Strategic sales audit: find out what’s holding sales back
If sales should be stronger, find out what's getting in the way.
You’re generating leads, managing a pipeline and investing in sales activity. But deals keep stalling, forecasts are unreliable or revenue isn’t reflecting the effort going in.
Our Strategic Sales Audit examines what’s happening across your sales operation, identifies the problems affecting performance and gives you a prioritised 90-day action plan.
For founders and managing directors of established B2B businesses who want clearer answers and better commercial decisions.
The initial conversation establishes whether it’s right for your business, with scope and fees agreed before any work begins.
Why isn't your sales performance where it should be?
You recognise the symptoms.
Finding the cause is often harder.
01
Your team is busy, but too many enquiries turn into dead ends rather than paying customers.
02
Conversations start well, proposals go out and promising opportunities suddenly stop moving.
03
Your CRM suggests there’s plenty of business coming, but the expected revenue repeatedly fails to materialise.
04
You’re still getting involved in deals, follow-ups and decisions that should be managed by your team.
05
Close dates change, deals slip and you can’t confidently predict what will convert.
06
More leads, better salespeople, stronger qualification, different messaging or a new CRM? Investing in the wrong solution can be expensive.
More leads? Better follow-up? Different messaging? Sales training? A new CRM?
Spending money on the wrong answer gets expensive surprisingly quickly.
Before you add another tool, lead source or sales initiative, work out what’s actually causing the problem.
Find out what’s affecting your sales performance
Sales performance is influenced by more than the conversations your team has with prospective customers.
The audit examines five connected areas to understand where opportunities are being created, where they’re being lost and what may be preventing your business from converting more sales.
POSITIONING
Are the right buyers choosing you?
We examine your ideal customers, proposition, differentiation and messaging to understand whether buyers have compelling reasons to choose your business.
PIPELINE
Are you pursuing the right opportunities?
We review lead sources, qualification, opportunity quality and pipeline health to identify where commercial effort is being wasted.
CONVERSION
Why aren’t more opportunities becoming customers?
We examine sales conversations, follow-up, proposals, buying decisions and deal progression to understand where opportunities lose momentum.
LEADERSHIP
Is your sales operation being managed effectively?
We assess expectations, accountability, KPIs, sales management and decision-making to identify gaps affecting team performance.
VISIBILITY
Are buyers building confidence in your business?
We review how your business presents itself before the first sales conversation, including content, credibility, social proof and the wider buyer experience.
AI and sales technology can now analyse large amounts of data very quickly, and we use those tools where they’re useful. But the output is only as reliable as the information being analysed.
The audit looks at the evidence behind the numbers, so you can understand what is genuinely affecting sales before deciding what to change.
Know where sales are slipping. Know what to fix first.
You’ll receive a structured report explaining what’s affecting sales performance, what the evidence reveals and which improvements deserve priority.
The findings are supported by a practical 90-day action plan, so you can make informed decisions about what happens next.
01
Executive summary
A clear assessment of your sales operation, the main performance issues and their commercial implications.
02
Five-area sales review
Findings across Positioning, Pipeline, Conversion, Leadership and Visibility, supported by the evidence reviewed.
03
Root-cause analysis
Why opportunities may be stalling, where performance is weakening and what's contributing to the problem.
04
Prioritised recommendations
What to tackle immediately, what can wait and where further investigation may be needed.
05
90-day action plan
A practical sequence of actions, suggested responsibilities and measures to track progress.
06
60-minute findings review
We'll walk through the report together, discuss the recommendations and establish your most important next steps.
The five-test framework behind every audit has been shaped by 20+ years in sales and business, more than 3,000 sales calls reviewed and 2,040 lost opportunities analysed.
It gives us a consistent way to challenge assumptions, compare what the business believes with what the evidence shows, and identify which issues deserve attention first.
Commercial experience. Independent judgement.
Paula Bolton brings over 20 years of experience across B2B sales, commercial leadership and business ownership. She’s built and sold businesses, led commercial teams and made decisions with revenue, people and money at stake.
That experience is supported by the review of more than 3,000 sales calls and analysis of 2,040 lost B2B opportunities.
The Strategic Sales Audit combines that commercial perspective with structured evidence analysis to identify problems, challenge assumptions and establish where improvements could have the greatest impact.
A consistent method sits behind every audit.
We examine five areas of sales performance and test what we find through Preference, Buying group, Deal evidence, Data reality and Execution. It gives us a structured way to get beyond assumptions and find the issues that are actually affecting performance.
20+ Years
Sales and business experience
3,000+
Sales calls reviewed
2040
Lost opportunities analysed
5 Tests
Preference, Buying group, Deal evidence, Data reality, Execution.
Experience as a business owner
We’ve made sales, growth and hiring decisions inside businesses of our own, with revenue targets, people and money attached to the outcome.
Experience across the whole commercial picture
Sales performance is influenced by positioning, marketing, leadership, process and what happens after a lead enters the pipeline. Our experience spans all of them.
SOME OF THE BUSINESSES WE’VE WORKED WITH
SUSTAINABLE
From first conversation to a clear 90-day sales plan
A structured review of your sales operation, typically completed over two to three weeks. You’ll know what’s involved, what information we need and what you’ll receive before work begins.
1
Initial discussion
We discuss your business, sales challenges and what you want to achieve. If the audit is appropriate, we’ll agree the scope, deliverables and fee before proceeding.
2
Sales performance review
We examine your positioning, pipeline, conversion, leadership and visibility, reviewing the relevant data, processes and opportunities.
3
Independent analysis
We investigate the evidence, challenge assumptions and identify the issues affecting performance and the actions most likely to improve it.
4
Findings and 90-day plan
You receive your audit report and prioritised action plan, followed by a 60-minute review to discuss the findings, recommendations and next steps.
Most audits are completed within 2–3 weeks, depending on the availability of data and key people.
You’ll always know what’s happening and when.
Find the right next step for your sales performance.
Whether you’re beginning to question your sales results or already know you need a detailed review, there’s a straightforward way to get started.
Get an initial picture of your sales performance
Complete a short assessment and receive personalised results showing where your sales operation may need attention, with practical guidance on what to consider next.
Discuss a strategic sales audit
Talk to us about your commercial challenges, what the audit involves and whether it’s suitable for your business.
The audit is a paid engagement, with scope and fees agreed before work begins.
Built on 20+ years in sales and business, 3,000+ sales calls reviewed and 2,040 lost opportunities analysed.
Still deciding if a sales audit is right for your business?
If you’re weighing up whether a Strategic Sales Audit is the right next step, these answers cover how it works, what we review, how long it takes and what you’ll get from it.
A Strategic Sales Audit is an independent, evidence-led review of your sales operation. It examines Positioning, Pipeline, Conversion, Leadership and Visibility to identify what’s affecting performance and where improvements should be prioritised.
You’ll receive a written report, recommendations and a practical 90-day action plan.
Yes. You don’t need a large sales team to benefit from a sales audit.
The audit can be particularly useful when the business owner is still heavily involved in sales, you have a small sales team or sales have grown without a clearly defined process behind them.
That’s one of the questions the audit can help answer.
If the pipeline contains too few suitable opportunities, lead generation or positioning may need attention. If enough suitable opportunities are entering the pipeline but too few convert, we look more closely at qualification, sales conversations, follow-up, proposals and deal progression.
There can be several reasons, including weak qualification, unclear value, missing decision-makers, poor follow-up, unresolved objections or a proposal being sent before the buyer is ready to make a decision.
During the audit we look at your actual sales process and available deal evidence rather than assuming every stalled proposal has the same cause.
AI can be extremely useful for analysing CRM data, calls, sales activity and patterns across a pipeline.
The quality of that analysis still depends on the quality and context of the information available. The Strategic Sales Audit combines analysis with an independent review of your positioning, sales process, buyer behaviour, live opportunities and how accurately your sales data reflects what is happening.
Typically our sessions are carried out online via Teams or Zoom. However, if you are looking for face-to-face sessions, we are more than happy to discuss and arrange.
Most Strategic Sales Audits are completed within two to three weeks, depending on the agreed scope and availability of information.
The process includes an initial discussion, review of your sales operation, independent analysis, a written report and a 60-minute findings review.
The free B2B Sales Performance Diagnostic is a five-minute self-assessment. You’ll receive personalised results on screen and by email, with guidance on the areas that may need attention.
The paid Strategic Sales Audit investigates your actual business performance, examines the supporting evidence and provides detailed findings, recommendations and a prioritised 90-day action plan.
No.
If you have one, we’ll review the information that is useful. If you don’t, we can work with the sales information and processes you currently use.
The absence of reliable sales data can also tell us something useful about how the business is being managed.
We’ll talk about your business, the sales challenges you’re experiencing and what you’d like to achieve.
Paula will explain how the Strategic Sales Audit works, assess whether it’s appropriate and discuss the possible next steps.
This is an initial discussion about your requirements and the available services, rather than a detailed sales diagnostic.
You can take the recommendations and implement them internally.
Where you need support, PBC can also help implement changes to your sales system or provide ongoing sales leadership.
There’s no requirement to continue into another service.