Sales Consultancy and Strategy
I’m Paul McAnallen, and I work with business owners and sales leaders to solve the problems sitting upstream of training and coaching — the strategy, process and structure that decide whether a sales team can actually perform.
When consultancy is what’s needed, not training
Ask ten business owners why sales results have stalled and most will point at the team — the wrong people, not enough activity, not enough training. Almost none will open with the pricing structure, or the fact the business has quietly ended up competing for customers who were never the right fit in the first place. Those are the harder questions, because they point at decisions made by ownership or leadership, not at the people doing the selling. A sales team can only perform as well as the plan they’ve been handed allows. Sort the plan first — otherwise training just becomes a more expensive way of confirming it was never going to work.
My approach: SOSTAC®
Sales strategy work is run using SOSTAC®, the planning framework developed by PR Smith and used across marketing and business strategy. It gives the work structure rather than leaving “strategy” as a vague conversation:
- Situation – where the business is now: sales performance, market position, team structure and competitive landscape.
- Objectives – what the business is actually trying to achieve, and by when.
- Strategy – the overall approach to close the gap between the two.
- Tactics – the specific actions, tools and processes that deliver the strategy.
- Action – who does what, and when.
- Control – how progress gets measured and the plan adjusted.
Every engagement moves through these stages, so the resulting strategy is grounded in where the business actually is, not just where it wants to be.
What’s included
- Sales strategy review, using the SOSTAC® framework, assessing how the business generates and converts opportunities and where that’s breaking down.
- Go-to-market planning. Defining target markets, positioning and value proposition ahead of a new product, sector or stage of growth.
- Sales process design. Building or rebuilding a repeatable sales process that matches how the business actually sells.
- Team structure and capacity. Assessing whether the current sales team structure, roles and headcount fit the growth the business is targeting.
- Pricing and value proposition. Reviewing whether pricing and positioning support the margins the business needs.
Who it’s for
Business owners and sales leaders who suspect the problem isn’t a skills gap — founder-led SMEs scaling past the point where ad hoc selling works, and businesses entering a new market, sector or product line without a sales strategy to match.
How this connects to training and coaching
Consultancy and strategy work often surfaces exactly where training or coaching is needed — and sometimes shows that neither is the right next step yet. Where the diagnosis points to team skills or individual performance, see sales training or coaching. Where it doesn’t, fixing the strategy first is what makes any later training worth the investment.
Frequently asked questions
We already have a sales strategy — why would we need this?
Having a strategy and having a strategy that’s actually grounded in the current situation are different things. Many sales strategies were written for a stage the business has since outgrown, or inherited rather than built – they haven’t been tested against current market position, team capacity or competitive pressure. The SOSTAC® process starts with the situation analysis specifically to surface that gap before anything gets changed.
Why pay for this rather than figuring it out internally?
Internal teams are close to the business, which is valuable, but it also makes it hard to see the sales process, pricing or structure objectively – decisions get defended because they’re familiar, not because they’re working. An outside review isn’t about knowing the business better; it’s about not having a stake in defending how things currently work.
How is this different from hiring a fractional sales director?
A fractional sales director sits inside the business on an ongoing basis, running the sales function day to day. This is a defined engagement to diagnose and build the strategy – process, positioning, structure – that a sales director, whether fractional or full-time, then executes. The two can work together; they’re not doing the same job.
What if the strategy work concludes we need a different approach entirely, or nothing at all?
That’s a legitimate outcome, not a failure of the engagement. If the diagnosis shows the sales process is basically sound and the real gap is skills execution, that gets said plainly, and the recommendation moves to training or coaching instead. The value is in getting an honest read, not in confirming there’s a strategy problem to be sold a fix for.
Our market is unusual — does a generic framework like SOSTAC® actually apply?
SOSTAC® is a structure for how the work gets approached, not a template that gets filled in the same way for every business. The situation analysis, objectives and tactics are built from what’s actually true of the market and the business – the framework just ensures nothing gets skipped, particularly moving to tactics before the situation and objectives are actually clear.
What happens if we don’t have the capacity to execute the strategy afterwards?
This gets addressed as part of scoping the engagement, not discovered afterwards. If the business doesn’t have the internal capacity to execute, that’s factored into the plan itself – either through more hands-on involvement through delivery, or by being upfront that resourcing needs to be solved before the strategy can be acted on.