The B2B sales process for founder-led sales
The 8 Steps of the Repeatable Sale
Bigger deals at your price. A team that closes without you in the room. No chasing. It starts with the order of your sales conversation: eight steps, the same way, on every call.
What is the Repeatable Sale?
The Repeatable Sale is a repeatable sales process with eight steps: Visualize, Frustration, Importance, Cost of Inaction, Deliverables, Investment, Starting Date, Statement of Work. You run them in that order on every call. The job of the order is simple: it keeps you in control of the sales conversation.
Most deals don't die because the offer is weak. They die because the right things happen in the wrong order. The proposal goes out before the buyer has said what the problem costs. The price lands before the value is clear. Then the follow-ups start, and suddenly you're the one chasing.
The 8 Steps fix the order. The buyer names the frustration, the cost of inaction, the deliverables and the starting date in their own words. By the time the Statement of Work arrives, it describes a decision they already made. 🐬
Who it's for
B2B founders who are still the main closer. You built the company, you sell better than anyone on the team, and every big deal still runs through your calendar.
That works right up to the week you want to grow faster than your own calendar allows. A repeatable sales process is how founder-led sales becomes something a new hire can run without you. Same steps, same order, same questions. Your judgment, written down.
It's not for B2C, and it's not a script to read out loud. It's for owners who sell high-value B2B work (software, consulting, financial services) and want to lead the conversation instead of chasing it.
2,400+ B2B founders have gone through our programs, and this is the method they practice. Before Strategy Sprints, Simon Severino coached 2,000+ teams, including Google, BMW and Airbus.
The 8 steps, one by one
Each step: what it is, two questions you can ask, and the mistake that breaks it.
Step 1
Visualize
Picture what the buyer is saying while they say it. Mirror their last two or three words. Pace their energy and rhythm. Once you're paced, lead. Trust comes first, and nothing after it works without it.
Ask:
"Paint me a picture.. what does a normal sales week look like for you right now?"
"When you say 'stuck', what does that look like on the ground?"
Common mistake: Rushing to your agenda. Jump to Step 2 before the buyer feels understood and every answer after that stays polite and shallow.
Step 2
Frustration
Surface the real pain, and what they've already tried. This is the step where buyers open up.
Ask:
"What's the frustration?"
"What have you already tried, and why didn't it stick?"
Common mistake: Pitching the moment you hear a problem. The first frustration is rarely the real one. Stay curious one question longer.
Step 3
Importance
Place the problem inside everything else going on in their business and their life. A problem that matters gets solved. One that doesn't gets postponed.
Ask:
"How important is this in the context of everything else going on?"
"Where does this sit on your list for this quarter?"
Common mistake: Assuming importance because the pain sounds big. If it isn't a priority, you find out after the proposal, not before.
Step 4
Cost of Inaction
Let the buyer say out loud what happens if nothing changes. This is the step that creates urgency, and it's where your pricing power comes from. Ask, then stay silent.
Ask:
"What happens if you do nothing?"
"If this looks the same in six months, what does that cost you?"
Common mistake: Saying the cost for them. When you name it, it's your opinion. When they name it, it's their reason to buy.
Step 5
Deliverables
The buyer defines success in their own words. Those words become the basis of the Statement of Work.
Ask:
"What do you want to achieve?"
"Talk to me about deliverables for the next 10 days."
Common mistake: Copying the deliverables from your standard package. Use their language, not your brochure.
Step 6
Investment
Time, people, money. All three, in that order. Never lead with price.
Ask:
"How much time can you and your team give this each week?"
"Who on your team needs to be part of it?"
Common mistake: Price first. Without Step 4 behind it, any number looks big, and the deal shrinks into a discount conversation.
Step 7
Starting Date
A specific date, not "soon" and not "next week". Commitment is the close.
Ask:
"To which starting date are we committing?"
"What needs to be true for us to start on that date?"
Common mistake: Accepting "let's talk next month". No date means no decision, and no decision means the chase begins.
Step 8
Statement of Work
Sent before the next meeting, written in the buyer's words, ready to sign. Not a draft. It confirms a decision already made in Steps 4, 5 and 7.
Ask:
"Is there anything in here that doesn't sound like you?"
"Who else needs to read this before you sign?"
Common mistake: Sending a proposal to find out if they're interested. A Statement of Work is not a question. If you still need to ask, go back to Step 4.
Why the order is the whole method
Steps 1 to 4 are your discovery call questions. Steps 5 to 8 turn that discovery into a signed deal. Skip Step 4 and your price looks expensive. Skip Step 7 and the deal goes quiet after the proposal. Run them in order and the close feels obvious, for you and for the buyer. 🐯
That's what control in sales means here. Not pressure. Not a script you recite. A sequence that lets the buyer decide out loud, while you lead.
How to practice it
Reading the steps takes five minutes. Running them under pressure takes practice, like any skill you train. Pick one step a week. Set it on Monday (we call it Monday Strategy), score your calls against it on Friday (Friday Learnings). Which step did you skip? Where did the deal go quiet?
You'll notice the change on a single call: the one where you stop pitching, ask "What happens if you do nothing?", wait, and hear the buyer make the case for you. Then the Statement of Work goes out in the buyer's own words, and the reply is a signature, not a question.
Score your next deal
Not ready to book? Get the free one-page scorecard. Score any deal against the 8 Steps and see which step is stalling it, plus more real sales tools by email.
Who teaches it
Simon Severino
Founder of Strategy Sprints, based in Vienna. 2,400+ B2B founders have gone through our programs, practising the 8 Steps of the Repeatable Sale until they lead the conversation again.
Before Strategy Sprints, Simon coached 2,000+ teams, including Google, BMW and Airbus.
Questions founders ask
What is the Repeatable Sale?
What are good discovery call questions for B2B sales?
What does cost of inaction mean in sales?
How do I move from founder-led sales to a sales team?
Does the 8 Steps work with my CRM?
Run them in order
Skip a step and the deal stalls. Run them in order and the close feels obvious.
Want to see where this breaks in your own pipeline? On a discovery call we walk through your last deals step by step. If it's a fit, the 90-Day Sales Acceleration installs the process so your team runs it without you, and the 200K Club gives you spotters who push you through your current sales wall. 🌴
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