Client Background & Challenge
This is the playbook. Everything else on this site — the thesis, the search criteria, the case studies, the about page — points here. This is what it looks like when I build the commercial engine inside a real business with real constraints, real people, and real revenue on the line.
Concordia Publishing House operates in a high-ticket, high-volume B2B environment, serving the church market with software and ministry resources through its SaaS division, Concordia Technology Solutions. The product portfolio was strong. The customer base was loyal. The sales organization was a decade behind both.
Processes were informal. Accountability was inconsistent. The two existing sales reps — called Software Consultants — were functioning as order takers, not consultative sellers. Quotas were set without pipeline visibility. HubSpot had been purchased but barely touched. There was no outbound function. No playbook. No cadence. No system connecting sales activity to revenue outcomes.
The team was working hard. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that effort without infrastructure doesn't scale. It just burns people out and leaves revenue on the table.
Every specialty manufacturer I evaluate looks exactly like this on the commercial side. Strong product. Loyal customers. A sales function that runs on the founder's relationships and individual heroics instead of a system. The product earns the business. The infrastructure loses it. This case study is what happens when someone builds the infrastructure.
Approach & Solution
I led a sales professionalization effort that blended RevOps discipline, sales process design, and change management to transform CPH's sales function from clerical order-taking into a predictable growth engine. People, process, and platform — in that order. That sequence matters because it's the same sequence I'll run inside a manufacturer.
People: Roles & Capability
The first job wasn't building systems. It was redefining what the sales team was supposed to be.
I transitioned two Software Consultants from clerical order processing to full-cycle, consultative sales — installing discovery frameworks, objection handling, solution positioning, and accountability for pipeline ownership. These were good people in the wrong role. They'd been hired to take orders and nobody had ever shown them how to sell. The product knowledge was there. The commercial skillset wasn't. I built it.
I coached both reps on pipeline management — how to actively build, track, and progress opportunities rather than wait for inbound activity. Waiting for the phone to ring isn't a sales strategy. It's a habit that forms when no one builds the system to replace it.
I trained the team on nurturing cold contacts — taking leads that were dormant and methodically moving them to warmth through sequencing, follow-up, and value-driven conversations. Most sales teams in small and mid-market businesses have hundreds of contacts sitting in a spreadsheet or a CRM nobody logs into. Those contacts aren't dead. They're just unworked. Building the system to work them is one of the fastest revenue unlocks in any business.
I created CPH's first Sales Development Representative function — hiring, onboarding, and training a dedicated SDR to run lead sourcing, cold outreach, and qualification. This gave the existing reps room to focus on closing instead of prospecting, and it built outbound discipline that had never existed.
Inside a manufacturer, this same work looks like transitioning a founder-dependent sales motion into a structured team with defined roles, clear territories, and accountability for pipeline. The founder's relationships open the door. The system keeps it open after the founder steps back.
Process: Playbooks & Operating Rhythm
I built standardized playbooks documenting every stage of the sales process — handoffs, activity expectations, exit criteria. Then I armed the team with the tools to execute: pitch decks, email templates, competitive one-pagers, and positioning guides that ensured consistent messaging regardless of which rep was in the conversation.
I instituted deal reviews and coaching cadences — regular pipeline reviews that reinforced accountability and improved forecast hygiene. Before this, nobody knew what was in the pipeline. Quotas were guesses. Forecasts were feelings. The cadence turned feelings into data and data into decisions.
Every manufacturer I evaluate has the same gap. The founder knows what's in the pipeline because it's in their head. Nobody else does. When the founder steps back, the pipeline becomes invisible. Building the playbook and the cadence is how you make the pipeline survive the transition — and it's one of the first things I install in any business.
Platform: HubSpot & RevOps
I recut territories using data — volume, potential, and coverage — to reduce friction, clarify ownership, and give each rep a book of business they could plan against instead of competing over.
I reimplemented HubSpot from the ground up. Cleaned the data. Rebuilt objects and fields. Deployed automations for lead routing, tasking, and follow-ups. Stood up dashboards aligned to stages, quotas, and activity metrics. The CRM had been purchased and ignored — the most common story in B2B sales. A CRM is only as useful as the process it enforces. Without process, it's an expensive address book. With process, it's the operating system of the commercial engine.
I redesigned quotas and the entire compensation structure. Standardized stage definitions. Aligned quotas to real territory potential and historical conversion rates — not aspirational targets pulled from a board presentation. Then I overhauled compensation to drive the right behavior. Instead of paying reps on every deal, payouts only kicked in once monthly quota was met — at 5%. If reps also achieved their annual quota, their commission rate retroactively increased to 7% on the year. This created healthy pressure to consistently hit targets while delivering outsized rewards for year-end overperformance — all without blowing up budget discipline.
That compensation redesign is the kind of structural work that separates a sales manager from a commercial operator. Anyone can set a quota. Building the incentive architecture that aligns individual behavior with company economics — and holds up under pressure — is the infrastructure work that makes the system sustainable. It's exactly the kind of work a manufacturer with a founder-dependent sales team has never had anyone build.
Results & Impact
Results & Impact
Every result below came from building commercial infrastructure around a team that already had the talent and the product to succeed. No new hires beyond the SDR. No new products. No new markets. Just people, process, and platform — installed with discipline and measured with rigor.
Quota attainment doubled. The team went from roughly 65% attainment to consistent 120%+ within six months. Not by working harder — by working inside a system that told them where to focus, what to say, and how to progress a deal from contact to close. The same reps. The same product. The same market. The only thing that changed was the infrastructure underneath them.
That number is the single clearest proof point of my thesis. When you take a team that's underperforming — not because they lack effort but because they lack structure — and you install the commercial system, the results aren't incremental. They're transformational. 65% to 120% isn't optimization. It's what happens when you build the engine for the first time.
Revenue growth accelerated 37% year over year. Structured pipeline management and conviction-driven selling replaced the guesswork that had been passing for a sales process. Deals moved faster because the stages were defined. Forecasts became reliable because the data was clean. And reps sold with confidence because they had playbooks, tools, and coaching rhythms backing every conversation.
Inside a manufacturer, 37% year-over-year growth from the same customer base and the same product line is the kind of number that transforms enterprise value at a 4× multiple. That's not marketing growth. That's commercial infrastructure growth — the exact lever my acquisition thesis is built on.
Speed-to-lead improved 1,300%. Leads that used to sit for days — sometimes weeks — were being contacted within minutes. In B2B sales, speed-to-lead is one of the highest-correlation predictors of conversion. The improvement wasn't about hustle. It was about automation, routing, and a CRM that actually worked. The system responded faster than any individual could, because that's what systems do.
Confidence replaced confusion. This is the result that doesn't show up on a dashboard but changes everything underneath one. The team went from scattered activity and unclear expectations to knowing exactly what was expected, exactly how to execute, and exactly where they stood against quota at any point in the month. Clear processes, professional tools, and disciplined pipeline management gave them conviction. Conviction changed how they showed up in every conversation. And that changed the numbers.
The transformation at CPH is the proof of concept for everything I plan to do as an owner. A small, underdeveloped sales team — working hard but without structure — transformed into a disciplined, growth-oriented engine that consistently exceeds quota. The product didn't change. The people didn't change. The infrastructure did. That's the entire thesis.
Why It Matters
Most sales teams don't fail for lack of effort. They fail for lack of structure. That statement is true inside a SaaS company. It's true inside a specialty manufacturer. It's true inside every business I've ever worked in where the product was strong, the customers were loyal, and the revenue was still underperforming.
At CPH, the talent was there. The product strength was there. The market was there. What was missing was the commercial infrastructure to connect them — clear processes, defined roles, reliable systems, and the discipline to execute against all three consistently. Without that infrastructure, growth was inconsistent, forecasts were unreliable, and revenue depended on individual effort instead of organizational capability.
Alignment comes first. Sales systems collapse without leadership buy-in. I've watched it happen — a new CRM purchased and ignored, a playbook written and shelved, a comp plan redesigned and never enforced. The system only works when leadership commits to the discipline it demands. Inside a manufacturer, this is the same challenge: the founder has to believe the system is worth building before anyone else will follow it. Getting that buy-in is the first job. Everything else is downstream.
Collateral matters. A clear playbook and modern tools prevent drift and build conviction. Reps who know what to say, when to say it, and how to position against the competition sell with confidence. Reps who are winging it sell with anxiety. The difference between those two states shows up in every metric — close rate, deal size, cycle time, pipeline velocity. Inside a manufacturer, the sales team is often one or two people — sometimes just the founder. Building the playbook means the next person who sits in that chair can sell at 80% of the founder's effectiveness on day one instead of spending two years learning the relationships from scratch.
Data integrity is non-negotiable. Without clean inputs, quotas and forecasts are noise. I rebuilt HubSpot from the ground up at CPH because the existing data was worse than useless — it was misleading. Inside a manufacturer that has never had a CRM, this is actually an advantage. Starting clean is easier than cleaning up years of bad data. But the principle is the same: the system is only as good as the information inside it, and building the discipline to keep that information accurate is as important as building the system itself.
With the right structure, even a small, underdeveloped sales team can evolve into a disciplined, growth-oriented engine that consistently exceeds quota and scales with confidence. CPH proved it. The same proof is waiting inside every specialty manufacturer where the product has been carrying the business and the commercial system hasn't been built yet.
This Is the Playbook
65% quota attainment to 120%+. 37% year-over-year revenue growth. 1,300% speed-to-lead improvement. Same reps. Same product. Same market. The only thing that changed was the commercial infrastructure.
This case study isn't a parallel to my acquisition thesis. It is my acquisition thesis — executed inside a live business, with my name on the outcome, and the numbers to prove it works.
I'm searching for one specialty manufacturer to acquire, operate, and build for the long term. $10M–$18M in revenue. Stable operations. Loyal customers. A founder who cares about what happens next.
If that's your business — or a business you know — I'd welcome the conversation.
rob@davidsonventures.com · 314-915-0508
