SalesOwl didn't start with software. It started with twenty years at the conversation table.
The method behind DecisionFlow wasn't invented behind a desk. It was built in practice, conversation by conversation.
I'm Ben Zandvliet. I've trained sellers and commercial teams for over twenty years, and I didn't come out of a methodology — I came out of the practice. My career started in inside sales, grew through account management and on to entrepreneur and commercial director. I ran my own car rental and short-lease business, so I know what it is to make commercial decisions with real consequences.
What I saw again and again over those years: teams rarely fall short on content. They fall short on the structure of the conversation. Pitching too early, proposing too fast, spending too little time understanding the actual problem. Not because they can't — because nobody follows the customer's decision process.
Ben explains: me, the model and SalesOwl.
In under two minutes you'll hear where the Value Cycle comes from and what DecisionFlow does with it.
The Value Cycle isn't a theory. It's a pattern.
I didn't learn the Value Cycle — I recognised it. Across hundreds of customer journeys I kept seeing the same six phases a customer moves through before saying yes. I built, tested and formalised that pattern into a method you can teach. DecisionFlow is that method, now built into a tool that watches with you.
The name says it. An owl doesn't hunt, it watches. It sees the movement the rest don't. That's what I've spent twenty years learning to do, and what SalesOwl now does for every conversation.
Selling is a form of leadership.
A consequence of how much value you deliver. Guide the customer's thinking and revenue follows.
It almost always points back to a phase you skipped in an earlier conversation.
Warm in tone, hard on content. That's the whole craft.
Didactically grounded, not just experienced.
To make sure my work lands as actual behaviour and not just a good feeling, I trained as a trainer. Post-HBO certified professional trainer via Karin de Galan's School of Training, NOBTRA-recognised. My style is clear, honest and practical. No show, plenty of handholds.
Why I'm putting this into software now.
I did this analysis by hand for years, and people kept asking for it. What a good coach reflects back after a call can now happen continuously and at scale, without losing the sharpness. That's why SalesOwl exists. Not to replace a coach, but to make what happens in a good conversation repeatable for everyone.