clear, agreed case for writing the process down as a system the whole team could follow.
Stage 4: Building the sales system. Blackjet built a proprietary sales system named after the company, "The [Client] Way", made up of a playbook and six supporting tools. The playbook sets out the stages, standards and expectations from first call through to a completed deal, and the tools are practical forms and checklists used at each stage, including an industry reference built from the session. The design principle is balance: each stage collects what the business needs to make a sound decision, while keeping momentum so good prospects aren't lost while paperwork catches up.
Stage 5: Implementation. The system was rolled out to the sales team and became the standard way every deal is handled. The founder's response to it became the heart of the story (more below).
Stage 6: Fractional sales leadership. Blackjet stepped in as fractional Sales Manager on a three-month, outcomes-based engagement, designed as a bridge to a permanent hire. Weekly one-on-ones with the business development manager coached against the system's stages, and real deals showed where the playbook needed tightening, with each fix fed back into the system. A performance dashboard now tracks proactive business development (referrer meetings, prospect calls and referrer calls, each with weekly targets and a red, amber or green status) alongside pipeline progression from first call to deals won, with reward linked to the right activity so effort and incentive line up.
Stage 7: CRM implementation and audience segmentation. Blackjet set up their CRM as the team's single source of truth, with pipeline stages that mirror the system, so the process on paper and the process in the software match. Contacts were updated and coded by type, separating referrers from buyers. Marketing is now ready to run targeted email campaigns to each audience, and sales and marketing work from the same data, closing the loop back to where the relationship began.
Stage 8: Recruiting a Sales Manager to own the system. The system changed the hiring brief entirely. Instead of someone to design process, build tools and set up a CRM, the business needs someone to lead the team, hold the weekly rhythm and own the numbers. That opens up a wider, better-fitting talent pool of proven people leaders and relationship builders, and Blackjet will stay on in a fractional role to coach the new Sales Manager on the system and the structure behind it.
The turning point
The first moment came in the Sales Growth Session, when the team pushed back. Every client was different, they said, so a standard process wouldn't fit. We didn't argue the point. We looked for the pattern instead, identifying the six key industries the business works in and agreeing two or three qualifying questions for each. The variation was real, but it followed patterns. Grouped by industry, "every client is different" became six manageable variations, each with a clear set of questions.
The second moment came after rollout. The founder adopted the system as their own and now runs the company by it, using its language and stages in how they talk about the business and make decisions. That made the founder its strongest advocate. It also gave the founder a way to step back from being the sales engine while keeping control of quality and risk. Shared language across the business has meant fewer handoff problems between the people winning deals and the people approving them.
Where they are now
The business runs on a documented sales system that it owns, used the same way every week regardless of who is selling. Activity is visible, accountability is clear, and the weekly rhythm is in place. Their CRM reflects the system and is ready for targeted marketing to referrers and buyers. The next Sales Manager will step into a defined role with coaching built in, and performance no longer depends on one person's personal approach.
The lesson for other founders
Build the system first, then hire someone to run it. Hiring a sales manager and hoping they will build the process asks one person to design, build and lead at the same time, and the process leaves with them if they go. When the system belongs to the business, you can hire for leadership and coach the system in.
Start where they did
If you are still the sales engine of your business, a Sales Growth Session is where this journey began. It starts with a conversation.