An anti-vision for sales: more revenue starts with a list of what you stop doing
Writing in Vertriebszeitung on 24 September 2026, interim manager Hartwig Goertler argues for an “anti-vision”: sales leaders should decide which customers, dead pipeline deals, CRM fields and duplicated responsibilities they cut before launching new initiatives. An experience-based article without study figures of its own.
What happened
On 24 September 2026 Vertriebszeitung published an article by Hartwig Goertler, Executive Interim Manager at Campsis Consulting. His thesis: alongside a vision, sales leaders need an “anti-vision”, a clear list of what they will end. This includes target customers they deliberately stop serving, pipeline opportunities without genuine need, decision-makers, budget or an agreed next step, superfluous CRM fields and reports, and unclear boundaries between inside and field sales. He also wants personnel issues addressed openly instead of being papered over with more training. It is an experience-based article; he presents no study figures of his own.
Who is affected
Sales leaders and managing directors in B2B mid-sized companies whose pipeline grows without closed deals growing with it — and sales teams that spend more time on admin than with customers.
Analysis
The article hits a nerve that anyone who has built a sales team will recognise. New initiatives arrive fast, old ones never leave. After two years you have five target groups, three lead sources, a pipeline full of wishful thinking and a forecast nobody believes any more. Stopping is the least popular leadership task, because every opportunity you cut feels like lost revenue.
I see this every day in payment sales. In theory a terminal can be sold to any business that accepts cards. That is exactly why the question of whom you do not approach matters more than whom you add. A salesperson who takes every kiosk ends the month with full mileage and empty commissions. The same goes for the pipeline: an opportunity without a date for the next step is not an opportunity but a reminder. Weed those out consistently and you get a smaller number you can rely on.
What to do now
- Write one page: three customer groups the team will stop actively approaching from now on, each with a reason.
- In the next pipeline review, close every opportunity without an agreed next step or revive it with a date.
- Delete every CRM field that nobody has used for a decision in the past three months.