Grip on sales starts with a spark

Building a website forces you to choose

Building a website forces you to think. What's your niche, what's your positioning, and how do you actually get a grip on a company, on an organisation, and above all on sales, so on your revenue? I found that hard. I really struggled with it. But in the end I got a clear picture for myself, and I'm sharing it here.

The hardest part was choosing what I truly stand for. I got to build sales teams for twelve years, from start up to corporate, and I spent six years in a revenue enablement department, where I used coaching, training and playbooks to make new business, account management and customer success better at their work. I'm passionate about learning and onboarding, and I get energy from sparring with business owners about the opportunities and threats in their market. After a lot of conversations, thinking, testing and doing, it became clearer and clearer. What came out of it is very personal.

Why I do this

If you've become really good at what you do and you've grown because of it, I wish you much more grip on your sales, your growth and your business. I wish you a good night's sleep, fewer worries, more value for your company and your customers, and more fun in leading your sales. I wish you even more customers you can make happy, and that your hard work lands better.

And I wish you a counterweight. There are companies with weaker products and weaker service, but with a very good sales machine. They win customers who would have been a better fit for you. I want you to be able to hit back: for a customer to choose you, and not that competitor. In the end that gives your end customer a better experience too.

Grip starts with a spark

Getting a grip on sales starts with a first step. A spark. Wanting to tackle it. From reactive to proactive. From feeling that you work hard but are kind of just winging it, to consciously choosing how you do it.

And you don't do that by first making huge analyses and researching everything, because then you stand still. You just start somewhere, where you think it's best, and you improve as you go. It's an iterative process.

Starting and discovering at the same time

That is exactly the reason behind my rebrand from Nspire to Inspire Growth Consultancy. The name fits my vision better, and how I like to work: starting and discovering along the way, iterating and following through, as two parallel tracks. So not analysing first and only then getting going, but a flying start.

Even the analysis I do together with your team. Getting to know the team is part of the analysis, and so is working with them. That's how we find out together what it takes to get a grip on sales. I think along with you, I guide, I have the knowledge and I've done this before. But in the end it's about co-creation and co-ownership. It has to become a way of working that is truly yours and your team's. Then it lasts and you keep it up longer.

Grip comes from moving along

What sounds contradictory: if you want grip on sales, you have to keep moving along. That grip comes from the rhythm, from the cadence of your meetings and from what you discuss in them: the topics, how you manage your pipeline, your 1 on 1s, your weekly sales rhythm. The structure stays fixed, but the content of those conversations keeps changing. What's on your fixed agenda, you keep tweaking.

That also makes it easier to pick up signals from the market. Because you have structure, you have room for them, and you can translate them back into the operation and improve your products and services. Grip on sales is ultimately also grip on your customers' feedback, on what's happening in the market and on why prospects choose you or don't. So there's a nice feedback loop in it.

Why this matters now

AI is setting almost every market in motion. New entrants are easy to find, customers increasingly arrange things themselves with AI and need you less, and what used to take years to develop can sometimes be done in a day. Around your business too, everything is changing, from legislation to how markets relate to each other. That's a threat hanging over the whole market, and as an organisation you have to be able to handle it.

Your sales is your antenna in all this. Your salespeople talk to customers and prospects. If they do that not only reactively but proactively, you know what's going on and what's coming. Then you don't have to guess, but you can adjust based on signals from the market: organise differently, build better products and services, tweak and stay ahead of the curve.

Dominoes and a flywheel

I strongly believe in a flywheel effect, and it's also in the moving circle of my logo. I'm convinced you have to bring people along, but that doesn't happen by itself. According to Gallup, in 2025 only 20 percent of employees worldwide were truly engaged at work, and in Europe 12 percent. So you need a run up, and that's those dominoes. It's not about one domino falling, but about the rest going along too. That your team gets moving, that your organisation gets moving, that belief starts to grow.

Everyone does that at their own pace. But at some point the belief is there, and the feeling, and then it becomes a flywheel. Then you have an organisation that keeps moving, handles changes in the market better, has grip on its sales and with that on sustainable growth. And then you get to do the fun things.

Two flywheels

Maybe you're really good at what you do. You deliver an 8 or a 9, you actually want a 10, and you give it everything. That's why customers keep coming back and stay loyal. What's more, they recommend you to others because they're so happy. That's the engine of your success, of your growth and your continuity. A competitor in the same market often delivers a 5 or a 6. You know that, but a new customer doesn't. You have grip on your production process, your operation and how customers experience it. That's a flywheel that's turning.

But somewhere it nags. It feels a bit like coincidence, like luck, that those recommendations keep coming in and you always have enough work. Sometimes just enough.

Now imagine applying that same grip to your sales organisation, so it no longer feels like coincidence or luck. What would happen then? How could those two flywheels strengthen each other?

Practice what you preach

To be honest: what I want to do for your business also applies to my own. Inspire Growth Consultancy, this blog and the logo you see moving are my first domino. It starts with a first step, with those first few dominoes to get the flow going. Eventually Inspire Growth Consultancy has to become a flywheel too, so I can make a difference for more businesses like yours, with grip on their sales, their growth, their market, their customers and the feedback from the market.