In most B2B companies sales runs on a model we call 360°: one person owns everything, from finding a prospect, through first contact and qualification, all the way to negotiation and signature. It sounds efficient. In practice it is the most expensive setup you can run.
Where the time goes
The rep you hired to close deals spends most of the week on work that has nothing to do with closing: building lists, writing first messages, chasing replies, qualifying contacts that drop off anyway. The higher the ACV and the longer the cycle, the worse this drift gets.
The most expensive resource on the sales team is not used for what it was hired to do.
Why it persists
The 360° model survives because it is easy to manage and hard to measure. When one person does everything, nobody breaks their week down by the cost of each stage. As long as the target lands, nobody asks how much it costs just to reach the first real conversation.
What to measure before you change anything
- How many hours a week your closing team spends on prospecting and qualification.
- The cost of one qualified conversation with a decision-maker in the current setup.
- How many contracts never happened because too little time was left for closing.
The third way
The point is not to fire the rep or hire another one. The point is to separate the reach-and-qualify stage from the closing stage, and to hand the first one to someone specialised. Then your most expensive person goes back to what you pay them for: conversations that end in a signature.