sell

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)

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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:

1. 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.
2. Record it as a decision (4-line format) with a revisit trigger ("revisit if 20 conversations produce no second call").
3. 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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. If the founder's harness has enrichment or CRM tools connected (MCP), offer to use them; never require them.

Step 4: Outreach

1. 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).
2. One clear ask per message. Short beats clever.
3. Present drafts in review batches. On approval and send, update the account's activity line and stage the same session.
4. 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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. "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.
4. 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.