The Chef and the Waiter Framework for Growth

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ?

Growth can stall even when the product is loved, pricing is right, and teams deliver on time. The blocker is mixing pre-sale and post-sale decisions in the same conversation. 

Our Sherpas use a simple pattern to untangle it: The Chef and the Waiter Framework.

Dining room = pre-sale
Positioning, messaging, pricing, sales assets.

Kitchen = post-sale
Manufacturing, logistics, inventory, fulfillment.

In one factory case, a small design upgrade unlocked a larger market at a higher price. Fear around costs and delays froze progress. By running pre-sale testing and post-sale capacity planning in parallel, momentum returned.

The target was $10M in new revenue over three years. The result: $14M delivered, compounding into $100M+. Not luck—clear roles, fast feedback, and simultaneous execution.

If your revenue needle won’t move, audit your process. Split pre-sale and post-sale work. Stop mixing meetings. 

Clarity accelerates the climb.

Always growing.

Benno Duenkelsbuehler

CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN

reALIGNforResults.com

[e-mail]

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
You have a great product, customers are loving
it, it ships on time, pricedrives, reliable.
But your revenue needle is notmoving, you're frustrated, your
team is frustrated, you try tofigure out how do I get off this
flatlined revenue, right?
Here's what I see all the time.

(00:20):
Our customers are mixing thepre-sale tasks and the post-sale
tasks in the same conversation,right?
And uh you're trying to thinkabout marketing and sales and
order fulfillment and themanufacturing capacity all
together and it paralyzeseverything, right?
Uh and whenever things tangledtogether, nothing nothing's

(00:42):
moving forward.
Quick story about uh factory weworked with.
They were making a commodityconsumer product, um, all those
qualities of you know, the priceright, each cost uh the buyers
loved it, but revenues wereflatlining.
So we looked at their productand the production process and
said, Man, this is great.

(01:02):
All you have to do is tweak theproduct a little bit to open a
whole new market.
Uh, add a little design element,uh, it'll cost a little more,
you can raise your price alittle bit, uh, and you'll
access a market much, muchbigger.
Um factory owners resist it.

(01:23):
Why?
Because they didn't reallyunderstand this slight
difference and and and howadding cost would you know uh
not kill sales.
Uh and they would um uh you knownot know, you know, they were
could they were nervous aboutyou know different sales tools
and a different approach tosales and marketing, uh, how the

(01:47):
costs would pay for themselves.
Um but where it got reallytricky is that um they kept
mixing pre-sale and post-sale inthe same in the same sentence,
right?
We uh we'd be talking aboutmarketing and product
presentation, and they'd belike, uh, but what if we uh get
a really big order and thenwouldn't lead times you know

(02:08):
shoot up through the roof andand and and what's gonna happen
to the margins?
They couldn't focus on onewithout getting confused by the
other, right?
So I separated the two and Isaid, let's just simply think
about your your business like arestaurant.
You have in a restaurant, youhave the dining room, you have
the kitchen.
Dining room is pre-sale, youhave the waiter greeting the

(02:28):
guests, explaining the menu,taking the order, that's
marketing, sales, product umpresentations, and then you have
the kitchen.
That's post-sale.
Uh post-sale, um, you know, thechef prepares the food after the
order, uh, waiter takes theorder.
But um, of course, the chef hasto plan the menu way ahead, buy

(02:51):
the vegetables long before thewaiter takes the order.
Um, but anyway, all of that inthe kitchen, that's
manufacturing, logistics,capacity planning.
You need both, but you can'tplan both at the same time with
the same people in the samesentence, right?
Umce they understood that,everything changed.

(03:11):
Uh, we worked on pre-sale andpost-sale simultaneously, but as
separate projects, right?
I focused one group on thepre-sale, marketing, branding,
sales presentations, etc.
I focused another group onpost-sale, how to fulfill orders
to new customers, morecustomers, much higher revenue

(03:34):
base, uh, which was theirstrength, right?
Order fulfillment inmanufacturing.
Once they saw how we planned,helped them plan their post-sale
process, um, respecting their uhability, they trusted us to plan
and execute the pre-sale uhbecause that's our strength,

(03:56):
right?
Um the result, we had committedto$10 million additional
revenues, get them from$12.2million in three years.
We delivered$14 million in threeyears.
Um today they still keep doingit.
We're still in touch, obviously.
Um, and we're still separatingreligiously the pre-sale and the

(04:17):
post-sale.
Today they're over$100 millionof revenue with this simple
framework.
Uh I call it the chef and thewaiter framework, right?
Pre-sale, dining room,marketing, uh, sales, branding.
Kitchen is post-salemanufacturing logistics order
fulfillment.
Uh the rule here is um plan bothseparately with different

(04:40):
groups, execute themsimultaneously.
Uh uh, don't let the chef be thewaiter.
Each task is critical.
Each task is half of a circle,one no good without the other.
Um if your product is great, butthe revenue is not moving,
you're stuck, the revenue needleis stuck, um, you're probably

(05:02):
mixing pre-sale and post-saleactivity.
Stop doing that, right?
Uh separate the dining room fromthe kitchen, plan both, plan
separately, executesimultaneously.
If you need help um thinkingthrough this uh
pre-sale-post-sale framework,comment below or DM me.
Um let's figure out where you'restuck and let's get the revenue

(05:25):
needle moving again.