Hey, 👋 Scott from The Sales Mastermind here.

Today’s edition only takes 3 minutes.

Some sellers excel at volume (more deals, lower $ per deal); others become champions of value (fewer deals, higher $ per deal). Let’s break down one of each below.

Today we’ll cover:

• Story Time
• Qualification​
• Seeding the Future
• Soft Closing
• Summary

Storytime

I coach Steve** and he excels at volume. Steve was the team's top performer by revenue in 2025 and for calendar Q1 and Q2 of this year.

However, another rep is closing the gap.

Jess** was Q3's top performer, by revenue, despite consistently closing fewer deals than Steve.

This is because Jess is a champion of value and closes deals with a higher average value.

At the time of writing, Steve has closed one more deal than Jess this month. And Jess has closed 22.1% more revenue.

Let’s break down their sales approach.

**Names changed to protect anonymity.

Qualification

All of Steve and Jess' leads come from form fills in various locations (company website, comparison websites, etc.).

So the first step in their sales process is qualifying inbound leads.

Steve is a loose qualifier; he invests time in every buyer that is willing to get on the phone with him. Sometimes loose qualification can be a weakness; however, Steve's close rate of 30-40% is above the company average. It simply means he works more deals than Jess.

Steve also runs “Project Necromancer”, where he calls historic leads to “bring them back from the dead”. Adding more deals to his pipeline.

Jess is aggressive with her qualification. This means she works far fewer deals. But the ones that she does work close at roughly the same ratio, and they close at a higher value.

Seeding the Future

During sales calls, both Steve and Jess "Seed the Future".

This means they consistently reference next steps, what happens during onboarding, and how to buy from their company.

The difference is in which future they seed.

Steve seeds the closing call (called an “Account Setup Call”) and constantly refers to it. He wants to close the deal and move on.

A paraphrased example:

Jess, however, seeds the higher value offering far more often. She will use buyer pains to proactively reference examples and features that are only found on the higher plans.

A paraphrase example:

Whenever we do a Pipeline Review, Steve has more set-up calls booked for the cheapest plan, while Jess’ deals rarely have a booked Account Setup Call but are mostly higher plans.

Soft Closing

Soft closing means the seller checking that the buyer wants to buy what was just discussed. It’s most effective during Pitch/Presentation/Demo calls to ensure the buyer is paying attention and agrees with the value of the presentation.

Some examples of Soft Closing are:

• "Great, so we just covered XXX. Can you see yourself using it?"
• "Ok, so we've been through the workflow to solve XXX pain; how does that land with you?"
• "Help me out. Did I answer the question, or did I miss the mark?"
• And my favourite universal soft close: “Let’s pause for a second, what’s going through your head?”

Steve is an excellent soft closer; he constantly asks the right questions at the right time to keep buyers engaged and move the deal forward.

At the beginning of 2026, Jess was below average at Soft Closing. She would present and move on. It was costing her deals.

By working on soft closing throughout the year, Jess has learnt to use soft closes as a method of Seeding the Future.

One example is what Jess calls “A/B Presenting,” where she presents the lower-plan solution, then explains how the higher plan solves the pain better and faster, then soft-closes to confirm which the buyer preferred.

By the time Jess gets to pricing, the buyer is deciding whether they're ready for the improved experience of the higher plan or focused only on saving a few dollars and opting for the lower plan.

In Summary

Neither volume nor value is inherently better; they’re simply different.

Because Steve and Jess play to their relative personalities, they are both succeeding.

Steve seeks to close more deals and is willing to sacrifice value. Jess wants to win by working fewer deals; therefore, she is willing to sacrifice volume.

By the end of the year, it will be tight to see who closes more new revenue.

Imagine you had to choose - Which suits your personality more? Ten $100,000 clients or one hundred thousand $10 clients - both get you to $1,000,000 in revenue but suit very different personalities.

Until next week,
Scott Cowley

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