No owner
Marketing is done, sales is busy
Marketing is measured on leads, sales on revenue. The road in between belongs to everyone, and therefore to no one.
What we solve
The Last Mile of Sales
The phase between serious opportunity and signed order. That is where revenue is won or lost, and where most B2B companies steer least systematically.
The definition
What is the Last Mile?
Companies spend a great deal on marketing, CRM, salespeople and filling the pipeline. The final stretch, from serious opportunity to signed order, gets remarkably little attention.
We call that final stretch the Last Mile of Sales. It begins the moment a client shows serious interest and ends with the signature, or with silence. It covers qualification, deal strategy, positioning, proposition, pitch, proposal, pricing, decision-making, strategic tenders, follow-up and win/loss: everything that determines whether an existing opportunity actually becomes an order.
Sometimes that Last Mile takes nine months, with ten decision-makers at the table. Sometimes it is a standard proposal that goes out dozens of times a week. Either way, the quality of that process determines how much revenue eventually comes in.
- This is where DealCraft works
- LeadMarketing and network. We leave that work to others.
- OpportunityA client with a real need, a budget and a timeline.
- Proposal or tenderProposal, pitch, bid: the story on paper.
- DecisionThe client chooses, often without you in the room.
- ContractThe signature, or a silence nobody learns from.
The blind spot
Why this part is managed so poorly
At the front of the funnel everything is measurable: visitors, leads, meetings. There are tools for it, dashboards, and a marketing budget that has to be accounted for. After the opportunity, that changes. From there it depends on the experience of one salesperson, and on a proposal that is often the previous proposal with a different name on top.
No data
Losses are not recorded
A won deal is celebrated, a lost deal is closed. Why it was lost, nobody usually knows for sure.
No rhythm
Every deal starts from scratch
Without a fixed way of working, every deal is steered on experience, and what worked disappears as soon as that experience leaves.
The pattern
Where deals typically stall
Most deals are not lost on price. They are lost in one of these places, often long before anyone notices. Even for us the cause is rarely clear in one go; that is why we look at ten deals at once, not one.
- Qualification. Time goes into deals that could never be won, and too little into the ones that could.
- Deal strategy. Nobody has established who decides, who influences, and why this client wants to change now.
- Proposition. The proposal describes the supplier instead of the client's situation.
- Price and value. The value was never made explicit, so the conversation turns to discounts.
- Decision-making. The deal hangs in "we'll get back to you". No decision is also a loss.
- Follow-up and learning. After sending, the deal goes quiet, and afterwards the lesson disappears.
What you measure
Which numbers matter at board level
Pipeline is not revenue. If you want to steer the Last Mile, you look at what happens to the pipeline, not just at how big it is.
Win rate
How many serious opportunities become an order
Ideally by number and by value, because the two tell a different story.
No-decision
How many deals end without a decision
Often a bigger leak than losing to a competitor, and rarely measured.
Lead time
How long a deal takes
The longer a deal stands still, the smaller the chance it will still be won.
Deal value
What an average order yields
And whether that value holds up between proposal and contract.
Cost per win
What a won order really costs
Including all the hours in the deals you lost.
Loss reasons
Why you lost, according to the buyer
Not according to the salesperson. A buyer tells an independent third party more.
Proposal conversion
The role of the proposal, and of the tender
The proposal is one of the most important moments in the Last Mile. Once you are no longer at the table, your proposal has to defend your difference on its own, with people you may never have spoken to. That is why, when we improve your proposal conversion, we always look at what the client reads, not at what you meant.
But a proposal never stands alone. A strong proposal for a poorly qualified deal still loses, and a good proposal without follow-up disappears into a black hole. Improving proposal conversion therefore starts before the writing and doesn't stop at sending.
A tender is sometimes the most intense form of the Last Mile: high value, several decision-makers, hard requirements and little room for recovery. A bid ticks the boxes; the difference is in what sparks. We take on strategic tenders selectively, as a live deal.
The method
How DealCraft analyses the Last Mile
We don't start with an opinion, but with your own deals. Ten recent proposals, won and lost, form the evidence. We put your sales process next to them, so the pattern becomes visible.
§ 01 · Diagnose
We expose the leak
The DealScan: baseline, patterns in deals won and lost, the biggest conversion leaks, and per leak what it costs each year for as long as it stays open.
§ 02 · Redesign
We build what does win
The Project: the Last Mile redesigned in three months, from qualification and proposition to proposal, pitch, pricing and win/loss.
§ 03 · Steer
We make it a habit
The Partnership: review of live deals, periodic win/loss, and the measurement repeated on the same yardstick.
Further reading
The book and the articles
Founder Ernst Wallinga is writing The Last Mile of Sales, a book about why complex B2B deals are so often lost after the most important sales conversations have already taken place.
Our articles on win/loss, proposal conversion, pricing and the Last Mile are currently published in Dutch. Read them on our Dutch blog →
Next step
Where do your deals stall?
If you want to know structurally why deals are won or lost, start with the DealScan: € 999, two weeks, ten of your own deals. If an important deal or tender is in play right now, we discuss that first.