It's the evening before tomorrow morning's 8am forecast call, and you’re reviewing your pipeline. You’ve got 4 or 5 active deals that leadership really cares about. And the notes/next steps fields are updated with the “progress” you’ve made over the last week. Some of them you’ll win (you always do), and a few of them you’ll lose. But you can't confidently call out which ones are in and which ones are out, because you don’t really know what's going on; you never have. Big visibility problem, even if the LT likes what they hear on the forecast call. Not going to look great when the ones you have the least confidence in come in.
You’ll lose some and win some based on decisions that were made before you showed up and in rooms you haven’t yet been in and probably never will be in. Some of these people you don’t even know exist, never mind considering building a relationship with them. They’re thinking in isolation, worried about making the wrong call, they’re communicating internally in 121s and larger groups - what's best for the business. And you’re likely just close to 1 or 2 of them, and even more likely, it's the tech stakeholders that will ultimately use your tool.
Often, by the time you’ve reached out to that prospect or customer stakeholder, the decision is done. 6sense reports that at 81% of buyers have a preferred vendor before they ever speak to an Account Executive. Gartner report that two-thirds of buyers would rather not deal with a rep at all throughout the process. And one study by Ebsta, analysing millions of opportunities, found that late c-suite engagement was associated with a 42% lower win rate. Read those stats and then think about your deals - you’re thinking you’re leading the engagement to a decision; however, if you’re arriving late like most, you're actually trying to overturn one.
What most people do is try to work harder and go bigger on the one/two things they were already doing. Send more follow-up emails, connect and share ‘insights’ via LinkedIn, invite contacts to events, and do more discovery and demos with the same tech stakeholders. The standard things they do with the time remaining when they’re not in meetings or responding to their inbox and Slack, now ramped up in volume to achieve different outcomes across the pipeline.
One or two low-quality inputs are never going to do the trick. During my time at Amazon, we talked a lot about mechanisms, one of which was the concept of a ‘flywheel’ or ‘virtuous cycle’. The flywheel is a model of growth: imagine a heavy wheel that takes effort to spin. Once in motion, it keeps turning more easily. At Amazon, it starts with customer experience at the heart of everything. As customer experience improves, it attracts more customers. Increased traffic attracts more sellers, expanding product selection. Higher sales volume allows Amazon to lower costs, which means lower prices for customers. This cycle repeats, each part reinforcing the next. Once the flywheel gets going, it drives exponential growth - more traffic, more sales, and lower prices. That’s how Amazon businesses grow.
Today, in 2026, many share with me how old approaches no longer work. In response, you’ve got to create your own growth flywheel - tailored to your customers, your company, and yourself. Consider the authority, brand, and recognition you bring to the market, how you engage executives early, a narrative that excites customers and can be easily shared internally, and unique experiences that leverage your skills and experience to differentiate you. These are just some ideas for getting started building your flywheel.
The idea is that each input should feed the next; it isn’t linear, and needs to be built specifically for your customers - and ideally, scaled across your team. The more you win collectively, the more you'll win individually. Eventually, the wheel almost spins on its own. (depending on who you work for, it might already be spinning pretty fast). While everyone shares frameworks, tools, and tactics that are supposedly the answer, these things only fix specific issues in a customer engagement; they don’t address the full complexity of a strategic sale.
Aaron
zenithconsulting.io
Sales Life - Available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk