A few months ago, a business owner that I work with, described his company's approach to winning new work to me.
The word he used was "haphazard."
His word, not mine.
This isn't a struggling business. It’s an established company in the water treatment and hygiene space; solid customers, like local authorities and main contractors. Turnover is growing.
But most of it comes from one or two sources. And when new work does arrive, nobody can predict when or why it arrives.
By the way, that's not just a sales problem. It's a business risk - and it also suppresses what your business is worth.
Saying "It usually shows up" is not a sales pipeline
Here's the thing I've learned from sitting down with hundreds of business owners:
Most owner-led businesses don't have a sales problem. They have a sales system problem.
Try not to fall asleep while I talk about sales systems for one minute - because it can fundamentally change the quality and volume of your sales.
Here's what's happening to many businesses. The work arrives - but through relationships the owner holds personally, or through repeat customers, or maybe the occasional tender someone spotted late and scrambled to answer.
Ask where the next £1m is coming from and the honest answer is usually: “we're not sure, but it tends to show up. And we’ve got an excellent reputation.”
But this leaves them at the mercy of a handful of customers and open to having quiet months, lumpy cash flow and sleepless nights.
The water treatment company had tried various things to fix it.
They’d hired a marketing person. They worked with an agency. Most recently, they employed an industry veteran with a black book full of contacts. He spent more time filling out his expenses than finding new opportunities.
The point is that none of them worked out - or made any lasting impact on the business.
If any of this sounds familiar, it should. It's the most common situation I see between £5M and £50M turnover - and almost nobody says it out loud.
What a business development system actually looks like
When we rebuilt their approach to business development and sales, we didn't start with "more sales activity."
For them, activity wasn't the main problem. It was a system problem.
It was people either doing the wrong things - or dabbling with some of the right things, but nothing really joining up.
For me, a working BD system should have four components:
1. An opportunity radar. A systematic way of scanning the market early for opportunities - tenders, frameworks, project signals, regular touchpoints with decision makers, personnel changes at target customers, etc. Not someone remembering to check a portal on Fridays. A process that runs whether anyone remembers or not.
2. A relationship map. Knowing who the decision-makers are - and nurturing the relationship before the tender drops, or the opportunity becomes widely known, when it's a conversation rather than a competition.
3. A repeatable bid engine. I’m not talking about just doing a “copy and paste” job on each new proposal or bid. The quality of the inputs must be reliable and you need a robust system to deliver it.
4. Consistency. A weekly rhythm that keeps all of this moving - and crucially, doesn't depend on the owner cracking the whip.
None of this is revolutionary. What's revolutionary is actually building it, because most businesses never do.
What changed
So we built this company their own opportunity radar, using McGideon, our in-house automation agency. We rather imaginatively called it RADAR.
It finds them regular opportunities, connects them to the right people, and helps them create and submit bids - consistently, not haphazardly.
The part that surprised us was it didn't stay a one-client fix. The same system is now running in several other building services companies - because the problem it solves isn't a water-treatment problem. It's an owner-led business problem.
You might be thinking. "My business doesn't work like that - we don't do tenders."
Maybe not. But every market broadcasts signals about who's about to buy - planning applications, framework renewals, funding announcements, leadership changes, contract expiries. Off-market work is won the same way tendered work is: by seeing the opportunity early, already knowing the people involved and putting the right bid together. You simply configure the radar to scan a different horizon.
Why this is also a valuation issue, not just a sales issue
Buyers don't pay premiums for companies with unpredictable turnover. They pay premiums when they have confidence in the reliability of future earnings.
Show a buyer £10m that arrives through two relationships and some tender luck, and they won't value £10m - they'll value the risk of it disappearing.
Customer concentration and owner-dependent sales are two of the heaviest discounts applied to owner-led businesses, and most owners never connect them to the way new work is won.
A systemised pipeline does the opposite. It tells a buyer: this business knows where its growth comes from, and it doesn't need the founder to shake hands for it.
The best businesses to own are the ones that don't need you. That includes not needing you to win the work.
Try doing this…
Write down where your last ten new contracts actually came from. Be honest about it.
If seven or more trace back to you personally, or to one or two sources, you've found the constraint on both your growth and your valuation. The fix is structure, not effort - and it's very buildable.
If you want a second pair of eyes on where your pipeline depends on luck, book a complimentary strategy call and we'll map it together:
Schedule your complimentary strategy call HERE.
All the best,
Gavin
P.S. If you'd like to see how the RADAR system works - especially if you're in construction or building services - email me with the word RADAR and I'll send you a short video walkthrough. No pitch. You'll see how it finds opportunities before everyone else does, and you can decide for yourself whether it fits your business.
Schedule your complimentary strategy call HERE.
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See how your business can win more work and waste less time - Visit McGideon.