B2b Sales Constraint Diagnosis

B2B Sales Constraint Diagnosis

Use this skill to find the sales bottleneck before recommending tactics. The goal is to identify the one constraint that is throttling the current sales system, then route work to the most relevant repair skill.

Source Traceability

Primary source: Unf*ck Your Sales by Jakob Greenfeld. Authoring notes used the sections "Our Map, Lens, and Compass", "The One Sentence Sales Course", "Invert, Always Invert!", "The Theory of Constraints", and "Putting It Together".

Constraint Model

Diagnose in this order:

1. Reach - the right people do not know the company exists.
2. Resonance - the right people see the company but do not connect it to a painful problem, concrete outcome, and credible mechanism.
3. Timing - buyers know and understand the company, but the company is not present when pain becomes urgent.
4. Trust - qualified buyers engage but do not feel enough certainty or risk reduction to take action.

Only one constraint should be treated as primary at a time. Everything else is secondary until the primary constraint is fixed or disproven.

Diagnostic Workflow

1. Restate the current sales symptom and stage:
   • No awareness or no replies.
   • Replies but poor recall or weak understanding.
   • Interest but no urgency or inconsistent timing.
   • Qualified calls, proposals, or trials that stall or ghost.
2. Check for basic evidence before diagnosing:
   • Target segment or account list.
   • Recent outreach or visibility activity.
   • Message or offer being used.
   • Lead, meeting, close, and ghosting data.
3. Run the constraint checks:
   • Reach: Have enough named buyers in the target market been reached at least once?
   • Resonance: Can target buyers explain what the company does, who it is for, and what problem it solves?
   • Timing: Has every viable buyer seen or heard from the company in the last 4-6 weeks?
   • Trust: Do qualified buyers close at an acceptable rate once they engage?
4. Pick the weakest proven constraint. If evidence is missing, recommend the smallest diagnostic test rather than guessing.
5. Route next work:
   • Reach problem: use b2b-reach-engineering.
   • Resonance problem: use b2b-resonance-audit.
   • Timing problem: use b2b-timing-engine.
   • Trust problem: use b2b-trust-engineering.

Output Format

# B2B Sales Constraint Diagnosis

## Current Symptom
- Segment:
- Offer:
- Sales motion:
- Evidence reviewed:

## Constraint Assessment
| Constraint | Evidence | Pass/Concern | Confidence |
|------------|----------|--------------|------------|
| Reach | | | |
| Resonance | | | |
| Timing | | | |
| Trust | | | |

## Primary Constraint
[Name the one constraint and why it is most likely throttling growth.]

## Next Diagnostic Or Repair
- Use skill:
- First action:
- Success signal:
- Do not optimize yet:

Quality Bar

• Do not prescribe tactics before naming the constraint.
• Do not optimize messaging, follow-up, funnels, or close tactics if the market has not actually been reached.
• Do not diagnose rejection when the market may simply be unaware.
• Do not work on multiple bottlenecks at once unless the user explicitly wants a broad audit.
• Treat missing evidence as a diagnostic task, not permission to guess.