Why Founders Struggle to Close (And the Three Things That Fix It)
Apr 30, 2026When I'm working with founders, I find them getting lost in sales — using someone else's words instead of their own.
There's a gravitas that comes with being a founder. Doors open for you because of your experience, your skills, and because what you're building is genuinely remarkable. But too many founders I've seen end up with huge pipelines and real struggles trying to get those deals closed.
If that's you, three things will really help.
1. Bring Transparency
Most founders are beholden to the people they employ, to their investors, and to the runway — how much cash is in the bank. That can be called out, but not the way you might think. You're going to call it out the way a CEO would.
It sounds something like this: "We've got X amount of customers. It's great we're chatting today." Then you pull up a slide showing the typical plan customers go through.
Call it a mutual action plan, a mutual success plan, whatever you like. It's one slide that shows every step from someone taking interest to becoming a customer that's achieving value. It doesn't stop at signature. It stops when they achieve the outcome they're after.
Put a dotted line showing where they are right now. Call out the next steps. Call out the stakeholders and key people who need to get involved.
If you feel uncomfortable sharing that, just frame it like this: "This is what our successful customers do. This is the way me, the board, and the investors have agreed we're proceeding. If we're going to go down a different route, let's talk it through, so I can explain that to the investors and outline what's different in this situation."
Because if you're deviating from your sales plan, it's because it gives you a better chance of closing — and a better chance of delivering value for them.
2. Protect Your Commercial Model
When it comes to what you're offering, call out the fact that your CFO or your investors control the purse strings.
Tell them: "This is the price and model we've arrived at. I think it's very fair. It delivers a lot of value." Push away the thinking that, because you're the CEO, you can give it away for free for a period or at a heavily discounted rate.
Call out that, in order to achieve fairness for all your customers, everybody comes on the platform at the same rates.
This makes a huge, huge difference.
3. Always Secure a Next Step
This is what a sales professional always does. Weak sales professionals don't.
Every time you chat with somebody, book in a next step. It doesn't matter if you're in a meeting with them. Take out your phone, take out your laptop — it'll probably be out already — and get that next step booked in. Absolutely crucial.
And once you've shown the slide of the process you're going to follow, underline who's going to be involved. Spend a couple of minutes identifying the right people, and then you can drop their first names into the conversation.
"Is this when we're going to get John in from clients?" "Is this when Jay the CFO is going to be getting involved?" "Normally at this point, we'd speak to X, the user team."
Loop them in early.
Final Thought
You may feel like you're using someone else's words, like you're pretending to be a salesperson. But the reality is, if you're going to be a successful founder, you're going to have to be successful at closing.
You need to do this to give yourself the best chance.
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