The middle is where most sellers fold

Co-Sell Field Notes: Notes from a $70M Microsoft Services Seller

P.S. read an web version of this email here: barrontech.kit.com/posts/

I was sitting in traffic earlier this week running through the state of my pipeline. One deal scoped at roughly $1M and likely to sign. One scoped at $850k that'll probably land closer to $750k. A third at $700k-$1M for a mortgage company I just met -- could go either way. Somewhere between $1.6M and $2.2M sitting in various stages of "we'll see."

And while I'm running through that math, my brain keeps pulling toward what I don't have yet.

This is the part of the job most sellers don't talk about because it doesn't post well. The middle. You've done the work, the pipeline is real, the inputs are right, and you still have to keep building like nothing exists, because it doesn't matter until contracts are signed.

Here's what I see go wrong with most MSFT GTM sellers in this exact spot.

They mentally cash the check on the deals they think are close. Outreach slows down. Sales Nav sessions get shorter. Co-sell conversations with MSFT reps get pushed to next week. Then a deal slips, the pipeline that should've been built 30 days ago isn't there, and they're back to starting from zero with worse momentum than before.

The other failure mode: they panic and chase everything. 30 new accounts in a week. Sloppy outreach. No qualification. They confuse activity with progress and end up with a calendar full of meetings that go nowhere.

Both kill you the same way. They break the input rhythm.

What works in the middle is boring. You keep the outbound consistent. You stay narrow on accounts that actually fit -- for me right now that's 3 specific prospects I'm working through, not 30. You qualify hard before you put time in. And you trust that what you're doing today produces pipeline 30-60 days out, not next week.

The other thing that matters: who you partner with. Good MSFT motion with the wrong client still produces bad results. If they don't have sellers, pipeline responsibility, and real execution capability, no system I run is going to fix that. Qualification on the consulting side is the same discipline as qualification on the deal side.

I'm not closed on any of these deals yet. I might lose one of them. The mortgage one might never sign. That's the reality. What I can control is whether I'm still building pipeline behind them, and whether the clients I'm taking on are ones I can actually move the needle for.

If you're sitting in your own version of the middle -- pipeline cooking, nothing closed, MSFT motion not producing the way you need it to -- reach out.

Happy Co-Selling!

Matt Barron

P.S. All previous emails can be read here​