Justin Shaw

Stone Fabricator Elite

You need to select the right marketing channel to reach your ideal customers.If you’re looking to grow your business and drive revenue, building a strong sales engine is crucial. Without a sales engine, your shop will likely struggle to consistently meet its growth goals due to inconsistent sales due to seasonality, market competition, and economic factors.

So, you might have heard the term “sales engine,” but what does it actually mean? Well, it’s a fancy way of saying: a system and set of processes that are specifically designed to produce the volume of sales the business requires to grow and or be profitable.

Does your business need a sales engine?

Ask yourself these questions to quickly assess:

  • Can you accurately forecast your sales over the next four quarters?

  • Do you know how many leads and or opportunities you will receive next month?

  • Can you ramp up your sales as needed?

  • Do you know if your marketing efforts produce a positive ROI?

  • Does your business have a sales channel outside of word-of-mouth and referrals?

  • Do you have a clear sales process to ensure you don’t leave money on the table?


If you answered “no” to the questions above, you’ll want to read this article.

We will cover the three main components of a sales engine, including lead generation, lead nurturing, and sales conversion. In a future article, we will discuss the importance of caring for customers post-sale. But first, we’ll focus on the parts of your engine that take you from a lead generated to a sale converted.

The goal you’re aiming for when building a sales engine is to be able to drive predictable revenue. When you achieve this, your business will be transformed.

Okay, let’s go over the different components a sales engine typically includes:

Lead generation: Attracting potential customers through various channels, such as social media, digital marketing, advertising, and business development

Lead nurturing: Building relationships with potential customers and helping them move through your sales process in a streamlined and efficient manner

Sales conversion: Turning leads into paying customers by persuading them to make a purchase decision and having a system to convert them effectively



Prep Work and Planning 

How you design your sales engine will impact the results that you get.
You want to carefully consider what your desired outcome is when planning to build your sales engine.

Here are a few key questions to ask yourself during the planning stage:

  • Who are our most profitable customers?

  • How do we attract more of these customers?

  • How can we increase the average value of each sale?

  • How can we shorten the sales cycle?

  • What systems are needed?

  • What processes are required?

  • Who is responsible for each part of our engine?

  • How are we tracking our performance?


Building a successful sales engine is like building a high-performance car. You need the right parts, the right design, and a smooth ride to take you to your destination. 

Here are three basic steps to building a sales engine that will drive revenue and growth:


Step 1: Picking the Right Lane

Just like how you pick the right lane on the highway to avoid traffic, you need to select the right marketing channel to reach your ideal customers. Whether it’s social media, PPC, or SEO, you need to identify a single channel that you will focus your energy, time, resources, and money in.

We recommend always starting with one channel and getting it dialed in before adding additional channels. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin and not have a clear picture of what’s working.


Step 2: The Fuel to Keep Going

To keep your engine running, you need fuel, and that’s where lead generation comes in. You will work on creating a strategy and campaigns to run within your chosen channel. Your goal is to be able to consistently generate high-quality leads and or opportunities and eventually be able to turn the dial up or down as needed. Change your input (marketing spend) to directly impact your output (sales volume).


Step 3: Designing a Smooth Ride

A high-performance car needs a smooth ride, and so does your sales engine. Establish a clear end-to-end process that takes potential customers from lead generation to sales conversion. Use a CRM to organize your leads and opportunities and automation tools to streamline the process and make it more efficient.


Once Your Engine is Built

You’ve successfully built your engine, and it’s starting to rev up and drive business growth. Don’t kick up your feet just yet—just like a high-performance car needs regular tune-ups and maintenance to keep it running smoothly. Your sales engine will also need ongoing adjustments and improvements to keep it performing at its best.

It’s important to regularly review and analyze your metrics, such as conversion rates and revenue growth, and make alterations to your sales engine as needed. You can also explore new marketing channels, test new tactics, and refine your lead generation and nurturing strategies to improve your sales process.

So don’t be afraid to get under the hood of your sales engine and make those necessary changes to help your sales engine perform better and drive sustainable business growth over the long term!


The author, Justin Shaw, will be speaking at Coverings on this topic, and for those not in attendance a virtual webinar will be offered. You can email Justin for more information on dates and times.


Justin Shaw is the founder of Stone Fabricator Elite. Through their flagship program and dedicated team of Sales Sidekicks, they help fabricators systemize their sales and grow their businesses more easily. To learn more, visit stonefabricatorelite.com,
or email the author at justin@stonefabricatorelite.com .

Click here to read Robin Shaw’s Ode to the Industry, inspired by Sir Mix-a-Lot.