Here is the deal: as an entrepreneur, you must be the best sales person at your company. There aren't any excuses that can combat that. Then, once the business has a revenue stream, you may hire a small sales team to continue new business into the sales funnel.

In order to become successful, you (and your co-founders) must make an effort to pursue those leads on your own.

If you need help on developing a system or a sales process, do not hesitate to message me. I would love to help. I have done sales strategy consulting and coaching many times and have trained many entrepreneurs to become successful in sales.

If you schedule a call with me and do not think it was worth your time and money, I will refund your money no questions asked.

However, you should shoot me a message and explain to me a little bit better what your situation is exactly so I can figure out how I can best help. I always give free email support until your goals are achieved.

Hope to see a message from you soon.

- Colin

Is that $20.00 per unit? Or, is there a zero missing?

Tough to say without knowing what your product or service is, but if it's something they can purchase online, you can hook up a payment system to your site and use data segmentation and email nurturing campaigns to drive them to purchase.

Happy to discuss how to approach this with you in greater detail if you'd like to schedule a call.

If you have the leads and a good product hire sales people. Either commission only, minimum base salary if they opt for that prior to starting the week's sales period... If they feel they're on a learning curve you motivate them with tools and tips but make them feel safe and calm with a secure base pay while they get things working for them.
Hire straight salary.

That is actually a fantastic problem to have.

We went through a similar situation during the early days of my startup.

You really have two options: either recruit sales people or automate the process by improving your conversion funnel.

If your deal size is as large as you've mentioned, ($20K), it might be in your best interest to hire a real person/team to do the closing.

Recruiting, vetting, and working with a killer sales team, is completely different discussion.

Hope that helps! Happy to answer any other questions you may have :)

You have some great advice here. Of course the devil is in the details. We don't know what you are selling. I assume you are working as hard as possible. How do you make your company look and operate larger than it actually is? LEVERAGE. Can you hire sales agents to sell your product? Can you find resellers? Is your product part of a broader solution? If so, can you recruit integrators. Also, are there master reseller opportunities. These are just a few questions I would have. Also, are we talking about qualified leads are inquiries?

Best of luck.

Denny

Establish a sales funnel.... Use cheaper / less experienced people to qualify and make appointments whether personal or virtual. Use more experienced people to have a conversation and/or the final close. Most sales are a three step process, especially in a higher value item. Don't rush the close, establish the value. Apart from this basic idea, everything has to be custom tailored to your particular needs. Let me know if you need further help developing this.

I am a startup mentor and business consultant for early stage startups.

There are different approaches which might work here. For $20/deal it's not very much you can do to close deals and it is questionable if you should get sales reps with such a deal size.

So, if you can't get reps....what can you do?

There are two questions here which you should answer before hand to get a better understanding of your sales:

1) How do you determine whether your leads have real potential and are ready to close the deal?

This questions is quite important, because you don't have the time and recourses to follow up on leads which don't have any potential or are not fitting your own profile. You should definitely take a look into lead nurturing/scoring and make sure that you pre-filter your leads and break them down into the leads which have a high chance to buy your product.

2) How do leads reach you?
There are various sales workflow products which will help you send out some automatic emails.

I hope that this will offer you some more insights. Feel free to reach out to me, so I can answers your questions more specific.

As a small business owner, you are the salesperson. No one understands and owns your product more than you do. Is there a reason you are not closing those $20k deals? Do you not have the time? The skills? The processes?

Without knowing the details of your operation, I can only make assumptions. A friend said to me that he is not a sales person. I beg to differ. If you are passionate about something, you will be able to persuade someone to take action on it.

That said, if you are simple unable to close the sales, which is a different issue to address, then hire a sales person. You will need a talented person with great people skills who will learn your product intimately, build rapport and relationships with your leads/prospects and move them through a sales cycle to close the sale.

Hope that helps. Let's get on the phone if you need more assistance. I can definitely help! Best of wishes!

Hire a VA to do it.

If you have leads for your solution but lack the resources to follow up and close opportunities, there are several options to be consider:
1)Consider establishing partnerships with resellers or distributors who can sell your solution on your behalf.
2)Implementing sales automation software and tools can streamline your sales process and make it more efficient.
3) Invest in training and developing your existing team to enhance their sales skills.
4)Another option is to outsource your sales function to a third-party sales agency or freelancers.
Remember to assess the costs and benefits of each option.

I've been in similar situation recently. You need to hire "CLOSERS". Closers are the people where you sent your warm leads to, and they will close the deal for you. Closers work on commission based only, therefore the deal size matters. $20K is ideal. Two of the best place that I know to source Closers are : Dan Lok and Grant Cardone. Dan Lok and Grant Cardone have the institutions where they train and provide the best closers in the world.

Create an online presence. On LinkedIn. Other socials are optional. Make a short reel or explanatory post. Where you advertise your opportunity. You will attract potential sales agents. Look at the instagram page of Shelby Sapp. She has 2M+ followers and all she does is advertise high-ticket sales opportunities.

This is a challenge I've seen many B2B solution providers face — the pipeline exists but the conversion machinery isn't there. At a $20K deal size, you're in a range where a fully automated CRM workflow can carry a significant chunk of the follow-up burden before a human even needs to get involved.

Here's how I'd approach it:

1. Before hiring, automate the follow-up gap with a CRM
If you don't have a CRM handling lead nurturing, that's the first fix. Tools like Dynamics 365 Sales, HubSpot, or even Zoho CRM can automate:
- Lead assignment and routing
- Timed follow-up email sequences (Day 1, Day 3, Day 7 after inquiry)
- Task reminders for manual touchpoints
- Lead scoring so you know which leads are genuinely warm vs. just curious

At $20K per deal, even converting one extra lead per month through better follow-up automation pays for a year of CRM licensing. The automation doesn't close deals — but it keeps leads warm until a closer can engage.

2. Consider a fractional or commission-only sales resource
Before hiring a full-time SDR (Sales Development Rep), test with a commission-only closer or a fractional sales person who works 10-15 hours/week. At $20K deals with reasonable margins, a 10-15% closer commission is attractive to experienced sales people and costs you nothing until a deal closes.

3. Workflow for the sales process (even with no sales team)
Map your current lead-to-close workflow:
- Where are leads coming from? (Inbound vs. outbound)
- What happens after a lead arrives? Is there a defined set of steps?
- Where are deals dying — at first contact, after demo, at proposal stage?

Most companies without a sales team lose deals in the follow-up silence after the first conversation. A Power Automate or Zapier workflow tied to your CRM can fire reminder tasks, send proposal follow-ups, and even trigger re-engagement campaigns for cold leads — all without a dedicated salesperson.

4. If you do hire, hire a closer not a prospector
Since you already have leads coming in, you don't need a prospector. You need someone who can take a warm conversation from demo to signed contract. That's a very different skill from cold outreach, and you'll find better ROI on a closer at your deal size.

Happy to discuss setting up a CRM + workflow automation for your specific sales process if you want to explore that path — feel free to book a call.