Find where the next sales problem actually starts.

Use this practical 4Function business review with your leadership team. Bring one stalled sale, rising marketing costs, or a decision that keeps coming back to you. Leave with one change to test, a person responsible, and a date to review it.

Start with a recent opportunity.

Choose one real buyer or client situation. Write down what happened, what you expected, and the evidence you have. Separate observations from explanations: “three proposals went unanswered” is an observation; “our pricing is wrong” is a possible explanation.

Branding: what valuable problem do you solve?

• Can the team explain the problem in the same plain language?
• What makes your approach relevant to this particular buyer?
• Who is a poor fit, even if they can pay?

Check the homepage, the first sales conversation, and the proposal. Are they describing the same value?

Marketing: what did the buyer understand before the conversation?

• What brought this person to you?
• What promise or expectation did the first touchpoint create?
• Did they understand enough to know why a conversation was worthwhile?

If the team repeatedly has to undo the same expectation, examine the message that created it.

Sales: what did you learn before recommending?

• What does the buyer want to change, and why now?
• Who else needs to understand or approve the decision?
• What next step did both sides actually agree to?

Review the conversation before rewriting the script. A proposal can’t reliably answer questions nobody asked.

Delivery: can the client explain the value they received?

• What did the client expect at the beginning?
• How did you make progress and decisions visible?
• What would they tell a colleague about the work?

Look beyond whether the work was completed. Examine whether its value became clear to the person paying for it.

Leadership: choose one change to test.

Review the evidence across branding, marketing, sales, and delivery. Write down the constraint you think is holding the others back, the evidence behind that explanation, and one change you can test.

Record who owns the change, what you expect to happen, the signal you’ll watch, and the date you’ll review it. If the evidence is weak, make gathering it the next action. This is your brief for the next conversation with your team—or with Jonathan.

Keep exploring.

Jonathan writes about psychology, decisions, and the questions behind useful action in The Gnomon.