AN IMPORTANT INSIGHT — We've talked with dozens of Founders about what they want, sales, salespeople, and their time. Here is what they told us.

Across the board, the goal for Founders is growth! On average, Founders want yearly revenue growth of 74%:

Current Revenue Statistics

Average revenue: $1,314,285

Desired revenue: $2,282,857

Desired annual revenue increase: 74%

This can be a real struggle when revenue is erratic and your business is having trouble attracting new clients consistently and profitably.

KEY POINT — Founders struggle with sales. You are having weeks or even months go by without making a sale. You are doing nearly all the sales yourself and are maxed out from carrying the entire business on your shoulders without support.

Many small professional services firms are underperforming their potential and aren’t hitting their revenue targets:

Performance Statistics

33% of small professional services firms are doing well

33% are struggling

33% are going under

Revenue per employee at many professional services firms is abysmal, creating low-margin businesses that struggle to survive.

Current Employee Statistics

Average number of employees: 14

Average revenue per employee: $93,877

The industry benchmark for a thriving firm is $200-400k/employee.

This underperformance can’t be blamed on lack of time or lack of experience, as the founders we talked with aren’t start-ups or first-timers.

Business Demographics

Average age of business: 8 years

Percentage not first business: 75%

Industries: Professional Services, Marketing, Advertising, & Consulting.

You’ve likely been trying to solve this for some time, either with better salespeople or more leads. Or simply trying harder. Unfortunately, none of it has worked. And it won’t work. What we’ve found is that those approaches almost always lead to below-average results.

The typical approach to growth is to hire a salesperson — every Founder we've talked with tries this. Most Founders try this multiple times… and yet it almost never works — leading to years of frustration, wasted time, and untapped potential.

Sales Team Statistics

Businesses that have hired salespeople: 100%

Fired salespeople: 78%

Average number of salespeople fired per firm: 3.25

Hiring and firing salespeople is the terrible consequence of having the wrong strategy and approach. And it’s unproductive and incredibly expensive.

On average, an underperforming sales hire costs $381,883.

As a Founder, you are wasting your time trying to build and support a sales team that can consistently and profitably make sales. You lack the time, clarity, and structure to do what’s required.

The Sales Conundrum is that you want to scale your business and increase revenue, but salespeople don’t work out, and you either don’t have the time to do sales or don’t like doing it.

So what is an aspiring Founder supposed to do?

"The Connector" On The Trail - 2 Riddles with John Kelley