Article Highlights:
- Most service firms lose deals because they try to sell too much too early, which forces custom proposals, slows approvals, and raises buyer risk.
- A clear wedge gives sellers a smaller first step they can close without dragging the founder into every scope, pricing, and follow-up conversation.
- Buyers don’t need a long firm overview; they need a clear problem, credible proof, and a deck they can use to sell the decision internally.
- Even when delivery stays custom, the sales motion still needs a repeatable framework, or the system collapses back into founder-led selling.
We worked with one client who just closed a service expansion at $1M+ after working with a firm for 3 years.
They were originally brought on for an ad hoc project around $20K. Knocked it out of the park. And expanded over the years as they built trust and proved value.
That’s how you sell services.
But many firms forget that.
They look at their current client sizes and think, “We always had this.” Not true.
And if you take that approach, you’re setting your sales team up for failure, prioritizing surface-level insights that will leave your firm looking generic and pissing off partners.
To grow your firm, you need a reset. Otherwise, you’ll stay stuck paying a high Founder Tax every time a deal stalls, gets withdrawn, dies on budget, or slips into inactivity.
It’s time to travel back to the origin stories of your largest clients and replicate what made those deals land…and expand.
The glorious service wedge: start small and grow
My parents had a 5 Series BMW. V8. Tons of horses. And a literal autobahn right next to our house, with a long stretch of road between our house and the airbase in Germany.
I drove a Toyota Matrix, 4 cylinders. Understood the concept of acceleration, but never quite lived it.
My parents eventually let me drive the Beamer. But it took a lot of time proving I wouldn’t launch myself into the afterlife by pressing the gas pedal through the floor.
Trust builds over time.
People rarely just toss you the keys to the kingdom.
When they do, it’s because they’re familiar with your work or because they literally have no choice (COVID inspired a lot of “Oh shit! We need this now.” for services firms.
Money is no longer cheap. Budget scrutiny is high. Blockers are everywhere. The market is crowded with smart people willing to sell time cheaply. And there are plenty of stories of businesses that brought on firms only to spend $300K without any impact.
Most buyers aren’t rushing to buy services unless the business is on fire.
Which is why you need a wedge (AKA: Land and expand, Pilot Project, Paid Diagnostic, PoC, Foot-in-the-Door-Offering).
You know what a wedge is. It’s the service that gets your foot in the door. It’s priced for quick approval, so you can prove expertise, build trust, and expand.
For Practical Revenue, it’s our Revenue Audit. For my previous business, it was our case study sprint.
Many service firms have moved away from the wedge to pursue high-value deals. But they forget that most high-value deals start off as low-cost work.
That’s why I’m reminding you.
The power of a wedge offering for service firms
“My team can’t sell like me.”
I’ve thought. You’ve thought it. Every founder has thought it.
We’re not wrong.
But this overlooks our weight as founders vs. sellers. You control the business. You speak from experience. You have touchpoints across the organization and access to information the rest of your team doesn’t have (more so, if you’re a thought leader).
Most sellers won’t ever sell like you.
And that’s not a problem if you have a wedge.
A wedge allows your sales team to quickly close new business because it’s a set offer with tight guardrails. Those guardrails make it repeatable, which makes it easy for the seller to close new business without founder involvement.
Deal customization pulls founders back into sales and keeps Founder Tax high.
You reduce that Founder Tax by removing the customization and making the sales process repeatable.
The bane of sales processes: “me-focused” decks
Most service firm decks and proposals create work because the firm tries to sell too much, too early.
Imagine meeting a stranger at a party and asking them to take a trip to Vegas with you.
Unless you’ve got some serious clout or are a VERY charismatic person, you’re going to weird people out.
You’ll set off all kinds of red flags.
And you probably won’t be invited back to many more house parties.
It sounds ridiculous, but this happens all the time with businesses. They forget the human dynamic.
Without a repeatable offering, your team will have to put together custom proposals. These proposals will require more internal review. That complexity and cost will flag more external review.
Because the ask is so much higher, teams then overcompensate by making the story about themselves. They lead with firm history, credentials, capabilities, and broad claims to justify the size of the ask.
All this extra data is “me-focused”, and the client tunes it out.
Buyers don’t need a longer firm overview. They need a clear reason to act, proof that the first step is worth it, and something they can lean on to sell internally.
That matters more than most firms think: 59% of the likelihood of a bold purchase decision comes from the go-to-market experience, and high-friction buying environments reduce the odds of purchase by 43%.
But they don’t get that.
Now they have a more complex deal with a lot of noise and weak proof, so they have to sell internally.
And they often fail.
Meanwhile, the complexity will push sellers out of the deal because it will require more direct founder involvement (a higher Founder Tax).
Practical services require a practical sales deck
A practical deck should do far less.
It should help the buyer understand the problem, see why the default path won’t fix it, and say yes to a smaller first step.
When the wedge is clear, the deck supports the relationship. When the wedge is missing, the deck and proposal expand to compensate.
And the founder steps in to babysit or rescue the deal.
Components of a Practical Sales Deck
| Slide | Focus | What it needs to do | The decision it supports |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Opening | Name the pressure | Why this deserves attention |
| 2 | Problem | Show what’s breaking | Why the status quo isn’t fine |
| 3 | Failed default | Show why the usual fix fails | Why more effort won’t solve it |
| 4 | The wedge | Present the first step | Why a smaller start makes sense |
| 5-6 | Proof | Show why it works | Why this is credible |
| 7 | Why now | Explain why this matters now | Why they shouldn’t wait |
| 8-9 | Proposal and pricing | Make the first yes easy | What they’re approving |
| 10 | Onboarding | Reduce post-sale uncertainty | What happens after yes |
| 11 | Examples (optional) | Showcase deliverables | What “good” or “done” looks like |
You can see a similar example in our service overview (pricing isn’t included in this one, as it’s public-facing).
This is something we advise firms on as part of our Revenue Audit, Install, and Governance.
But we also offer the Blueprints for teams who want to build this out in-house.
Think “edit,” not a complete rewrite
When you have a repeatable sales process with a wedge in place, then it’s much faster and easier to send the proposal. And much easier to follow up with clear value.
It slots into your sales process.
Once the team has the information they need to update, they simply update 1-2 key slides. They update the pricing section, maybe the case studies to better reflect the business type/use case, and update the analysis (for firms that provide this).
The rest stays the same.
This significantly reduces the follow-up time from hours or days to minutes because you’re only making minor edits.
TL;DR: Your team closes faster. (This deal moved from opportunity to procurement in 13 days and closed a week later.)
Your buyer doesn’t give a shit how much time went into prepping the pitch deck. They care more about the time you spent on analysis, mapping out a PoC, or fitting your work to their problem.
I’ve never heard a buyer say, “Wow. Big deck!”
I’ve heard them say, “No one’s ever spent this much time reviewing our problem before.”
Keep it short and client-focused.
Think: Practical.
With this in place, it’s much easier to trust your team to run sales independently. The next steps are clear. And only when deals are uniquely complex do they lean on you.
What to do when all your deals are custom…
“But we only sell custom projects.”
I’m skeptical.
Before you stick with the status quo, review your CRM. How many of these custom projects do you close? How long did they take to close? How much of your team’s time was needed? Could you have started faster with an initial project?
(If you can’t see that information in your CRM, you should audit your revenue architecture.)
In most cases, firms overcomplicate the sales process and create unnecessary drag, raising the Founder Tax by pulling the team toward bigger, harder-to-approve deals when a smaller first step would close faster and build trust sooner.
Even when the delivery ends up custom, the sale still needs structure.
You still need a framework that gives the team a clear story, first step, and way to explain why your approach makes sense. That framework is what lets your team sell like you when you’re not in the room.
Finally, you are probably overestimating the role of the deck in the call itself. The proposal does 20% of the work on the call. And it does 80% when you’re not in the room.
If your proposal can’t support your buyer without you there to translate it, then the sales asset isn’t doing its job. The average buying group now includes 13 people, with 86% of B2B purchases stalling during the buying process.
So yes, some service work stays custom.
That doesn’t let you off the hook. It raises the bar. You still need a repeatable framework around the custom work, or the system collapses back into founder-led selling.
