October 20, 2026 | The POD, Louvain-la-Neuve | With Johnny Mukuta Mensah
How do you spot a big deal, and how do you win a big deal once you’ve found it? That was the question at our second Sales Circle, with Johnny Mukuta Mensah, who shared his best techniques and a good number of stories from the field.
What we loved most about the morning: it was never a lecture. The people in the room, sales reps, founders and business developers, asked questions, pushed back now and then, and told their own stories. That’s what these monthly Sales Circles are all about.
Here’s what we took away.
What is a big deal?
There’s no single definition. Around the table, everyone had their own:
- a contract that keeps a good part of your team busy;
- recurring revenue over a long period;
- a deal that can change the trajectory of your company, and makes your leadership a little nervous because they wonder whether they can deliver;
- a partnership that opens the door to several deals.
Johnny pulled out a few common threads. Value, of course. But above all, a big deal involves several people, on your side and on your prospect’s side. That’s how you know the service matters to them. It’s also a deal you talk about at management level.
A big deal can also start small. That’s the land and expand approach: you come in through the window with a small contract, and over time the client becomes the biggest one you have.
His example: at a trade show in the US, a visitor came to their booth (the one with waffles and espresso) three times in a single day, asking basic questions. He turned out to be the head of CRM at a large company. The result was a contract worth 1.2 million in ARR per year, and the opening of a whole new market.
Should you say yes to every deal? The go/no-go
No. Johnny’s advice: pick your battles, unless you have unlimited people and resources.
A salesperson can only follow so many deals properly at the same time. With too many opportunities, you forget a detail and miss out on a great contract. A smaller, well-qualified pipeline beats a big one nobody can handle.
His own experience is telling. After one of his sales reps had a blank year, the team introduced a go/no-go committee in 2025 (SDR, BDR, sales and Johnny himself). At first, people grumbled, especially the SDR who saw their commission disappear. Then they found a way not to penalise them. The outcome: the sales rep hit their target, with four or five carefully chosen deals in their pipeline at all times.
A few practical takeaways:
- Saying no is part of the job, including during negotiation. If you haven’t talked about price at the start, talk about it at least before you sign.
- When in doubt, lean slightly too much towards no-go rather than go.
- Win rate? The literature says about 30%. In reality, Johnny sees more like 10 to 15%. Accepting that you’ll lose more deals than you win also takes a weight off your shoulders.
- A no-go should be handled with respect, and with an explanation. The world is small.
One participant reminded us it doesn’t always work out: their company turned down a small client they found too time-consuming. That client has since grown a lot, and is now with a competitor. There’s no golden rule.
Need or want: how do you tell the difference?
Johnny’s definition: a need is a want you can’t do without.
To bring it out, you have to listen, and identify what he calls the cost of inaction: what happens if the prospect does nothing, and how much does that cost them, in euros? Without that, you’re wasting your time. It’s a want.
A participant added a useful marker from the SPICED method: a real need always has an impact. It increases revenue, lowers costs, or improves the experience of employees and customers.
How do you find your champion, and know who really signs?
The champion is the contact who has a want, and whom you help turn into a need. You equip them with arguments, and they do the convincing internally, at the coffee machine, in your place. It’s a huge lever.
But the champion isn’t necessarily the person who signs.
Johnny’s story: a deal had gone through every stage, and the team showed up at the client’s office for the kick-off, with no contract signed. The director came to greet them and explained that he was indeed the one who signs, but that he had never seen the tool and was waiting for IT to give him the green light. The kick-off was cancelled, and it took a month and a half of assessment with IT.
Participants mentioned a few frameworks to avoid missing anything, such as MEDDIC: the decision-maker, the signatory, the champion, those who could block the deal…
How do you win a big deal? Backwards planning and the letter to Santa
This is Johnny’s favourite method, and he applies it from the very beginning of the relationship.
He asks the client the Santa Claus question: if I could pull a solution out of my magic hat, what would it be, and by when? The date they give becomes the starting point of a backwards plan: to be live on that date, when does the contract need to be signed? Who signs? What do legal, procurement and IT need to validate?
What he takes from it:
- Without a backwards plan, the salesperson is a passenger: changing the radio and adjusting the air conditioning while the prospect drives wherever they like, whenever they like.
- If the client can’t answer, it’s probably a want, not a need.
- The close plan also helps you manage your own sales cadence, even on small deals.
- Don’t skip steps: if they ask for your contracts “to start looking at them” before the technical and business validation, you haven’t won yet.
- He puts it on the second slide of every presentation, with one sentence: I’m going to help you buy. Prospects are often surprised, and it goes down very well.
Should you sell at list price?
List price has its place, especially in SaaS where the whole organisation is built around it. But Johnny insists on perceived value.
His example: a prospect explained that his store cashiers were manually entering order confirmations in their mailbox. Johnny asked what it cost him. The answer: about two days a year. The proposed system cost half a day. The deal was signed without anyone asking for the list price.
On the other hand, when the problem costs the prospect millions, a very low price can make them suspicious: if it’s that cheap, what’s the catch? And a service whose perceived value is far above what’s paid creates little attachment: the day the client wants to stop, they stop.
Other markers:
- Moving away from the catalogue is done by listening, not by gut feeling, and always with a justification (size, specificity, scope).
- A buyer (procurement) often has a personal stake: getting a discount, often between 4 and 15%. Better to plan for it.
- A start-up facing a large group is better off saying openly that it’s looking for a reference, and negotiating something in return, rather than going into confrontation.
- Participants shared ideas: paid three-month proofs of value with success criteria set in advance, and day packages that expire, with a weekly report on what’s left to use.
Can you still sell without human contact?
Johnny uses AI and transcription tools every day, which gives him far more information on his prospects. But for him, a sale happens when something has happened between two people.
He remembers a prospect who told him right away that he made her uncomfortable: no sale. For big deals, you have to travel, meet the teams, get a feel for each other. He also uses an immersion technique: inviting the prospect to meet the support team before signing.
Frequently asked questions
How many deals can a salesperson follow at once? Johnny doesn’t give a universal number, but he recommends limiting it to keep full focus on each one.
What’s a good win rate in B2B sales? Reference figures talk about 30%. In practice, Johnny sees more like 10 to 15%.
How do you know if a prospect has a need or a want? By identifying the cost of inaction and asking for the date: if they can’t say when they need the solution, it’s probably a want.
Keep the conversation going
🎙️ We also interviewed Johnny for The POD Talks, our podcast.
👀 Coming up next: Sales Circle #3 – How to Sell to Flemish Customers? On November 17, with Thomas De Clerck, co-founder of Luzmo.
Details and registration: https://luma.com/uy8is622
It was our second Sales Circle. Curious about the first one ? Here’s what we learned https://podbw.be/b2b-sales-balancing-discipline-and-relationships-the-pod/.