The commercial side, explained honestly

That depends on two things: where your clients come from and whether you already have proof that it works. First the terms, because they often get mixed up. Hiring in means bringing someone into your company temporarily to work under your name, such as an interim sales manager or an interim commercial director. Outsourcing means handing the work to an outside agency. When you hire in, you stay in charge of how you sell. When you outsource, you depend on the agency to tell your story well and reach the right people. You may end up with a calendar full of meetings that deliver little.

Most owners win their first clients through their own network and nobody can take that part off your hands. There, people buy into you and your story. The colder the work gets, the easier it is to repeat and hand over. That only works once there are clients and results someone else can build on. So the order is: start with warm contacts and do it yourself, build proof and hand over what has become repeatable.

As soon as the commercial side takes too much of your time and the work can be handed over. Those two belong together. Being busy is not a reason on its own, because then you pass a structural problem on to someone who cannot solve it. Being ready to hand over means three things. You have clients from outside your own network, so the story also works with people who did not already know you. There is an approach that has proven itself more than once: you know who to approach, what to say and why it works. And you can explain what that person will do next Monday.

As an owner you ultimately want to work on your business instead of in it. Your first salesperson is a step towards that.

A pipeline is not a sales team and not an expensive system either. It is a list of the right companies and a fixed rhythm to follow them up. Without a team, this is how you build it. First decide who your ideal client is, so you can say no to the rest. Start with your own network and expand from there. Set aside a fixed time each week for the commercial side, even when you are busy. Most pipelines stall not for lack of leads but because follow-up stops. And record every contact, in a spreadsheet if need be. A working pipeline does not need a team. It needs a rhythm that holds when things get busy.

In most small and mid-sized businesses the sales process lives in the owner's head, but is not written down anywhere. So structuring it does not start with a tool but with writing down what actually happens now, from first contact to signed deal. Then do three things. Map the stages a client goes through and agree when a deal may move to the next stage. Define what a good lead is for you, otherwise the pipeline becomes a wish list. And look at each stage to see where deals get stuck, because that is where you can improve. That is how sales becomes predictable and easy to hand over. You need that to grow without everything running through you.

Step by step, not all at once. Doing the commercial side yourself actually works well at the start. Nobody tells the story better than you. The problem is that it does not grow with the business, because your calendar is the ceiling. Letting go does not mean handing everything over tomorrow. It means splitting up the work. Start with the parts that do not depend on you: finding out who to approach, the follow-up and keeping the CRM up to date. Someone else or a system can do that for you. Keep the conversations yourself for now, because that is where you find the knowledge you will later want to pass on. Meanwhile, write down what works: who responds, which story lands and why clients say yes. That way the commercial side is on paper and not only in your head.

Everyone calls it something different. Sales manager, sales director, commercial manager, commercial director, head of sales: the titles overlap and what someone does varies from company to company. So ignore the title and ask two questions. Who sets the direction and who makes sure it actually happens?

A sales consultant advises. They review your situation, analyse it and give you a plan, but the execution stays with you. An interim sales manager steps into the operation and does the work or manages your sales team for an agreed period. As an interim commercial director I do both. I set the direction together with you (which market, which prices, where the growth comes from) and make sure it actually happens, down to the follow-up and the numbers.

All three carry a risk. With a consultant you can be left with a good report and too little time to act on it. With an interim manager, the knowledge can walk out the door on the day the contract ends. So always ask up front: what remains once this person is gone?

By letting AI do the work around the conversation and not the conversation itself. A common mistake is letting AI write complete emails and sending them at volume. The recipient spots that right away and you damage your reputation with exactly the people you want to reach.

What AI is good at: finding out which companies have a reason to talk to you now, who the right person is there and what is going on with them. Reading the numbers in your CRM, so you can see where your revenue comes from and where deals get stuck. And above all keeping track: who needs a reminder, which quote is still open, which conversation needs a next step. Nobody manages to track all that by hand, not even you as the owner. What you say and write remains a human job. If AI writes a first version, you read it before it goes out: your tone, your story and a reason why you are contacting this particular person.

Yes, but no longer at volume. Mass email works against you, because recipients recognise it right away. And if one recipient marks you as spam, the rest of your batch goes into the spam folder with it. On top of that, the Netherlands is stricter than many other countries. You may cold-email companies such as a BV (private limited company) as long as you clearly identify yourself and offer a way to unsubscribe, but you may not cold-email sole traders and freelancers without their consent.

What does work is small and targeted. Ten to thirty well-chosen companies a week, each with a reason why you are approaching them now. And an email that describes their situation instead of your service. Remember what the email is for: starting the conversation, not continuing it by email. Expect around seven touchpoints before a meeting is booked: an email, a reminder, a LinkedIn request and a call. In between, they look at your website or your LinkedIn posts.

You are best off doing cold outreach yourself, in-house. It runs on a fixed rhythm and on knowledge of your product and clients. That knowledge sits with you, not with an agency. What you can bring in from outside is the setup: who to approach, with which story and how to keep track.

Start with your best clients. Which small group brings in most of your revenue and is the most pleasant to work with? Describe what that group has in common: sector, size and how they are organised. Then look at the trigger. What problem did they have and why did they buy at that moment? Together, these make up your profile. Use it mostly to say no, because every lead that falls just outside it costs more time than it brings in. And look at it again every quarter, because it changes as your business does.

The honest answer: which CRM you choose hardly matters at the start. Every well-known system can do what a small business needs. Where it goes wrong is the setup. Too many fields, too many stages and too many good intentions, after which nobody keeps it up to date. Set it up the other way round. Start with the stages a deal really goes through in your business, record only what you need for each contact to take the next step and make updating it part of your fixed time for the commercial side. A half-completed CRM is worse than an accurate spreadsheet. So choose the system you will actually use and leave the rest of the features switched off.

A commercial director on the payroll can easily cost €120,000 to €150,000 a year. An interim commercial director costs a fraction of that.

If you work with me, the first four weeks cost €2,000. In those weeks I use AI to get to know your business inside out: what is going on, where your revenue comes from, where you are losing it, where the opportunities in your market are and where I can help you. You get a plan of action and then we decide together whether to continue. If we do, we work together for at least six months with a review after three months. That gives us the time and room to set everything up properly. We discuss the monthly fee after the first four weeks, based on the plan.