ABCABC CompanyRevScoreboard · the ten things
ABC Company is fictional. Figures come from a real sales organization; every name has been changed.
10 of 10 · Closing the Gaps

The Same-Story Test

What people say, placed next to what the record shows.

1The question

Does everyone tell the same story?

2Why it matters

What people say about how the company sells and what the system shows it does are two different accounts. The distance between them isn't dishonesty. It is the normal gap between the map and the terrain, and it's where deals quietly die.

Leadership writes down how it expects the team to answer before anyone is interviewed. A two-point gap between prediction and answer arrives as a measurement, not an accusation.

Being asked before a standard is imposed is the fastest way to make the standard feel fair. These interviews are the asking.

What the research says

Espoused theory (what people say they do) versus theory-in-use (what they actually do). The gap between them is the object of measurement.

Argyris & Schön (1974), Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness. Jossey-Bass [book]

In 51 work teams, psychological safety predicted learning behavior, which in turn predicted performance. Our application: no answer is ever attributed to a person.

Edmondson (1999), Administrative Science Quarterly 44(2), 350–383 · doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Directed content analysis: the codes come from the instrument and are set before reading. Our application: every role is coded the same way, so answers compare across roles.

Hsieh & Shannon (2005), Qualitative Health Research 15(9), 1277–1288 · doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687
BEvidence grade B. One strong study, or an established framework in wide use. An established theoretical frame, one strong field study, and a method canon.
What it doesn't settle. Self-report items with no CRM counterpart (“I feel comfortable saying so out loud”) are reported as self-report only.

3What to collect, every time

Input A number the CRM can't give you: the plan, quotas, working weeks, spend.Field Does the field exist, is it required, and who fills it in?Definition Your own definition of a thing we then compute against.Prediction Your answer now, in writing, checked against the record later.
Input
The interview set: sellers, the sales leader, the executive, operations, 2–3 clients, a partnerFour to six internal, 30–60 minutes each.
Input
The non-attribution commitment, said out loud in front of the teamOne breach and every interview after it is worthless.
Prediction
Leadership's prediction of the team's answers, 1–5 per statementWritten before the first interview.
Input
Any history that would make people guardedRead alongside the answers so caution isn't scored as dysfunction.

4How it's computed

  1. Ask the same statements, worded identically, of every role.
  2. Average by role. Never report an individual.
  3. Place leadership's prediction next to the team's answer, and both next to the CRM where a counterpart exists.

5What ABC's record shows

The record's own version of the story

Interviews have not been run at ABC Company
“How many deals have we won?” By report
Comprehensive history workbook
62
Entire-team opportunity report (pull 1)
299
Entire-team opportunity report (pull 2, 12 minutes later)
413
Weekly sales report
130
“How many deals are open?” By report
Entire-team opportunity report, July 3
1,197
Weekly sales report, July 3
248
Weekly sales report, July 23
267
Four reports from the same CRM, four answers. Nobody did anything wrong: each report has a different filter, and nobody wrote down which one is the truth. That's a Definitions problem, and it shows up in the data before it shows up in an interview.
Why deals were lost (2025–2026)
Too Long In Stage
179
No reply
176
Other
126
Timing
104
Not Buying Now
58
Status quo
49
Pricing
25
Competitor
21
Declined the health plan
18
Service fee too high
14

Ask leadership first: what do they believe the top loss reason is?

The statements every role answers, 1–5
  1. Our sales stages are clearly defined.
  2. Every deal gets a next step.
  3. I know exactly what is expected of me, without having to guess.
  4. If I asked three people here to describe our ideal customer, they would describe the same company.
  5. When a deal is lost, I generally know why.
  6. The forecast we commit is honest.
  7. I get specific, useful feedback on my work at least every couple of weeks.
  8. If something is broken in how we sell, I feel comfortable saying so out loud.

Leadership predicts the team's average for each statement before the first interview.

6What a sales leader does Monday

  • Pick the interview set and send the consent note.
  • Have leadership write its predictions this week, sealed until the readout.

7The founder version

Building your first CRM? Do this now, so you can answer the question in a year.

  • Ask your first five customers, in the same words, why they bought. Write down your guess first.