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George James Consulting has worked with

GSKThermo FisherBio-RadLGC SCIEXOxford InstrumentsBiotageSphere Fluidics

The problem we solve

A funnel does not work by gravity.

Putting a lead into the top of a funnel does not mean it falls out of the bottom. A funnel has to be actively navigated, like steering a boat up an estuary. In our experience, over 90% of Life Science and Diagnostic companies have significant challenges actively managing their sales funnel. Most assume theirs is being managed. Very few can prove it.

Situation A

The forecast keeps missing

The funnel looks healthy in the report, but close dates move, deals you were told were safe slip a quarter, and the number you gave the board was never deliverable. The problem is not the forecasting tool, it is the quality of what is being forecast.

Situation B

You suspect, but cannot prove it

You think the funnel is thinner than it appears, or the team is more confident than the evidence justifies. Asking in a sales meeting will not get you an honest answer, and you have no independent way to test it.

Without an actively managed sales funnel, you and your sales team are flying blind, leading to poor forecasting and lost revenue.

Different symptoms, one root cause

Funnels fail far more often because of how the funnel is managed than because of the product or the market. The recurring failure points are the same in almost every organisation we assess:

No clear stagesTeams cannot agree what qualified means, so nothing progresses consistently and tracking is guesswork.
Weak qualificationResource burned chasing poor-fit leads while high-value prospects go cold. No scoring, no priority.
Inconsistent contactGeneric messaging, no personalisation and delayed follow-up push prospects toward competitors.
Data ignoredDrop-off points and conversion bottlenecks stay invisible, so decisions are made on instinct.
MisalignmentLeadership and the sales team hold different views of capability and priority, and nobody names it.

Value proposition

The commercial outcomes you are buying

Not a survey report. A funnel you can see, forecast and steer.

A forecast you can defend

Know which opportunities are real before you commit the number to the board.

Coaching aimed at the real gap

Development spend directed at the skills the data says are weakest, not the ones assumed.

Visibility of the bottleneck

See exactly where opportunities stall, and how much revenue is trapped behind it.

An aligned commercial team

Leadership and the sales team working from one shared, evidenced view of reality.

How it is organised

Two stages, and you decide after the first

Stage 1 stands alone. Many clients take the findings and implement the recommendations with their own team. Stage 2 exists for when you want the change delivered rather than described, and it is scoped only after Stage 1 has shown what the change needs to be.

Stage 1

DIAGNOSE

The health check itself

Best for: any sales leader who wants an independent, evidenced read on the funnel before deciding what to change.

1
ScopeAgree the focus with you: the standard survey, or one built around your process, market and customer journey.
2
SurveyYour sales team and your sales leadership complete the 30 questions independently. Anonymous and non-attributable.
3
AnalyseConsolidate the data, compare team against leadership, and isolate the gaps, risks and bottlenecks.
4
Report & recommendFindings, observations, conclusions and recommendations, presented to leadership.
✓
Then a decisionTake the recommendations and implement them yourself, or move into Stage 2.

Entry point: a free health check call.
Outcome: up to three prioritised areas you can improve yourself, plus the areas that would benefit from support.

Book a health check call →
Stage 2

IMPROVE

Optional implementation support

Best for: teams that know what needs to change but do not have the bandwidth, or want experienced hands alongside them while it embeds.

1
Go deeper into the dataRe-interrogate the Stage 1 responses to uncover the improvement areas a headline read will miss.
2
Agree the planActions, activities and process changes, sequenced and owned, with measurable targets.
3
Work alongside the teamOur consultants embed with your people to ensure the changes are actually implemented.
4
Install the rhythmPipeline reviews, KPIs and forecasting discipline that continue after we leave.
✓
Flexible resourcingShort-term advisory, retained support, or interim and fractional commercial leadership.

Entry point: scoped from your Stage 1 findings, never before.
Outcome: breakthrough improvement in commercial effectiveness, with revenue and profitability as the end goal.

Talk about implementation →

Inside the questionnaire

Six themes, thirty questions

The same themes are put to both audiences, worded for each. That is the whole mechanic: where the two sets of answers diverge is where the money is. Switch the view below to see how each theme is framed for your team and for you.

Showing the sales team perspective.

How we engage

Start small, prove the value, then decide

Pinnacle is deliberately low-commitment at the front end. The first conversation costs nothing, the survey costs your team a modest slice of one afternoon, and you only commit to anything larger once the findings are in front of you.

Step one

A first conversation

A short, no-obligation call with a consultant to establish whether Pinnacle fits your situation.

  • What the survey would ask your specific team.
  • Whether to run the standard version or tailor it.
  • A firm price, once we know team size and scope.

Around 30 minutes, at no cost.

Step two

The survey and the report

Your team and leadership complete the questionnaire, and we analyse and present back.

  • Online, on-demand, anonymised and non-attributable.
  • Data consolidated, compared and interpreted by our consultants.
  • Findings, conclusions and recommendations presented to leadership.

Typically a few weeks end to end.

Step three

The action plan

Consulting time to turn the findings into something your team can actually run.

  • Up to three priority areas for do-it-yourself improvement.
  • Plus the areas that would benefit from our support.
  • Half a day is often enough to build a workable plan.

Stage 2 only if and when you want it.

How Stage 1 is priced. A charge per person for access to the Pinnacle questionnaire, a fee for carrying out the analysis and delivering the report, and consulting time to discuss the findings and work on an action plan. We will give you a firm figure on the first call, once we know the size of your team and the scope you want. There is no obligation to proceed to Stage 2.

Why anonymity matters

People tell a survey what they will not tell a sales meeting

The survey is fully anonymised and non-attributable, and that is a design decision rather than a courtesy. It gives the sales team a secure environment to report honestly on funnel strength, to self-assess their own skills, and to surface disconnects with leadership. It gives you a read on the funnel that has not been filtered through anyone's quarter.

›Honest feedback on funnel strength
›Self-assessment of selling skills
›Development needs surfaced safely
›Disconnects with leadership named
›Level of self-awareness measured
›Expectations reset on evidence

A real example

What Pinnacle found at an international service organisation

Survey completed in July 2024 by 6 sales managers and 31 sales executives. Four findings from the report, anonymised. Note how often leadership and the team are looking at the same funnel and seeing different things.

Question 4

“How do you feel about the state of the pipeline?”

Concerned or panicked, leadership66.7%
Concerned or panicked, sales team64.6%
Sales management Sales team

The finding: rare agreement, and not the comfortable kind. Nobody at either level felt good about the pipeline. The handful who answered “good” were most likely misreading the status of their own opportunities.

Question 29

“I am confident in the ability to ask customers for a commitment”

Agree or strongly agree, leadership16.7%
Agree or strongly agree, sales team77.4%
Sales management Sales team

The finding: a 60-point gap. Sales management held a completely different view of the team's ability to close than the team held of itself. A specific, fixable coaching priority that nobody in the business had said out loud.

Question 12

Opportunities with a clear, compelling reason to buy, closing within 90 days

Say it applies to over 75%, leadership50.0%
Say it applies to over 75%, sales team19.4%
Sales management Sales team

The finding: leadership was substantially more optimistic than the people carrying the bag. A high proportion of deals expected to land this quarter had no compelling reason to purchase behind them. There was a lot of selling still to do.

Question 14

Relationships built with every key stakeholder, including the decision maker and procurement

Achieved in over 75% of opportunities, leadership16.7%
Achieved in over 75% of opportunities, sales team22.6%
Sales management Sales team

The finding: only around a fifth of respondents believed they had reached all the key stakeholders in most of their deals. In a market where procurement and the clinical decision maker are rarely the same person, that is a lot of bases uncovered.

What the client did next

Recommendations from the report, implemented by the client's own team.

Regular pipeline reviewsA standing review of pipeline and opportunities, addressing the shared concern about funnel strength directly.
Targeted coachingFocused work on managing opportunities and getting past “no”, the weakest area in the data.
New KPIsWin rates, sales velocity, average deal size and close rates, used to model what the funnel could realistically deliver.
Data shared backClosing the loop, so the sales team could see what leadership was seeing and act on it.

The point: half a day of consulting was enough to turn the survey findings into an action plan the client could own and run without us.

In their words

What the client said afterwards

We went back to the Business Development Director once the report had been worked through, and asked how useful the process had actually been.

It was good to check that we had alignment with the sales teams and that there was a level of self-awareness in terms of understanding the funnel size and pipeline. There were some clear differences in how confident they were and what they felt was needed in terms of next steps, and that's what we continue to work on now.

Business Development DirectorOn whether it was a useful exercise

It was just right; long enough to be detailed and gain insights, but not so long you struggled to find time. I had no comments on how difficult or time consuming it was, and generally they were keen to do this exercise.

Business Development DirectorOn the length of the survey

Yes. We have developed far more reports now to measure performance and help with both managing pipelines and forecasting. We now look at win rates, sales velocity and average deal size, and use them to coach around getting more opportunities.

Business Development DirectorOn whether it helped

Why George James Consulting

Operators, not just advisors

George James Consulting is made up of business experts with over one hundred years of combined experience in commercial and leadership roles. Our experience is primarily in life sciences and diagnostics, and our clients sell sophisticated products, services and solutions to customers who are educated and technically demanding. We are well versed in working in challenging, competitive and highly regulated markets.

We deliver, not just advise

Hands-on execution and resource, not a document that sits on a shelf. We add resources to your organisation and deliver the implementation plan.

We have carried the number

Our consultants have run commercial teams and owned the forecast themselves, so the recommendations are grounded in what works in the field rather than in a framework.

Built for technical selling

Long cycles, multiple stakeholders, procurement, tenders and clinical adoption. The survey is designed around how complex products are actually bought.

Direct and indirect

Pinnacle also covers distributor and channel networks, so the same rigour applies whether you sell direct, through partners, or both.

Our areas of expertise include:

Technical SalesBusiness StrategyCoaching Business PlanningMarketingStrategy Deployment MentoringSenior LeadershipManagement Development AnalysisContinuous ImprovementInterim Management Change ManagementAlignmentProduct Management

Also available: Pinnacle for Indirect Sales Channels, for companies building or turning around European distributor networks.

Common questions

Before you book the call

The questions sales leaders ask us most often.

How long does the questionnaire take to complete?

Thirty questions. Clients tell us it is long enough to produce real insight but short enough that a busy sales team will actually finish it. In the example above, all 37 participants completed it and none skipped.

Will my team's answers be identifiable?

No. The survey is fully anonymised and non-attributable. That is deliberate. It is what makes people answer honestly, and honest answers are the entire point of the exercise.

Who needs to take part?

The entire sales team, plus sales management or leadership. Comparing the two perspectives is where most of the value comes from, so a survey of only one group tells you considerably less.

Do we have to commit to a consulting project?

No. Stage 1 stands alone, and many clients take the recommendations and implement them with their own team. Stage 2 is entirely optional and is only ever scoped after you have seen the Stage 1 findings.

Can the survey be tailored to our business?

Yes. We can use the standard version, which addresses the key practices and skills common to most businesses, or build a version around your specific process during the scoping phase. It can focus narrowly on sales, or extend across the whole customer journey.

What does it cost?

Stage 1 is priced as a per-person charge for questionnaire access, a fee for the analysis and report, and consulting time to discuss the findings. We will give you a firm figure on the call, once we know your team size and the scope you want.

We are not in life sciences. Is Pinnacle still relevant?

Usually, yes. Our roots are in life sciences and diagnostics, but the methodology applies to any organisation selling considered, technically complex products or services through a managed funnel.

Next step

Let's talk about your sales funnel

Tell us where you are and we'll come back with a view, not a brochure. If Pinnacle is a fit, we'll scope it around your team and your process.

  • ✓ A free 30-minute call with one of our commercial excellence consultants.
  • ✓ We'll walk you through what the survey would ask your team.
  • ✓ A firm price, once we know your team size and scope.
  • ✓ No obligation, and everything you share is treated as confidential.

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