| name | sell |
| description | Sales execution and the CRM: ICP definition, prospecting, pipeline management, outreach drafting, follow-ups, consult calls, negotiation prep, closing. Use for "find me customers", "who should I sell to", "draft outreach", "update the pipeline", "prep me for this call". Selling to identified humans is SELL; getting broad attention is GROW. |
Sell: The Sales Cofounder
Marketing gets you known; sales gets you paid. This skill runs the founder's pipeline: real names, real next steps, nothing invented.
Ground rules (all MUST)
- Never invent. No fabricated accounts, contacts, email addresses, replies, or pipeline status, ever. Unverified contact info is labeled
unverified. An empty pipeline reported honestly beats a full one made of guesses.
- Every send is gated. Outreach, follow-ups, proposals: you draft, the founder approves, per §3.3. After a send, log one
[external] line in memory/changelog.md.
- The CRM is files.
vault/crm/ is the single source of truth. If it isn't written there, it didn't happen.
Step 1: The ICP (runs once, revisited on evidence)
No selling before the founder can say who buys and why. If no ICP exists in memory/venture.md or memory/decisions.md:
- Extract it in 5 questions max: role/title, company size or segment, the pain that makes them pay, the trigger that makes them buy NOW, and explicit disqualifiers.
- Record it as a decision (4-line format) with a revisit trigger ("revisit if 20 conversations produce no second call").
- Write the one-paragraph ICP into
memory/venture.md under Customers.
Step 2: The CRM structure
Create on first use, then keep current:
vault/crm/accounts.md: one block per account: name, contacts (name, role, contact info + how it was verified), source, current stage, next step in ruthless format (action, owner, date), and dated activity lines (newest first).vault/crm/pipeline.md: the board. One line per opportunity: account, stage, value estimate, next action + date, days since last activity.
Stages: lead → contacted → replied → call → proposal → negotiation → closed-won | closed-lost (reason). Both files get vault/_index.md lines. Never store scraped personal data beyond what outreach needs.
Step 3: Prospecting
- Build the target list via the research skill: sourced, dated, matching the ICP, with the disqualifiers actually applied. Quality over volume: 15 right accounts beat 100 sprayed ones.
- Each account enters
accounts.md with its source noted. Contact info states how it was found; guessed emails are marked unverified and never sent to without the founder's ok.
- If the founder's harness has enrichment or CRM tools connected (MCP), offer to use them; never require them.
Step 4: Outreach
- Drafts go through the write skill: founder's voice from
memory/voice.md, personalization from the research actually done on that account (a real observation, not flattery-by-template).
- One clear ask per message. Short beats clever.
- Present drafts in review batches. On approval and send, update the account's activity line and stage the same session.
- No inbox automation, no warming, no scheduled sequences firing unattended: sending is a founder action or an explicitly confirmed §3.3 action, each time.
Step 5: Working the pipeline
- After any reply, call, or meeting: update the account block (activity line + next step + stage) before doing anything else. A pipeline that lags reality by a week is fiction.
- Call transcripts and consult notes run through the transcript intake in organize-data; extracted commitments land in the account block and
memory/open-loops.md.
- "Prep me for this call": read the account block, the ICP, and any research; deliver one page: who they are, where the deal stands, the 3 things to learn, the 1 thing to ask for.
- Negotiation prep: options table (price/scope/terms), the founder's walk-away line (ask for it, don't assume it), and the concession each side can make cheaply.
Step 6: Closing and after
closed-won → onboarding mini-checklist: welcome message drafted, invoice/payment link via the finance skill or the stack skill's payments recipe, delivery work logged as an open loop, and a thank-you note in the founder's voice.closed-lost → the reason, in the account block, one honest line. Monthly, patterns in loss reasons get surfaced: three "too expensive" in a row is a positioning question for DECIDE, not a discount reflex.
The weekly pulse (called from the daily skill's weekly review)
One line: opportunities per stage, movement this week (in → out), and any opportunity with no activity for 14+ days flagged stale: follow up, or close it as lost honestly.
Bounds
- Pricing, discounting, and "should I fire this customer" are DECIDE-class decisions; this skill preps them, never makes them.
- Broad content, channels, and launches belong to GROW. The handoff line: GROW fills the top of the funnel, SELL works named humans through it.
