Issue #118

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The House Rules: Enterprise Selling

When you sell into an enterprise, you aren’t persuading a person, you’re navigating a system.

And systems don’t respond to pressure, the way a person might, they respond to flow.

Over the years I’ve learned that most complex deals fall apart because the seller treats the organisation like a wall to be broken, instead of a current to be navigated.

The more you push, the more resistance you create.

The smarter path is to understand the flow and shape your actions around it.

That principle sits at the heart of how we teach sales strategy at House of Sales.

We call them the "House Rules".

1. Flow, Don’t Force

Momentum already exists inside every client, it needs to be found and directed, rarely created from scratch.

Projects, priorities, power struggles, they all generate energy. Instead of forcing your agenda, find the existing current and align with it.

The best deals are guided, not driven.

When a buyer feels pushed, they defend their status quo. When they feel accompanied, they start move freely.

2. Softly, Softly

Persistence, patience and flexibility win where aggression fails. Big organisations are designed to absorb impact.

They respond better to quiet consistency.

That’s why the seller who stays visible, keeps listening, and adapts their form, pilot, proof of concept, limited trial, will always outlast the one trying to smash through procurement gates.

Want to know more about how procurement think? Click here.

3. Know When to Withdraw

Not every deal deserves to be fought for. If there’s no internal sponsor, no budget signal, or the energy has gone flat, it is time to move on.

Preserving your energy is a strategic act.

Redirect your focus to deals where there’s motion and appetite.

The professional knows that quitting is not failure, it’s resource management.

4. Leave Space for Truth

Silence creates insight. Discovery isn’t a checklist of questions, it’s the art of leaving space for clients to think out loud.

Let them tell their own truth and be there to support it.

When you talk less, you hear more, the real fears, the unspoken politics, the opportunity no one else has noticed.

Every sentence you don’t say is a door you leave open that they can walk through.

When you listen to your customer, you can match their mindset, which makes all the difference, read more here.

5. Let Others Take the Credit

The goal in enterprise sales is not to be the hero. It’s to make your champion look brilliant.

The moment a client says, “We made this happen,” you’ve done your job perfectly. You’ve built ownership into the system.

That’s how initiatives survive budget rounds, restructures and leadership changes.

Make yourself invisible at the right moment, and the project keeps moving without you pushing it.

6. Small Steps, Big Wins

Every transformation starts small. A pilot that works in one division gives you proof, a reference point and momentum. From there, growth happens naturally.

Large contracts aren’t closed in sudden leaps, they evolve through visible, measurable progress.

Each step lowers risk and strengthens trust.

7. Harmony Over Victory

The final rule is simple: if the buyer feels safe, the deal will close.

Selling isn’t about winning arguments; it’s about creating alignment.

When every stakeholder feels understood and included, the system accepts the change. Everyone does not need to agree with the change, they just need to accept its necessity.

You’re no longer an external pressure, you’ve become a vital part of the solution.

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The Framework

The House Flow Framework maps these rules into three stages of enterprise selling:

Observe → Align → Guide

1. Observe, Read the flow of the organisation: politics, timing, power, emotion.
2. Align, Match your energy to theirs: mirror priorities, co-create language, reduce friction.
3. Guide, Shape the current toward outcomes that serve both sides. Small steps, visible progress, shared credit.

Every advanced sales method fits inside this pattern. When you understand the flow, selling stops being about pressure and starts being about direction.

Guiding your customer to achieve their goals through adoption of your solutions.

WYAD

Stop forcing, start flowing.

Observe before you act, align before you sell, and guide before you close.

When you do that, deals stop dying quietly in inboxes.

(More about how big deals die and what to do to stop it - here)

They move naturally, because you’ve made the next step the easiest one to take.

If your pipeline feels like it’s full of resistance, it’s not the leads. It’s the flow. Drop me an email.

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​My Udemy course takes you through the first three, foundational elements of the House of Sales. For the price of a decent dinner you get techniques, templates and knowledge that will feed you for years.

​Watch a sample video here, all about how procurement try to ruin your life.

Or you can get ahead of your competitors for that Sales VP job by reading this, it's your unfair advantage:

And, of course, you can email or DM me on LinkedIn if you want to discuss coaching, consultancy or training. First call is free.