Sonde
About Sonde

Built around how industrial business is won.

Sonde combines industrial sales experience, technical knowledge and Sonde’s software. Together they show where your capabilities fit, who shapes the decision and what it takes to be considered.

Meet the founder ↓
Why Sonde exists

We built the software we wanted on our side.

For much of his career, Christopher was responsible for growing a specialty polymer components manufacturer. When the oil downturn hit, the company needed to find opportunities beyond the industry it had always relied on. That meant looking at its capabilities differently: understanding where else they could be useful, who might need them and what it would take to win their business.

Some opportunities were within reach of what the company already made. Others required a new process, a technical partner or work to meet a buyer’s qualification requirements. Pursuing them meant getting close enough to the people involved to understand what they needed and whether the company could deliver it.

That experience became the foundation for Sonde. Christopher saw how much work a capable supplier could miss simply because it fell outside the markets and accounts they knew. He also knew how much time it took to find those opportunities and follow them through while running the business.

Ultimately, he built Sonde to make that work easier to sustain. Our proprietary software helps uncover demand that could fit a supplier’s capabilities, giving us a starting point for the conversations that follow. The goal is to help more industrial businesses find where they could grow next and give them the support to go after it.

Leadership

Meet the founder.

Christopher Stiff
Founder · Commercial strategy and business development

Christopher Stiff

Built on experience finding new markets and winning industrial work.

Christopher Stiff spent 19 years in industrial sales and commercial leadership, helping a specialty polymer components manufacturer win customers, develop new capabilities and expand into new markets.

His work centred on finding where demand was heading and understanding what the business needed to compete. Sometimes that meant introducing existing capabilities to a different industry. Other times, it meant developing a new process, bringing in a technical partner or working through supplier qualifications.

That experience shaped the research and business development approach behind Sonde.

  • 39% of new prospects came from outside oil and gasBroadened prospecting beyond the company’s traditional market, identifying new applications and potential customers for its capabilities.
  • U.S. accounts grew from 2 to 12 in 18 monthsCombined targeted research, direct prospecting and relationship development to expand the company’s customer base in the United States.
  • Opened a route into Eastern Canada’s hydropower sectorResearch into a major hydroelectric refurbishment led to an engineering introduction, uncovered a requirement the company could meet and secured an agreed sample evaluation.

Christopher founded Sonde to bring this approach to other industrial suppliers. Sonde combines proprietary software with industrial sales experience to uncover work that fits their capabilities, establish whether there’s a real opportunity and pursue it with the people involved.

MSc Global Digital Marketing, with Distinction · University of Essex
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Where would you like to take your business next?

Tell us what you supply and where you want to grow—whether that means more work in familiar markets or opportunities in new regions, sectors and applications. Let’s discuss how Sonde could help.

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