Test the growth plan on real buyers first. Then put people and money behind what you learn.
Taking over sales at a company can mean inheriting a customer base built through the founder's (or your predecessor's) relationships.
Maybe you're a VP of Sales joining a business where the founder has done the selling, or the book came to you after a predecessor left or an acquisition closed. Or you hired that person and you're about to sign off on their plan.
The next plan may call for more business from existing accounts, new customers, or partners who haven't produced much yet. Often a combination of those.
Before committing people and budget, I'd want to know which parts of the growth plan the team can already deliver, and which still need testing.
A growth plan usually arrives as a number on each line: so much from existing accounts, so much from new customers, so much from partners. Every line assumes the team can produce it. Last year's results can't confirm that on their own, because some of that revenue may have moved through a person who's now stepping back.
The obvious response is to staff each line: an account manager for expansion, a partner lead for the channel, a seller for new logos. The trouble shows up months later, when the first read on a new hire arrives tangled. If the hire misses, you can't tell whether the route doesn't work for this business or the person was wrong for the route. Testing the route first, for a few weeks with the people you already have, shows whether it produces anything before you hire someone to run it.
Start with where last year's revenue came from and what made it grow. Look at new customers, repeat purchases, and expansion within accounts. Record where the opportunities came from and where the founder or predecessor helped move them forward.
Build a sheet of last year's closed deals, one row each, sorted into those three groups, with two columns the CRM probably won't fill for you. The first is where the opportunity came from: an inbound inquiry, a customer referral, a partner, someone's prospecting, or the founder's or predecessor's own network. The second is where the founder or predecessor stepped in: the first meeting, the proposal, the pricing call, the signature, or nowhere.
Keep those columns separate. A deal can arrive as an inbound inquiry and still need the founder to get it signed, and a deal the founder introduced can run without them after the first meeting. Fill the gaps by walking the list with the founder or predecessor while they're still around to ask, and with the account owners if they've already gone.
Then read the sheet against the plan. A plan line that leans on a route with little history in last year's book is the first one to test.
Then choose one or two routes to test. With more than two running, the same few people split their time, and no route gets enough effort to read.
Existing accounts. If the plan relies on selling more to existing customers, have an account manager explore a specific unmet need with a small group of suitable accounts. Find out whether those conversations turn into proposals and additional business. Pick accounts that look like the ones that already expanded, and a need the business can name in one sentence. If the founder or predecessor still holds the relationship, have them introduce the account manager first, so the expansion conversation isn't also the first meeting. The account manager asks about the customer's work, not the catalog: how are you handling this today, who owns it, and has it come up in planning this year.
Referrals. If referrals matter, have the team ask satisfied customers for introductions to a clearly defined type of buyer. Track whether those introductions happen and lead to opportunities. "Do you know anyone who could use us?" tends to get a friendly yes and nothing after. "Who runs operations at another company your size that you'd be comfortable introducing me to?" gives the customer one person to think of. Have the account owner make the ask, and record any customer who'll only make the introduction if the founder asks.
Partners, dormant prospects, inquiries. A partner could help reach a new segment. Dormant prospects may have a reason to reconsider. Existing inquiries may need better follow-through. Choose the test that answers an assumption in your plan; outbound is another option when reaching new buyers is the job. For a partner, pick one you already work with, agree on a defined buyer profile or a short list of named accounts you want to reach, and ask for introductions inside the window. For dormant prospects, contact the buyer behind each proposal that went quiet over the past year, once, with one specific thing that's changed on your side. For inquiries, give every new one a named owner and a same-day reply, and compare first meetings against the months before.
New buyers. For outbound, build the list from companies that look like the customers who came in without a personal tie to the founder or predecessor. If every past customer came with a tie, build it from the segment the plan names, and treat that profile as part of what you're testing. Write two opening messages, each leading with a different reason the business could matter to that buyer, and split the list at random between them. Send both from someone none of them has met, with neither the founder's nor the predecessor's name in the email. If a familiar name sends it, the result can't separate the business from the name. Send from a separate, warmed domain rather than the company's main one, so a test that goes badly doesn't put the team's everyday email at risk. Score it on replies, first meetings, and opportunities that meet the business's own qualification standard. Opens don't count.
Keep track of who engaged, what they committed to next, the effort involved, and where the founder or predecessor still had to step in. An introduction from them can be part of a successful handover. Watch whether the team can move the opportunity forward from there.
One row per conversation covers every route: the route, the person and account, the agreed next step, the hours or touches it took, and whether the founder or predecessor stepped in and at which stage. A next step counts when it has a date or a deliverable: a second meeting on the calendar, a proposal request, an introduction made. "Let's stay in touch" doesn't count. After an introduction, note whether the new account lead ran the next meeting and wrote the proposal, or whether each step pulled the founder back in.
Keep the results separate by route. An introduction, an expansion conversation, and a cold email start with different levels of trust, and pooling them hides which route is working.
A few weeks may show whether buyers engage and take a next step. Follow those opportunities through to revenue and see whether the results repeat. A quiet test leaves that route unproven and gives you something to investigate.
At the end of the window, you can say something like this out loud: "Expansion conversations with our larger accounts turned into proposals, some of those have signed, and the account manager ran them without the founder. Referral asks produced introductions, but each one needed the founder at the pricing call."
That read supports a dedicated account manager on expansion and a handover plan for referrals before anyone's hired to run them. The partner budget waits until that route gets its own test. Use the results to identify which accounts might grow, which sources are creating opportunities, and where the team still needs help.
Reading a next step as revenue. A proposal request isn't a signed deal. Keep following each opportunity after the window ends, to a signature or a no.
Reading silence as proof. A quiet route is unproven, not disproven. Before you write it off, check the list, the message, the timing, and whether the asks actually went out. Silence doesn't show that growth needs the old relationships.
Scoring the founder's help as a failure. A founder or predecessor introduction isn't a mark against the route. Count the deal, and record what the team did after the introduction.
The customer base came with the relationships that built it. Before the plan gets staffed, find out on real buyers which parts of it the team can carry from here, one or two routes at a time. Put people and money behind what you're learning.
When the route that needs testing is new buyers, that's the test I run at Congruity: a few weeks of outreach from a sender none of those buyers has met, scored on replies, first meetings, and qualified opportunities.
If a line of that plan leans on buyers none of the team has met, that's the route I'd test before anyone's hired to run it. Bring the plan and last year's book. We'll work out which lines to test first.
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