Sales consulting for SMEs: what to expect and what to ask

The proposal arrives as a two-page PDF with words like "transformation roadmap" and "stakeholder alignment", and a fee at the bottom. How do you tell whether it is worth signing? Read it line by line against what you will actually be holding in your hand at the end. Good sales consulting leaves you holding things you can use on Monday. It should give you a diagnosis from your own records, a short ordered list of changes, and documents your team can pick up. Below is an invented proposal, annotated, then the questions to put and the brief to write. Whether to hire at all is a separate question, covered in when to hire a sales consultant.

An imagined proposal, line by line

Imagine, as an invented example, an engineering workshop in Sangli that makes spares for sugar mills. The owner has three salespeople, flat orders, and a proposal from a consultant a friend recommended. Four lines from it, with the owner's pencil notes:

"We will conduct a comprehensive sales transformation."

Pencil: transformation of what? Ask for the nouns. What will be on my desk at the end?

"Phase one: stakeholder interviews and market scan."

Pencil: interviews with whom? A scan of which markets? I want it to start with my quote folder.

"Deliverables: recommendations and a strategic roadmap."

Pencil: could my sales manager begin one item tomorrow morning? If not, it is advice, not a deliverable.

"Results are expected to follow."

Pencil: which results, in whose counts? And what happens to the fee if they do not?

None of these lines is dishonest. They are vague, and vagueness is where your money goes. The fix is to ask for deliverables you can hold and test.

What a good deliverable looks like

Replace each vague line with something physical.

• Diagnosis: counts from your own enquiries, quotes and orders, showing where they drop. You should recognise your own business in it.
• Priority list: three to five changes, ordered, each with an owner. Test: can a manager start the first tomorrow?
• A pipeline sheet: stages with entry and exit rules and a next-action field. Test: does your team use it soon after handover?
• Scripts: words for the first call, the quote and the follow-up. Test: would your best salesperson say them?
• Discount rules: a floor, who approves, and what you ask in return.
• Handover: what stays with you and who runs it when the consultant leaves.

If the proposal lists none of these, ask what is physically delivered, and wait for a specific answer.

The brief you write before anyone visits

A one-page brief gets better work than three long meetings. Write these lines.

1. What you sell, to whom, and through which channels.
2. The problem in your words: "quotes go out and do not close", not "we need growth".
3. What you have tried and what happened.
4. Records you can show, such as enquiry sheet, quote folder, invoices.
5. Who on your team will work with the consultant, and how many hours they have.
6. What you will not change, such as a dealer arrangement.
7. How you will know it worked, in your own counts, for example quotes answered the same day.

Line six saves arguments. A consultant who recommends dropping the dealer you are loyal to has wasted both your time.

Questions that show who you are dealing with

Put these to everyone on your shortlist and notice who answers in specifics.

• "What will you look at first?" A good answer names your records. A poor one names a framework.
• "What have you done for a business of my size?" Ask for the kind of problem, not a list of names.
• "Who does the work?" The person you meet may not be the person who turns up.
• "What happens if your findings are uncomfortable?" Some consultants soften a report to keep a client.
• "What do you need from me?" The honest answer includes time and records.
• "What will you not do?" A scope with no edge has no price.

What the Sangli owner did

The owner wrote the brief and found, at line four, that there was no list of quotes at all. They lived on three phones. The consultant was told straight away, and the first deliverable became a quote register, not a strategy. The owner did not sign for months of "transformation" but agreed a short first piece of work, a look at recent quotes and enquiries, which could be stopped after delivery. The register showed that much of the lost business was in one product line, where a competitor delivered faster, and the first item on the priority list was a delivery date on every quote. Two of the three salespeople found the extra step slow and skipped it for a month. The figures and names are illustrative.

How to judge value without waiting for sales to rise

Sales move for many reasons, so do not use one figure as the judge. At the end of each piece of work, ask three things. Is the deliverable on your desk and in use? Does your team understand why it is built as it is? Do your counts, such as reply time or quotes with a next date, show the change it was meant to cause? If all three are yes and orders have not moved, give it the time your sales cycle needs. For a machine with a two-month cycle, a result in two weeks is not a fair test.

When not to hire one

Do not hire a consultant to avoid a decision you already know you must take. Do not hire one if nobody on your side has time to carry the work. And do not hire one for a problem an afternoon and a sheet would solve; how to write a one-page sales strategy is a place to start. Be wary of any pitch that promises a result before seeing your records.

Write the brief first

Fill in the seven lines even if you never hire anyone. They often show you the answer. Sales strategy and consulting is the service for work like this, the wider job from enquiry to order is sales work, and when your brief is ready, tell us what you need.