• Your current clients are happy.
• Your team functions smoothly.
• You have adequate revenue.
• But… you haven’t closed a prospect in 90 days.

I think not. Nothing drags down your morale like a sales drought.

I saw this recently with a Fractional CFO we’ll call Andrew. Andrew’s a member of my Elite mastermind, and I’ve been coaching him intensively for the past few months, because…

Andrew has been in a sales drought since January 1.
He hasn’t closed a single client.
His confidence was at an all-time low.

So I watched some of his sales calls. The calls weren’t “bad.” In many ways, he was doing a great job. But he was making some basic mistakes that sabotaged his chances of closing.

I coached. Andrew applied. And it finally all came together recently.

He closed his last two deals! 

The deals totaled $219,000 in annual revenue. His growth is back on track.

More importantly…
His confidence is back.

I asked Andrew what he learned from the experience. He shared 4 lessons:

Lesson #1. Define who’s a “good lead.”

If your cousin loaned you a clunker for your cross-country road trip, you wouldn’t blame yourself when it broke down beside an Iowa cornfield.

But when a random banker sends you a referral that has razor-thin margins and a micromanaging CEO who just wants you to “fix the books”…

You blame yourself when the deal doesn’t close.

Stop it! It’s not your fault.

Well… actually it is.

It’s not your fault that the bad lead didn’t buy.
It is your fault that you received that lead in the first place.

You are responsible to clearly define “a good lead” for your referral partners (and yourself!). Explain in detail what a good lead looks like in terms of industry, revenue, profitability, and the like. Only then will your referral partners know when to refer and when to refrain.

Do your referral partners know who’s a good lead for you?
Are you sure?
If you asked them, could they tell you?

Write out your Good Lead Profile in 3–4 sentences and send it to your referral partners. They’ll thank you. (So will your future self.)

Andrew was tired of receiving bad leads from random bankers. So he described his Good Lead Profile to a debt consolidation company. Soon after, they sent him a small business with too many messy loans and credit lines. He closed the deal.

Lesson #2. Have a sales process. Then refine it.

I intentionally phrase this lesson as two steps:

Step 1 - Pick any sales process on God’s green earth. (You can find the sales process I’ve found the most success with here on YouTube. This is also the same process Andrew started using to get better results.)

Step 2 - Gradually practice it andrefine it until it’s a GOOD sales process and then a GREAT sales process.

Some fCFOs go wrong by not having a sales process at all, opening their sales calls with, “How can I help you today?” Others get stuck using v1 of a sales process that won’t be effective until v23.

Andrew’s problem is that he hadn’t fully committed. He was using my sales process…

…sort of.

He was skipping some essential steps. He was letting the prospect take control of the call, and then ending without a clear next action. So I coached him to reinforce these two steps:

Andrew wasn't setting an agenda for his discovery calls. Because of that, his leads were taking over the call and taking him down rabbit holes (“Let me tell you about my friend’s uncle’s company…”).

The rabbit hole conversations took over the entire call! This meant that Andrew wasn’t able to cover the key points that actually move along the sales conversation. Sure, they talked a lot, but they talked about the wrong things. Sales stalled.

Andrew’s failure to assert himself at the start of the call also didn’t do much to establish him as a leader, someone who can take charge of a desperate business owner’s messy situations.

When a call wrapped up, Andrew wasn’t doing what Alex Hormozi calls FAMBAM: Finish a Meeting, Book a Meeting. He let the prospect off the call with a vague commitment that “I’ll think about it.”

Andrew got caught in the “just following up” cycle, trying to get the next call booked. It was embarrassing, irritating, and ineffective. He lost traction. The prospect lost interest.

After a few coaching calls with me, Andrew implemented those best practices into his sales process.

But that wasn’t the BIG change that radically improved his sales results. That was his next lesson…

Andrew tried to persuade prospects by offering them “incredible spreadsheets” and “life-altering reports” (sarcasm alert).

Surprise: It didn’t work.

Andrew told me he learned to “sell the better state after working with you. Focus on emotional buying triggers.”

He began to tie his fCFO deliverables to the OUTCOMES prospects longed for:
- increased revenue
- increased profit
- increased cash
- decreased debt

Suddenly prospects sat up straight.
He was speaking their language.
(Not financial gobbledygook.)

Admittedly, this was a lot for Andrew to learn and apply. And unlike an outbound sales rep, he didn’t have hundreds of practice attempts every month. He had like 5.

Which brings us to Andrew’s fourth lesson…

Andrew was grateful to have me as his human sales coach. I watched his sales call recordings, diagnosed his errors, and guided him to sell with more confidence and better success.

But… I have my limits.
- I reviewed 3 of his sales calls, not 23.
- I don’t respond to questions at 11pm (bed time is at 8:45).
- I’m not available for last-minute reassurance 30 seconds before the prospect joins the call.

So Andrew used Coach ChatGPT to:

- Analyze his discovery calls to identify the prospect’s most urgent pain points
- Prep for the sales call by confirming which dream outcomes to highlight
- Role-play objections, so he could anticipate and prepare for pushback using Hormozi’s AAA framework (Acknowledge, Amplify, Ask)
- Give feedback afterward on how well he showed leadership and responded to unexpected questions

Andrew says Coach ChatGPT’s prep help was “fundamental in getting these two deals done.”

If you’ve never used AI to help you review your sales calls and pinpoint weak spots…

Try it.
You’ll be embarrassed.
Then you’ll improve.

If you’re stuck in a sales drought, you might be tempted to jettison everything.
- Lower your prices!
- Invent a new offer!
- Overhaul your business model!
- Change your personality!

Andrew did none of that. His fundamentals were sound, so he left them alone. Instead, with encouragement, he:

• Faced his flubs
• Found a fix
• Try, tried again

If you haven’t heard “yes” in a long time, don’t get desperate. Pick one of Andrew’s four lessons and apply it. Vet your lead sources. Refine your sales process. Sell results instead of tactics. Get feedback from Coach ChatGPT.

Andrew didn’t close $219,000 in annual revenue overnight. Even after he asked for my help, the diagnose-refine-practice cycle took a few months to yield results.

Be patient yet tenacious. Good things come to those who wade into their mucky sales process and clean it up.

Which lesson will you apply first?