You're doing good work, and your clients love you, but when you look at your pipeline, something feels off, and you can't put your finger on what's broken.

When sales slow, it’s easy to think you need to overhaul everything. You don’t. Most growth problems stem from one weak side of a triangle and you can use it to pinpoint where to focus next.

The Value Triangle

Most consultancies blame 'the market' or 'timing' when growth stalls. But the real issue is simpler: one part of your sales system is underperforming.

Sales has three sides, and each represents one part of your growth equation:

1. Traffic: the volume and quality of leads entering your pipeline.

2. Conversion: how effectively you turn traffic into interest and interest into clients.

3. Economics: how profitably you convert traffic into revenue and customers into lifetime profit.

When all three sides are in balance, growth feels smooth. However, when one side weakens, everything becomes uneven, and your sales flow starts to feel lumpy. That’s why some months feel effortless and others feel like a grind.

Why good work isn't enough

There’s a simple truth that’s often missed: delivering value isn't enough. Your market has to perceive that value clearly. The Value Triangle captures how you deliver value to the market; however, growth also depends on how that value is perceived.

• Provided value is your time, energy, and cost - the effort that goes into marketing, selling, and delivering.

• Perceived value is what your clients believe they’ll get in return - their sense of relevance, trust, and impact.

Growth accelerates when perceived value outweighs provided value. When that balance tips in the wrong direction, growth stalls.

Where value gets lost

You can deliver exceptional value yet remain invisible in the market’s eyes. Equally, you can project more value than you deliver, which quietly erodes trust over time.

To spot the imbalance, assess both triangles side by side. Take 60 seconds and score yourself honestly on each side. Don't overthink it, your gut reaction is usually right.

Diagnose your weak side

Score yourself from 1 to 5 on each side of the Provided Value Triangle:

Now score your Perceived Value Triangle to see where perception lags behind performance.

Your lowest Perceived Value score usually mirrors your lowest Provided Value score. Fix one, and the other follows.

Take Traffic as an example. Nine times out of ten, low traffic means low relevance - you're not reaching the right people with the right message. Fix your relevance, and traffic follows.

Similarly, Conversion struggles usually point to trust issues, and Economics problems stem from weak perceived impact.

The goal is symmetry: when both triangles align, clients feel your value as strongly as you deliver it, and sales flow naturally.

A client example

When I ran this exercise recently with a client, Economics came out as their weakest side. They had decent traffic and solid conversion, but realised they were undercharging for the transformation clients were getting. We restructured their offers around outcomes, not hours, and their margins improved by 40% without losing clients.

That’s the beauty of this triangle: it gives you a single place to focus, and focus always creates momentum.

The 90-day rule

Your best clients will recognise themselves in your higher-tier offers. When you design the right offers, it means you don't need to sell harder because you’ve designed a clear pathway that makes it easy for clients to ascend.

Once you've identified your weak side, the next question is: how do I fix it? That's exactly what the Ready-To-Buy Playbook walks you through—step by step, for each side of the triangle.

👉 Get it here