B2B Sales Constraint Diagnosis

B2B Sales Constraint Diagnosis

Use this skill to find the sales bottleneck before recommending tactics. The goal is to identify the one constraint that is throttling the current sales system, then route work to the most relevant repair skill.

Source Traceability

Primary source: Unf*ck Your Sales by Jakob Greenfeld. Authoring notes used the sections "Our Map, Lens, and Compass", "The One Sentence Sales Course", "Invert, Always Invert!", "The Theory of Constraints", and "Putting It Together".

Constraint Model

Diagnose in this order:

1. Reach - the right people do not know the company exists.
2. Resonance - the right people see the company but do not connect it to a painful problem, concrete outcome, and credible mechanism.
3. Timing - buyers know and understand the company, but the company is not present when pain becomes urgent.
4. Trust - qualified buyers engage but do not feel enough certainty or risk reduction to take action.

Only one constraint should be treated as primary at a time. Everything else is secondary until the primary constraint is fixed or disproven.

Diagnostic Workflow

1. Restate the current sales symptom and stage:
   • No awareness or no replies.
   • Replies but poor recall or weak understanding.
   • Interest but no urgency or inconsistent timing.
   • Qualified calls, proposals, or trials that stall or ghost.
2. Check for basic evidence before diagnosing:
   • Target segment or account list.
   • Recent outreach or visibility activity.
   • Message or offer being used.
   • Lead, meeting, close, and ghosting data.