Diagnose before selling more

Carlos Ocampo · Field Notes D31 · Based on D365-IRL, Day 361 · September 15, 2026

Before asking your team to sell more, do you know where sales are getting stuck?

On Day 361 of D365-IRL, the conversation with Jorge, from BullishMx, focused on assessing sales maturity. We reviewed the process across different dimensions and discussed bottlenecks, CRM use, follow-up and closing.

The question organizing this note is concrete: what should we correct first so that the sales effort moves forward?

A drop in sales can trigger immediate responses: increasing prospecting, hiring salespeople, offering discounts or investing more in advertising. Choosing an intervention requires understanding what is happening between first contact and the customer's decision.

We may have enough activity and lose continuity in follow-up. We may send proposals that do not address the buyer's priority problem. We may speak with interested people who lack decision-making authority.

Each situation requires a different response.

Sales diagnosis allows us to locate friction, formulate an explanation and choose where to intervene.

During the session, we addressed a nine-dimension assessment. Its value for this reflection lies in examining the process as a whole: how one stage passes information to the next and what the team needs to turn that information into useful action.

Having a CRM helps organize records. For those records to guide decisions, we need to know what its stages mean, what evidence allows an opportunity to advance and who owns the next move.

A sent proposal leaves questions open. Has the customer reviewed it? Does it address a recognized need? Is there a decision date? What condition prevents progress?

At D31, we propose applying those questions to specific opportunities. Reviewing conversations, agreements and timing allows us to distinguish what we know from what we assume about a sale.

Consider a team with numerous open quotes. Before increasing volume, it can examine a sample and find different situations: some await budget; others need scope adjustments; others have lost contact with the decision-maker.

That exercise makes it possible to assign specific actions. It may also reveal a shared problem: quoting before sufficiently understanding the need or without agreeing how the decision will be made.

The intervention then begins at an earlier stage.

The sequence we propose is: diagnose, prioritize, intervene and measure.

Diagnose to identify where the process stalls. Prioritize according to impact and the ability to act. Intervene through a concrete change. Measure to learn whether that change improves opportunities' progress.

HFE™ offers a framework for frequent follow-up on that sequence: reviewing commitments, observing results and adjusting the next action. Its application must begin with a bounded problem and evidence that allows us to evaluate what happened.

AI can also support record analysis and preparation for follow-up. Sales leadership retains responsibility for interpreting the context, verifying information and deciding which intervention is appropriate.

This session connects our exploration of the autonomous company with an everyday need: for a team to recognize where its work gets stuck and coordinate a response without waiting for instructions for every move.

Sales autonomy requires clarity about the customer, the process, responsibilities and the conditions for deciding.

If you doubled your prospects tomorrow, could your process convert that effort more effectively, or would it accumulate twice as many stalled opportunities?

Field note based on the recovered summary of Day 361. The quotation example illustrates the proposed application; it is not presented as a result from a customer in the session.

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