Which companies was SalesDNA made for?

"Is SalesDNA something for us?" is the question we hear most often, usually followed by a description of the industry. The honest answer: the industry says less than the type of company and the question you come with. In this article you read which industries, company types and questions SalesDNA was made for, and just as important, which problems it does not solve.

First the core: business-to-business selling with your own sales team

SalesDNA captures how an organization sells and makes sure the team works that way. That only makes sense if there is something to share. The organizations where it fits have three things in common.

• Business customers. B2B, with conversations, quotes and relationships that last longer than one transaction.
• Your own sales team. About 5 to 40 people who sell: field sales, inside sales, account managers, or a mix. With a leader who wants to steer on more than numbers.
• Customers who come back. Contracts, repeat purchases or projects for the same clients. Then it pays to capture win points, contact rhythm and customer journey.

If you are inside that, the industry is almost beside the point. If you are outside it, say a web shop without salespeople or a one-person business, SalesDNA is too heavy for what you need.

Industries where SalesDNA is used most

Six industries keep coming back. Not because SalesDNA was built for them specifically, but because selling there meets the three conditions above.

Technical wholesale and manufacturing

Field sales with regions, often dealers or installers as a channel, and a range that needs explaining. The question is usually the contact rhythm per customer class and one story towards the dealers.

Construction, installation and engineering

Project sales with tenders, several decision makers and a long cycle from quote to order. Here it is about stages with exit criteria and a forecast that holds.

Professional services

Consulting, IT, HR or finance: selling expertise. The promise in one sentence and the first conversation make the difference, and those are rarely written down anywhere.

Logistics and transport

Contracts per customer, yearly negotiations and a contact frequency that has to hold all year, not only around renewal.

Software and SaaS for SMBs

Inside sales with demos and trials. A fixed qualification and a pipeline that is adjusted every week are the first building blocks here.

Agriculture and food

Fixed customers, a seasonal rhythm and dealers or cooperatives that have to tell the same story as the own team.

Is your industry not listed? Then test against the three conditions. A staffing agency with account managers, a printer with field sales or a training company with business customers fits just as well.

Four types of company, four reasons to start

Within those industries we see four company types, each with its own reason to begin.

• Family business with an owner-director. The method lives in the founder's head, and the founder wants to let go without the quality of selling dropping. SalesDNA gets the method out of that head and makes it the company's. See the use case Owner-director who wants to let go.
• Scale-up with a growing sales team. New colleagues every month, and every salesperson does it slightly differently. Onboarding takes too long. Here we start with the onboarding programme and the building blocks a new colleague needs first.
• Branch or label of a larger company. Its own market, but one story and one way of working with the rest of the group. The organization captures the SalesDNA, the team executes it with its own room where allowed.
• Organization with dealers or partners. The story is told by people who are not on the payroll. That calls for one captured method and documents you can share outside the door. See the use case Wholesaler with a dealer network.

Six questions organizations start with

The industry brings you to the conversation, the question decides where you start. These are the six we hear most, with the building layer where the answer lives.

1. Our revenue depends on two or three people. The best salespeople have a method that is written down nowhere. If one leaves, revenue leaves too. Start with building layer 1, Sales foundation, and building layer 4, Customer journey: what do you promise, and which win points do those people perform that the rest do not.
2. Everyone sells their own way. Customers hear a different story per salesperson, qualification differs and quote follow-up is luck. Start with building layer 2, Sales process: stages, exit criteria and qualifying with fixed criteria.
3. New salespeople are only productive after a year. Onboarding happens by tagging along. Start with building layer 6, People, with an onboarding programme that walks through the method layer by layer. Read Onboarding in 90 days.
4. The playbook sits in a drawer. A sales plan or playbook was made once, but nobody looks at it. This is not a capturing question but a rhythm question: quarterly check, feedback from team and customer, and revising when something changes. Read From PDF to living playbook.
5. The sales meeting is only about numbers. Meetings are about the pipeline, not about how selling is done. Start with building layer 5, Organization: meeting structure, reports and coaching from your own SalesDNA.
6. We grow, but steer by gut feeling. Without KPIs per stage, contact rhythm and prospecting norms, growth cannot be repeated. Start with building layer 3, Activity matrix, and building layer 7, Steering.

Problems SalesDNA does not solve

Knowing where it does not fit is as important as knowing where it does. Five problems for which you need something else.

• Too few leads. SalesDNA is not a lead generator and not a marketing tool. It captures how you handle leads, not how you get them.
• No overview of customers and tasks. That is work for a CRM. SalesDNA does not replace a CRM; for daily execution with customers, tasks and campaigns there is your CRM.
• Salespeople who cannot hold the conversation. SalesDNA does not replace sales training. It does capture what a good conversation is at your company, so training and coaching have something to connect to.
• A price or product problem. If customers drop out because the product is not good or too expensive, a captured method does not fix that. At most, win/loss makes it visible sooner.
• No leader who wants to steer. SalesDNA only works if someone owns the method and looks at it every quarter. Without that person it becomes a document in a drawer, however good the tool.

Test it yourself in five minutes

Go through these questions. Three times yes on the first three, and at least one recognisable question: then it fits.

• Do we sell to business customers, with conversations and quotes?
• Do we have our own sales team of about 5 to 40 people, with a leader?
• Do our customers come back, through contracts, repeat purchases or projects?
• Do we recognise at least one of the six questions above?
• Is there someone who wants to own how we sell?

In doubt? Take the quick scan: seven questions, one per building layer, and you see where you stand. Or look at the eight use cases and find the situation that looks most like yours.

Frequently asked questions

Does SalesDNA also work for a sales team of three?

Yes, if you sell B2B and want to grow. You then start with Start and capture the method yourself. The added value of sharing, onboarding and coaching comes as the team grows.

And for a team of more than forty?

Then usually several teams or branches work with the same SalesDNA. We discuss that on request, based on Growth.

We sell to consumers. Does it fit?

Usually not. SalesDNA was made for business-to-business selling with conversations and relationships. If you sell to consumers with your own team of advisers, such as kitchens or solar panels, it resembles B2B enough to fit.

Does our sales team need an account?

No. Only leaders work in SalesDNA. The team gets the method through a personal link, as a playbook, one-pager or card set. Read more about working without an account.

Capturing

In SalesDNA you start with the Scan: seven questions that show which building layer needs attention first. Then you capture per building block how you sell, with Dex helping with the first proposal. On Who it's for the roles, industries and questions are listed side by side.