You’re winning 3 out of 10 deals. Your competitor is winning 6 out of 10. Same service. Same market. Different ICP.
You lost a deal last month that should have been yours.
Same scope as the three others you won.
Better site access. Stronger existing relationship.
You pitched it the same way.
They went with someone cheaper.
And you still don’t know why.
This isn’t a sales execution problem
Your commercial instinct says: tighten the proposal, follow up faster, adjust pricing.
But inconsistent win rates aren’t caused by insufficient effort.
They’re caused by an unclear ICP.
Here’s what actually happened in the deal you lost:
You were pitching to a construction main contractor.
You talked about “reliable service and experienced team.”
They were assessing programme risk and site disruption exposure.
Your competitor didn’t talk about service quality.
They talked about “call-out response SLAs, health & safety compliance, and programme delay mitigation.”
Same cleaning contract.
Different language.
Different outcome.
You weren’t beaten on price.
You were beaten on relevance.
Why this happens
You’re selling the same service to buyers who evaluate it using completely different decision logic.
→ Construction main contractors assess programme risk. They’re buying protection against delays, site disruption, and subcontractor failure. Their question: “Will this supplier create problems I have to fix?”
→ Housing associations assess compliance risk and auditability. They’re buying evidence trails, regulatory certainty, and social value contributors. Their question: “Can I prove due diligence if something goes wrong?”
→ Property services clients assess operational consistency and cost predictability. They’re buying control, reporting, and margin protection across multi-site portfolios. Their question: “Will this remove variability from my P&L?”
Same service.
Three different procurement realities.
When your ICP is unclear, you pitch a generic value to all three.
“Experienced team, reliable service, competitive pricing.”
That language doesn’t map to any of their decision frameworks.
❌ The construction buyer doesn’t hear programme protection.
❌ The housing buyer doesn’t hear audit readiness.
❌ The property buyer doesn’t hear cost certainty.
So they default to price. Because you haven’t given them a reason not to.
Here’s what this costs you every month
Your BD pipeline has 15 opportunities.
Five are construction. Five are housing. Five are property services.
You’re pursuing them with the same pitch deck.
You’ll win 3–5.
You won’t know which ones until the decision.
Your team can’t explain the pattern.
You’ll blame “competitive pressure” or “pricing.”
But the real issue is this:
10 of those 15 opportunities were never winnable. Your value proposition doesn’t map to their decision framework.
You’re burning 60% of your BD capacity chasing misaligned work.
And you’re doing it every single month.
The inconsistency isn’t random. It’s structural.
You’re trying to serve three buyer types without designing your commercial offer for any of them.
This is a Free Issue.
Pro subscribers get the ICP Clarity Toolkit, Monthly Deep Dives, and Phase Recap Vaults with every framework and script I use with £3–£10m Soft FM operators.
If you want the system behind the diagnosis:
The decision you’re avoiding
Choose which buyer environment you’re actually built to serve.
I know what you’re thinking:
“But we can serve all three. We just need to adjust the pitch.”
No.
You cannot.
“Adjusting the pitch” requires:
Different risk models — construction needs programme protection, housing needs audit trails
Different pricing structures — property services need per-site transparency, construction needs budget certainty
Different operational design — housing requires resident communication protocols, construction requires health & safety compliance
You’re not adjusting. You’re running three incompatible businesses under one brand.
That’s why sales feel inconsistent.
That’s why the founder is in every deal.
That’s why nothing systemises.
What this decision unlocks
Choose one primary buyer environment where:
Your operational delivery matches their risk priorities
Your value proposition speaks their procurement language
Your pricing model reflects their budget reality
Your team can diagnose fit without founder involvement
This means walking away from opportunities that look like revenue but need you to bend your business into shapes it’s not designed for.
It means declining the housing RFP when you’re optimised for construction.
It means stopping the pursuit of reactive FM work when you're structured for strategic partnership.
It feels like reducing TAM.
It’s actually the only way to systemise growth.
Here’s what improves:
Win rates stabilise. You’re competing in one arena with one set of rules. Your team can learn the pattern.
Discounting reduces. Your value proposition is articulated in buyer-specific risk language. You’re not competing on features.
Founder dependency drops. ICP clarity creates a qualification framework that the team can use without you having to diagnose every deal.
Operations simplify. You’re not customising the delivery to meet incompatible buyer requirements. You build depth instead of breadth.
Positioning sharpens. You become known for something specific instead of “we do good work for lots of people.”
The principle
Inconsistent sales are always a symptom of unclear ICP.
You cannot systemise what you haven’t defined.
Execution can’t fix a positioning problem.
Growth at £3–£10m requires choosing who you’re for — and designing everything around that reality.
The work you’re avoiding isn’t “more sales activity.”
It’s the commercial clarity decision that makes activity productive.
Your next move
Pull your last 20 opportunities — wins and losses.
Answer one question for each: “What buyer environment were they in — construction, housing, or property services?”
Then answer: “Which environment did we win most often?”
That’s your ICP.
Everything you’re doing in the other two environments is revenue theatre.
Stop pursuing it.
Let’s fix this
If you recognise this pattern, the fix is forcing one clarity decision: which buyer environment you’re built to dominate.
That’s what we do in an ICP & Value Prop Diagnostic.
One session. I’ll force the decision you’ve been avoiding: which buyer you’re designed for, and how to articulate value in their procurement language.
Reply to this email or book directly here.
That’s all for this week.
Matt
The Growth Lab
If inconsistent win rates are a problem, this is the decision you need to make next.
Three ways to move forward:
#1: Diagnose your ICP clarity 📋 Book a 30-minute ICP & Value Prop Diagnostic. We’ll map who you’re selling to, who you should be selling to, and what’s keeping growth stuck. 👉🏾 Book here
#2: Access the playbook 📚 Join Growth Lab Pro for the full library of frameworks, scripts, and pursuit systems built for £3–10m Soft FM operators. 👉🏾 Upgrade here
#3: Fix this systematically 🎯 Work with me as a Growth Partner. We’ll reset your ICP, rebuild your value proposition, and systemise how you win construction, housing, and property services contracts. 👉🏾 Learn more here
💼 I share practical commercial insights for Soft FM operators selling into construction, housing and property services. Connect with me on LinkedIn and join 4,000+ leaders learning to win more contracts.
🐦 I document patterns I see in tenders, outbound, and buyer decisions across construction, housing, and FM. Follow on X → @iam_mattharris.