Founders typically reclaim 10–20 hours per week while deals close more consistently.
This is delivered through a focused 16-week engagement designed to make sales independent of the founder.
The Founder’s Dilemma
If you’re closing every deal yourself, sales feels fragile.
If you’ve hired reps already, it probably feels inconsistent.
These are not different problems.
They both happen when what makes you effective at selling, your Founder Magic, lives only in your head.
Until that magic is made explicit, it can’t be taught, coached, or trusted. As a result, founders stay involved longer than they should, forecasts feel shaky, and hiring feels risky.
CloseLab exists to make Founder Magic transferable so sales works whether you are hiring your first rep or stepping back from deals entirely.
What Changes When CloseLab is Working
Deals progress without last-minute founder saves
Reps know when to push, pause, or walk
Pipeline becomes predictable instead of emotional
Hiring no longer feels like a $150K guess
Two Founder Paths. One Root Problem.
You’re not bad at sales. You’re at the point where sales success depends too much on you.
Founder A
Before the First Hire
You’re still closing everything yourself.
You tell yourself you’ll “figure out process later.”
But you hesitate to hire because:
You can’t clearly explain why you win
You don’t know what “good” looks like in a rep
Hiring feels like a $100K blind bet
Sales works because you’re in every deal. That doesn’t scale.
You’re not avoiding hiring. You’re avoiding betting blindly.
Founder B
After the First Hires
You hired smart reps.
You gave them decks, scripts, and a CRM.
Results are uneven and you’re back on calls “just to help.”
Sales looks staffed, but decisions still depend on you.
You didn’t hire wrong. You handed off without a system.
These look like different stages.
They’re the same problem showing up at different moments in time.
Why Sales Stops Working the Moment You Step Back
Founders don’t win deals by following steps.
They sell by making better decisions faster because they’ve seen these patterns before:
When curiosity is real versus polite
When urgency exists versus manufactured
When a deal is worth pushing or walking away from
Before your first hire, all of that lives with you.
After you hire, your team is expected to operate without it.
That gap is where sales stall, no matter how many people you hire.
THE MOST COMMON AND COSTLY MISTAKES:
Where Founders Go Wrong Before and After Hiring
Mistake 1.
Waiting to "systemize" later
By the time it hurts, deals are already slowing and risk is compounding.
Mistake 2.
Hiring before defining how you sell
Reps inherit confusion, not clarity. Founders end up fixing deals instead of building the business.
Mistake 3.
Assuming scripts equal training
Scripts remove judgement. Sales requires it.
Mistake 4.
Believing a VP or tool will fix this
They can't extract Founder Magic that was never articulated.
Built for Founders, Not Sales Departments.
The goal isn’t better sales theory.
It’s sales you don’t have to personally rescue.
We work with founders who are preparing to make their first sales hire and founders who have already hired but haven’t seen sales truly scale.
The work is the same in both cases:
Extract the judgment and decisions that actually win deals
Pressure-test them against real buyer behavior, not assumptions
Turn them into a system reps can run without founder rescue
Whether that system supports your first hire or stabilizes your current team, the foundation is identical.
Welcome to
The CloseLab 5-Phase Method
We don’t jump straight to tactics. We move in deliberate phases designed to turn Founder Magic into a system that survives hiring, growth, and pressure.
Phase 1: Founder Magic Extraction
We study how you actually sell, including your calls, decisions, language, and instincts.
The goal is not to assume it's all right. It's to separate:
- What genuinely works
- What works only because it's you
- What won't survive handoff
This happens inside active opportunities.
We run live deals alongside the founder from discovery through close. Not to take over, and not to rescue deals, but to observe how decisions are made when money is on the line.
This is where instinct becomes visible and buyer truth either confirms it or challenges it in real time.
Phase 2: Sales Operating System
What survives validation becomes the system.
As deals move forward, we pressure-test how founder decisions actually show up in live opportunities:
- Discovery depth that uncovers real buying pressure
- How urgency is created, clarified, or missed
- How objections are handled when risk surfaces
- How next steps are set, owned, and controlled
Because this work happens inside active deals, feedback is immediate. Weak spots show up fast. Strong patterns repeat.
The result is a clear operating system that defines how deals progress, what must be true at each stage, and how decisions get made, not just what gets said.
By the end of this phase, the system is already proven. It's not theoretical. It has closed real business.
Turn founder decisions into repeatable deal progression.
Phase 3: Smart CRM Build
Once the system works in the field, we install it into the CRM.
Stages reflect how buyers actually move, not how leadership wishes they did.
Exit criteria are based on real deal behavior, not activity volume.
Because the operating system was built inside live deals, the CRM supports judgment instead of forcing checkboxes.
Founders get visibility they can trust. Reps get guidance they can actually use.
Phase 4: Coaching and Reinforcement
With the system in place, we shift from building to reinforcement.
We create a custom sales coach agent trained on your qualification criteria, deal stages, and founder decision-making.
Calls are reviewed against your operating system, not generic best practices. Gaps are coached in context. Progress is measured by deal movement, not script compliance.
Because the coaching is grounded in your system and your deals, feedback is immediate and specific. Reps learn how to think, not just what to say.
This is where my involvement in live deals starts to step back.
The goal is not ongoing dependence. It’s confidence that deals move forward without founder or CloseLab intervention.
Phase 5: Scale Without Founder Dependency
With judgment embedded in the system and reinforced through coaching, growth no longer resets sales.
We define what "good" looks like before you add headcount.
That includes hiring profiles, onboarding paths, and clear expectations for how deals should be run.
New reps ramp faster because they’re stepping into a proven system, not tribal knowledge.
Founders step back without revenue stalling.
Sales continues to work as the team grows, not because of heroics, but because decision-making is already built into the business.
The goal isn’t a perfect sales process.
It’s momentum without constant founder involvement. More closed deals, less friction, reclaimed founder time, and clean insight into what’s actually happening in your pipeline.
Why it Works
Why This Holds Up in the Real World
Most sales programs fail because they’re designed in isolation and tested after the fact.
CloseLab works because every phase is built under real deal pressure, then reinforced so it holds up as you grow:
Founder Magic is observed and validated inside live opportunities, not assumed
Judgment is made visible before it’s taught or scaled
The operating system is proven in real deals before it’s documented
CRM reflects buyer behavior because it’s installed after decisions are pressure-tested
Coaching is continuous and system-based, not one-time or opinion-driven
Growth compounds because decision-making is embedded before headcount is added
Buyers don’t buy because a rep followed a process.
They buy when uncertainty is reduced and the next step feels obvious.
Program Structure
A focused 16-Week Engagement
This is not open-ended consulting.
The CloseLab system is built, validated, and installed over 16 weeks, with each phase stacking on the last so progress compounds instead of resetting.
By the end of the engagement, the system is already working in live deals and reinforced through coaching, so sales continues without ongoing CloseLab involvement.
What To Expect
What Changes After CloseLab
Sales stops depending on you.
Founders consistently see:
Deals move forward without late founder intervention
Reps progress opportunities with confidence instead of guessing
Pipeline becomes predictable instead of emotional
Hiring feels deliberate, not like a $150K gamble
Forecast conversations become calmer and grounded
10–20 hours back per week without revenue slipping
Who This is For
Who CloseLab Is Built to Help
This work is for founders who know sales works because it has worked through them, but don’t want revenue permanently tied to their calendar.
If sales depends on you, this is the conversation to have
Whether you’re hiring your first rep or trying to step back from deals, the question is the same. Will sales work without you?