Seeking Sales Advice for Unconventional Service Model | RevGenius

Seeking Sales Advice for Unconventional Service Model

Hey all, my company is healthy, but our sales are sluggish. We have a slightly unconventional service model, and everyone we've hired to help lead sales hits a wall. I'm hoping to find people with more experience than myself to get some good advice. I've been brainstorming it with chatGPT, and it uncovered a lot of solid insights, and ultimately told me that this community would be the most likely to help me find my bearing. Am I in the right place?

17 comments

Nicholas P.
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Hey Xav! This is a great place for that. I'm pretty familiar with web and mobile applications (worked at OneSignal a CDP/user messaging for web and mobile) - also an avid GPT user and prompter. Happy to see if I can guide you in the right direction and if hiring help is even if needed, if so I do know a few that I worked with in the past in that space that I could intro you too. Shoot me a DM - and we can setup sometime!
Xavier S.
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Thank you Nicholas P., and yes, I'll definitely shoot you a DM, but I also want to keep the main convo in this thread to keep it open in case anyone else would like to weigh in. Here's a bit of context: We're a software consultancy that embeds into client engineering teams to execute complex work (digital transformations, legacy replatforms, greenfield projects, delivery rescue, etc). We don't sell fixed-scope project or staff aug, which are the traditional models in our space. Our model is flexible, high-trust, and a lot more flexible than what procurement usually expects (i.e. we work on Time & Materials basis, with Statements of Objectives, and embedded teams). Our clients love us once we're in, but it's super hard to get in. The traditional sales cycles are getting us absolutely nowhere, so traditional sales staff we've hired hasn't been to deliver any results, and I don't really blame them for it. I'm starting to think we need some kind of unicorn.
Juan P.
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My guess is that you'd work well with brands trying to expand to new product lines and companies migrating from one technology to another one. If you had to pinpoint the issue, would it be more on the ICP/outreach strategy (i.e, not finding the right people), or messaging (not communicating the value correctly) Embedded outside teams are becoming more mainstream supporting the rise of fractional leaders so perhaps an avenue to land more clients is to partner with fractional leaders and allowing them to do intros to their clients.
Nicholas P.
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Of course! High-trust is always difficult and especially with engineers since they believe they can build it own their own better and easier. I think getting conversations isn't hard but building the trust up front and involving enough stake-holders is always and getting them to really understand the value is challenging. It's hard to convince engineers why they shouldn't build and how it can allow them to focus on more strategic or high value work suited for them. Traditional sales cycles are dead, especially for a complex sale. What has chatGPT uncovered in terms of insights so far?
Xavier S.
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Thank you both. That's really the kind of insights I'm trying to uncover. Juan P. That's a damn good question. I think we've tested it enough to tell that both the targeting and the framing aren't working out. I love the idea of aligning with fractional leaders. That's a great angle. Nicholas P. I think that's also a valid point. Sometimes they trust their own team, but that trust is misplaced, and it's difficult to point that out with no context. Sometimes, they are working with another vendor, and it's kind of the same problem. There needs to be a wedge we can exploit to at least get a foot in the door and demonstrate trustworthiness. Some of the insights I've uncovered with chatGPT have centered around the fact that our ICP may not know how to buy embedded execution, so we have to educate and not merely perform lead gen; also, the realization that classic outbound may have a bit of value for our model, but probably not a lot. We need a GTM that is more event-led, teardown-driven, or network activated. There's a bunch more too. I'll work on compiling a list of the things that resonated most with me.
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Tim G.
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Hey Xav, I understand where you're coming from. We’ve seen this pattern often, and I’m right there with you, our company, has a similar model, but focused around GTM execution and on-demand sales teams for SaaS and service-based tech companies. The unconventional nature of high-trust, embedded service models makes it tough to plug into a traditional sales motion. What’s worked for us is shifting the conversation away from just "more leads" or "headcount" and toward why sales leaders are still missing targets despite bigger teams. We lead with that pain and layer in MEDDPICC and Force Management frameworks to qualify deeply and build trust early. That helps us earn the right conversations with stakeholders who get our value — not just procurement gatekeepers or buyers comparing us to staff aug. Happy to swap notes or share what’s been working for us lately if it’s helpful. You’re definitely in the right place.
Xavier S.
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Tim G. not familiar with those frameworks, but I love the value prop you've found. I can definitely think of some plays that would work in our industry too; thank you!
Tony W.
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Hi Xavier S., you might consider focusing on a core playbook for the organization. One that can create alignment between all GTM and support functions. Sometimes the approach of "we can do anything for our customers" can lead to lack of differentiation, low win rates, and long sales cycles. Really honing in on the sales motion could help create that needed focus. Check out the pieces in the image here: Playbook Design
Xavier S.
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Thank you for sharing this! We're doing some of that type of internal playbook thinking, but we don't follow a traditional cycle, so for us, it's more about selling trust by surfacing high context insights. Some parts of the system resonate, but others not so much. We're also not really ready to productize our motions until we've figured out what works through experimentation.
Tony W.
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I would be curious as to which parts you feel like don't apply. I'm generally interested in feedback because to some extent everyone is selling trust. I would think the sections of ICP layering, Sales Approach (messaging and focus), Sales Process, and Deal Management would all apply. The power is in all of those pieces working together. This helps with consistency and predictability.
Xavier S.
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I think I get it, but the fundamental difference here is we don't have repeatable deal mechanics (yet). Our pipeline (if you can call it that) emerges from one-off signals (overwhelmed engineer, delivery org that's on fire, mid-project pivots, etc). So "Sales Process" and "Deal Management" for us are less about standard stages, and more about improvising in ambiguity. That said, I agree ICP + Sales Approach foundation applies broadly, and we're refining those.
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Juan P.
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Xavier S. two things I'd do to improve pipeline is to filter companies by technologies used and stage (especially if you found high conversion with early stage, recently funded companies) Scrape LinkedIn for keywords like "we recently moved to" "switched to (tech stack), "I am tired of" These will help with reaching your client at the right time.
Xavier S.
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Nice, I will play around with that idea tonight, thanks!
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Juan P.
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Good luck, I suggest you use https://builtwith.com/ or Clay to help you with this. We helped a webflow agency deploy this strat and it became their primary client acquisition tool.
Xavier S.
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Nice. Thanks for the homework 😉
Robin S.
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I find this is a common problem in multi-platform and engineering focused IT services firms - the services are too generic. You might want to think about some kind of fixed bid or accelerator offer that gives you a way to showcase your success solving a specific business problem, and/or for a specific segment and sector of companies. Its very hard to sell generic engineering or implementation services
Xavier S.
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Good point. We are working on the "accelerator" aspect now through teardown offers. I think it has a lot of potential, but we haven't had time to really refine the concept and execute it yet. I think we have a differentiator that addresses the "generic" aspect (verticals + embedded teams for complex environments), but we may need to drill down even further. Thanks for reframing that way; that's extremely useful to me right now.
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