# Nelson Fernandes

Nelson Fernandes is a B2B sales coach who works with salespeople and teams on consultative selling, prospecting, and building a more reliable sales process. Nelson Fernandes's posts describe coaching based on Dave Kurlan’s Baseline Selling framework and work through practical sales situations, from buyer discovery to pipeline reviews.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/nelson-fernandes/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps
- LinkedIn followers: 13,076
- Topics: artificial-intelligence, leadership, sales, ai-in-sales, sales-leadership, b2b-sales, sales-forecasting
- Based on 31 dated posts, latest 2026-10-08

## Summary

Nelson Fernandes is a B2B sales coach useful for consultative selling and Baseline Selling process training.

- Best for: A B2B sales training company or a sales leader hiring for consultative selling method.
- Not for: A consumer brand buying broad reach through sponsored posts.
- Check first: Ask for client references and outcome data, since no post quantifies results.

### Takeaways

- Make the buyer explain the problem and its cost before you pitch.
- Treat sales as a system, not a burst of effort or motivation.
- Map the people in the decision, including the quiet ones.

## Main ideas

- **Make the buyer explain the problem and its cost before you pitch**: Fernandes argues that a seller should not demo, quote, or propose before the buyer has described the problem, the cost of leaving it unsolved, and why it matters now. The point is not simply to ask clever questions: the buyer’s own account gives the business case weight that a seller’s claims cannot. Fernandes also treats silence as part of discovery; filling a pause can prevent a buyer from working through the answer.
- **Treat sales as a system, not a burst of effort or motivation**: Fernandes uses Dave Kurlan’s Baseline Selling as the framework behind much of their coaching. They describe it as a staged process in which deals move forward on buyer-verified evidence, not a seller’s optimism. For sales leaders, that means changing how opportunities are qualified and reviewed, then checking whether the process improves results over time. A workshop or a tidy CRM stage list is not enough on its own.
- **Map the people in the decision, including the quiet ones**: A seller can mistake interest from one person for a buying decision. Fernandes argues that sellers must identify the people who approve, fund, integrate, or live with a purchase, and distinguish a real opportunity from a hopeful forecast. Their stories make the risk concrete: the apparent buyer may not be the only person whose decision matters, and a deal can also stall indefinitely behind a vague “not yet.”
- **Differentiate by what you understand about the buyer, not by your credentials**: Fernandes separates differentiation into what a seller has, how they deliver, and what they see about the buyer’s problem. They argue that credentials and delivery claims are easy for competitors to match; a specific, useful point of view about the buyer is harder to copy and can keep a discussion from collapsing into a price comparison. They apply the same buyer-first logic to account selection: a long vendor list does not prove that the buyer’s important problem is solved.
- **Use AI to speed up sales work, not to remove the human conversation**: Fernandes supports using AI for research, drafting, and administrative work, but argues that complex, costly, or risky B2B decisions still require human trust. In their view, automation can get a seller to the meeting faster; it cannot make a buyer disclose the real cost of a problem or replace a sound discovery process. They warn that cutting sellers before fixing that process can make the same mistakes happen faster.
- **Prospecting belongs to every salesperson, and the aim is a useful meeting**: Fernandes rejects the idea that only SDRs should prospect or that success comes from dialing a large list blindly. They say sellers should prepare, target a specific person and problem, and seek a focused discovery conversation rather than pitching the product on the first call. Their advice emphasizes practice and relevance over volume or scripted persistence.

## Work to read

- [The Positioning Statement Builder: open with the buyer's problem, not your product](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_b2bsales-prospecting-baselineselling-activity-7502553736444092416-CBM_)
- [The six seconds after the cost-of-inaction question](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_the-sales-director-asked-the-question-perfectly-activity-7491319709733339137-7c5x)
- [The CFO who killed a two-day sales training event](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_the-smartest-person-in-that-room-was-the-activity-7478643353069412352-2KDv)
- [AI returns two hours; the process decides what happens next](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_baselineselling-activity-7490231562630795264-f2uo)
- [Big logos versus smaller companies is the wrong question](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_b2bsales-enterprisesales-salesleadership-activity-7513063005903896576-l0kM)
- [A client engagement: installing a first-call process at Lykis](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_baselineselling-salesleadershipintensive-activity-7430111495213977600-IECn)
- [The Triumph showroom: losing a deal to the stakeholder you did not map](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_sunday-morning-just-back-from-a-cycling-activity-7451472146683498496-xn_0)
- [BigLeaps CRM: a tool that will not let you pitch early](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nelson-fernandes-sales-coach-big-leaps_baselineselling-baselineselling-bigleaps-activity-7512701509545934848-QP4N)

## Brand relationships

- **BigLeaps** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Lykis Limited** (client)
- **Dave Kurlan** (mention)
- **ObjectiveManagement Group** (mention)

## Partnerships

The posts publish no sponsorship policy, rate card or media kit, and describe no brand-sponsored post or paid placement. A promotional deal would have to be negotiated directly, rather than ordered from a published package. The partnership surface a brand can plan against is Fernandes's training business: free half-day previews that feed multi-week cohorts, on-site intensive work with a client's whole sales team, and curriculum co-branded and co-certified with named partners such as Dave Kurlan's Baseline Selling. Outreach runs through Fernandes's own calls to action — DM a keyword, book a call from the site, or take a seat at a preview. Ask for the official partnership inquiry route.

## Alternatives

- Steve Abramson: For a B2B sales training company benchmarking a consultative selling methodology partner, Steve Abramson is the better choice when the client's gap is at the pitch and differentiation stage. In his posts, he describes sitting on a City pitch panel where four firms were 'almost entirely interchangeable' and the client's feedback was 'We'll need to think about it.' His argument is that when credentials, case studies and rates are similar, the firm that wins is the one whose thinking about this specific client's situation cannot be replicated: the question nobody else asked, the reframe that changes how the client sees the problem. He also writes about deliberately hiring and working with people better than you, which supports a partner-led growth or leadership development engagement. Choose him when the buyer needs to improve how a professional services firm originates and wins work through insight, not when they need a repeatable sales process installed across a team.
- Melissa Johnson: For a B2B sales training company benchmarking a consultative selling methodology partner, Melissa Johnson is the better choice when the client is in K-12 or edtech sales and the problem is forecast honesty, pipeline inspection or coaching rhythm. Her posts show a sales leader drawing parallels between a solo ocean row and K-12 sales: deciding what to secure before the boat flips, keeping the pipeline honest and naming risks early. She also argues that a responsive buyer can still be a risky forecast and lists the questions she uses to separate interest from buying evidence — who owns the decision, whether funding is identified and what evidence comes from the district rather than only the champion. She describes building an AI-supported workflow to pressure-test assumptions and prepare coaching questions. Choose her when the engagement is about weekly management discipline, structured opportunity inspection and coaching sellers to see the business truth earlier in a K-12 or edtech context.
- Prince Kumar: Prince Kumar is not a better choice for a B2B sales training company benchmarking a consultative selling methodology partner because he does not work in that domain. He is a better choice when the buyer's task is digital marketing or AI search visibility. One post tells the Titan Watches story about solving a problem everyone knew existed and finding a legal way around a license restriction; the other argues that AI search tools reward brands that become the source ChatGPT trusts, through topical authority, helpful content, clear site structure and consistent brand mentions. Choose him when the client needs SEO, GEO/AEO or content strategy to be found and recommended by AI tools.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/