Salesloft MCP Demo Server

# Salesloft + Clari Customer Interview Transcript **Client:** Diana Robinson, VP Sales - Maintenance Software (Multi-tenant SaaS Platform) **Company:** Strategic Maintenance Solutions Inc. (SMS) **Company Size:** 150 employees, $45M ARR **Date:** January 8, 2024 **Duration:** 32 minutes **Sales Rep:** James Chen, Enterprise Account Executive **Sales Engineer:** Sarah Mitchell, Solutions Architect --- ## Interview Metadata | Attribute | Value | |-----------|-------| | **Interview Type** | Discovery/Needs Analysis Call | | **Prospect Stage** | Early-stage engagement (warm introduction) | | **Deal Size Potential** | $250K-$500K ACV (15-50 seat licenses + services) | | **Buying Committee** | VP Sales, Sales Operations Manager, CFO (later stages) | | **Key Challenge** | Selling to maintenance managers—tactical buyers resistant to change | | **Success Metric** | Understanding how to build executive sponsorship in field operations | --- ## Full Transcript ### OPENING (0:00-2:15) **James:** Diana, thanks so much for making time today. I know you're busy, and I really appreciate it. Before we dive in, let me just give you a quick context on why we reached out. We work with companies like yours that are selling into operations and maintenance teams—and we've noticed that the sales process is... let's call it "unique." **Diana:** *(laughing)* That's one way to put it. Yeah, our sales cycle is weird. We're a SaaS platform for maintenance management, so our users are facilities managers, maintenance directors, plant managers. They're not fancy. They don't want innovation. They want "does it work?" **James:** Exactly. And that's actually why I wanted to talk to you. We work with Salesloft on sales enablement, and we've been helping companies like Schneider Electric and Fortive figure out how to sell to that buyer persona. It's not about features. It's about something different. **Diana:** Right. I mean, we're doing pretty well—we're at $45M ARR—but I know we're leaving money on the table. We win deals, but it takes forever. And we lose some that I think we should be winning. The feedback I get is: "We already have a system. It works. Why change?" **Sarah:** That's the insight we're hearing across the board, Diana. And what we've learned is that when you're selling to operational buyers who are "good enough" with their legacy system, you need a totally different sales playbook. You need to get the CFO and the plant director both saying yes, not just the facilities manager. **Diana:** Mm-hmm. That's... actually that's really accurate. We close a lot of deals where the facilities guy loves us, but then finance gets involved and says, "Wait, why are we paying for this if we already have SAP?" **James:** There it is. That's the gap we see every time. And today I'd love to just listen and understand: What's your current sales motion? What's working? What's not? And then maybe we can talk about how other companies are handling this. **Diana:** I'm here for it. Let's go. --- ### PART 1: UNDERSTANDING THE CURRENT SALES MOTION (2:15-8:30) **James:** Okay, so walk me through your typical sales cycle. Let's say a maintenance manager at a mid-market manufacturing company finds you. How does that deal usually unfold? **Diana:** So they usually find us through our website or a trade show—we do some facility management conferences. Or a peer refers us. They request a demo, and honestly, most of the time, our demo is "here's the mobile app, here's the web portal, look how easy it is to log work orders." The facilities guy goes, "Yeah, this is clean," and then... it just kind of stalls. **Sarah:** Stalls at what point? **Diana:** Well, the facilities manager might be sold—90% of the time they are—but then there's this question of budget and implementation. And that's when it hits a wall. The facilities manager goes back to their operations director or VP of Ops, and that person is like, "Okay, so we're replacing Maximo? Dude, Maximo has been here for 15 years. I have 10,000 work orders in there. What happens to all that data?" And then... they ghost us. **James:** How often does it get to a CFO conversation? **Diana:** Rarely. And when it does, it's usually because we got lucky and the operations director was having a bad year—like, their maintenance backlog was piling up, or they had a compliance issue. That's when there's urgency. But without that external pressure? Most of the time, it's just "we'll revisit this" and then it dies. **Sarah:** So you're winning some, but you feel like you're competing on the wrong front. You're proving value to the user—the facilities manager—but that's not the economic buyer. **Diana:** Exactly. And here's what really bugs me: in the ones we *do* win, the customer gets insane ROI. We had one customer—a $200M industrial company—they went from 6,000 overdue work orders to 200 in four months. Their labor costs went down 18%. Their asset utilization went up. Those numbers are real. But we have to *get them there* to see those numbers. And by then it's too late in the sales process. **James:** You're touching on something important—you have the data to prove ROI, but you're not deploying it early enough. **Diana:** We have *some* data. The problem is, every customer is different. One customer's ROI is labor savings. Another customer's ROI is equipment uptime. Another one is compliance—they're in pharma, they need to prove they did preventative maintenance. So when we pitch, we don't really know which button to push. **Sarah:** Right. So you're doing a generic demo, not a customized ROI conversation based on their specific business drivers. **Diana:** Yeah. And our sales team isn't... I mean, they're good at sales, but they're not equipped to do a baseline assessment. Like, we don't have a process to go in and say, "Today you have $2M in annual maintenance costs. Here's where we think we can move the needle based on industry benchmarks and what we see in your business." We just show the product. **James:** Do you have that data? The baseline assessment data? **Diana:** We *could*. Our professional services team does implementations, and they see all this stuff—they know what bad looks like, what good looks like, what best-in-class looks like. But they're not talking to sales early. They get engaged after the contract is signed. **Sarah:** That's a huge insight. So you've got the ammunition—your services team knows what moves the needle—but your sales team is selling blind because they don't have access to that. **Diana:** *(nodding)* Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. And honestly, even if we did the baseline assessment, I'm not sure our sales team would know what to do with it. Like, do we use it to get to the operations director? Do we use it to get to finance? Do we use it in the RFP response? **James:** Those are different approaches for different scenarios. But they all share something: you're starting with production data, not product features. --- ### PART 2: THE TACTICAL BUYER PROBLEM (8:30-15:20) **Sarah:** Let me ask you this—when you lose deals, what's the reason? Like, what do the reps say? **Diana:** Usually one of three things. One: "They're happy with what they have." Two: "The CFO wouldn't approve the budget." Three: "They're not ready to implement—they have too much going on right now." Those are the kills we see. **James:** And when you *win*, what's different? **Diana:** Pain. Real pain. Like, either they had a safety incident, and now they need compliance visibility. Or they were audited, and they realized their maintenance records are a mess. Or they had a big equipment failure, and now their VP of Ops is like, "We need better preventative maintenance." That's when they move. **Sarah:** So you need an event that creates urgency and pulls it up the chain—from the facilities manager up to operations leadership. **Diana:** Right. And here's the thing—we're not creating that event. We're just hoping it happens naturally. And I think that's lost revenue. **James:** What if you could create the event? Not artificially, but through education? **Diana:** *(leaning in)* What do you mean? **James:** Well, here's what we're seeing at other companies. The best sales reps in your space—selling to maintenance and operations—they're doing discovery calls, and instead of immediately showing a demo, they're asking questions like: "What percentage of your maintenance work is reactive versus preventative?" "What's your average work order closure time?" "How often do you have to stop production for emergency repairs?" "What percentage of your maintenance budget is unplanned?" **Diana:** We don't ask those questions. **Sarah:** And when you do ask them, something interesting happens. The facilities manager or operations director starts realizing that their metrics are actually bad. They've never looked at them. And suddenly, they go back to their leadership and say, "Hey, we're reactive 70% of the time. That's costing us." That's the event. **James:** It's a diagnostic event, not a product event. **Diana:** Wow. So you're basically helping them understand they have a problem before you sell them the solution. **Sarah:** Exactly. And not in a pushy way. You're just reflecting data back at them. "Here's what we see in your industry. Here's what the best-in-class companies do. Here's where you are." Let them draw the conclusion. **Diana:** That would change everything. But that requires our sales reps to actually understand the business. Not just "here's how to use the software." **James:** It's a different skill set. But here's the key—once you've done that discovery, you also know whether you even have a shot at the deal. If they're not willing to acknowledge the problem, no amount of features is going to help you. **Diana:** So it's like a qualification question, but it actually creates value for the buyer in the process. **Sarah:** Yes. And it puts you in a position of authority, not just vendor-trying-to-sell. **Diana:** *(pause)* I think our best reps are kind of doing this intuitively. But we don't have it systematized. And we're not training new reps on it. They just go straight to the demo. **James:** That's common. So let's talk about the second layer—once you've created that diagnostic awareness, how do you escalate it? **Diana:** That's where we struggle. The facilities manager might get it, but they're not the one who makes the budget decision. **Sarah:** Right. So what we've seen work is this: in the discovery phase, you need to identify the *actual* economic buyer and the operational champion. The facilities manager is the champion. But who controls the budget? In maintenance, it's often operations leadership—a director, a VP. Sometimes it's the CFO, especially if there's a capital expense component. **Diana:** And we're not talking to those people until late in the sales cycle, if at all. **James:** Exactly. So the play is: use the discovery and diagnostic work to create a case for upward escalation. You say, "Based on what we've learned, I think it would be really valuable for your operations director to see what we've found. Would you be open to a brief conversation where we can walk through the data together?" **Diana:** Would they actually agree to that? **Sarah:** In our experience, yes—if you've done the work right. You're not asking for a random meeting. You're saying, "I've found something that affects their business." That's different than cold-calling the VP of Ops. **Diana:** And the facilities manager becomes your champion in that meeting? **James:** Ideally. They're sitting there nodding along because they already agree with the diagnosis. And now the VP of Ops is hearing it from their own team, not just a vendor. **Diana:** That's smart. That's actually really smart. So it's like the rep is enabling the internal champion to have a conversation with their boss, rather than the rep doing the convincing. **Sarah:** Bingo. The rep's job is to facilitate and provide credibility. But the facilities manager is saying, "I know this person is right because they understand how we actually work." **Diana:** Okay, and then in that conversation with the VP of Ops—what's the message? **James:** Now you're talking ROI and business case. You've got production data: "You're at 70% reactive maintenance. Industry best practice is 30%. The cost of one emergency production halt is $X. If we move your ratio closer to industry standard, we're looking at potential savings of $Y annually." You're making it real. **Diana:** And the CFO gets brought in at what point? **Sarah:** Usually once there's agreement at the operations level on the business case. Then it's a CFO conversation about implementation costs, ROI payback, and budget timing. By then, you're not debating whether they need to do something—you're discussing how and when. **Diana:** That's a fundamentally different sales motion than what we're doing. **James:** It is. And it requires a few things: your sales team needs the business acumen to have those conversations. You need baseline assessment processes. And you need to change how you're approaching the market—from "check out our product" to "let's talk about your business." --- ### PART 3: PROOF OF CONCEPT AND ADOPTION (15:20-22:45) **Diana:** Okay, so let's say we do all this right. We get the VP of Ops and CFO on board. They believe the business case. Now what? **Sarah:** Now you're looking at implementation and proof of concept, usually. And this is where a lot of deals stall again—the change management side. **Diana:** Yeah, we see that. We'll go live with a customer, and six months in, we check in, and the adoption metrics are terrible. Facilities managers are only using the mobile app for half their work orders. They're going back to pen and paper. **James:** Why? What's the resistance? **Diana:** It's... I don't know. We ask, and they'll say, "It's slower than what I was doing before" or "I don't understand this screen." And the truth is, for a guy who's been a facilities manager for 20 years, any new system is a headache. **Sarah:** But here's the thing—if you've built a strong business case and a strong champion, you can lean on that during adoption. The VP of Ops can say, "No, we're doing this. Here's why. And your job is to learn the new system." That's very different than a facilities manager voluntarily deciding to change their behavior. **Diana:** But they still have to actually use it, right? You can't force adoption. **James:** You can't force it, but you can design for it. And here's what we see with the best implementations: you need to focus on quick wins early. Don't ask the facilities manager to change everything at once. Start with one workflow—maybe it's work order closeout. Get them winning there first. **Diana:** What does a "quick win" look like in this context? **Sarah:** Something that makes their job easier in the first week. So if they're used to manually tracking who's doing what, now they can see it on the app in real-time. Or if they usually write hand-scrawled work orders that get entered later by an admin, now they're capturing it live. Small thing, but it gives them immediate value. **Diana:** And this increases adoption rates? **James:** Yes. Because now they're not changing for some abstract business goal. They're changing because their day-to-day job got a little easier. And once you've got them comfortable with one thing, expanding to other workflows is easier. **Diana:** That requires our implementation team to be smarter about how they're rolling out systems. **Sarah:** It does. And honestly, some of your competitors don't do this. They implement a big bang—here's all the features, go learn them—and then they're surprised when adoption is low. And the customer is unhappy because they're not seeing the ROI they signed up for. **Diana:** So the adoption piece is critical to hitting the ROI you promised? **James:** Completely. You promised the VP of Ops a business case that said we'll save you $500K a year. Well, that ROI only happens if the facilities managers are actually using the system. If they're only using it for 50% of their work, you're only getting 50% of the benefit. And the customer is mad, and they're at risk of churning. **Diana:** We haven't really thought about adoption as a sales problem. **Sarah:** It is. I'd argue it's the biggest sales problem at the expansion and renewal stage. Because the customer is not seeing the expected ROI, they're not going to expand, and they might not renew. **Diana:** Okay, so we need to build adoption into our playbook from the beginning. Change management, training, quick wins, all of that. **James:** Yes. And you need to front-load it. The change management plan should be part of your pitch, not something you figure out during implementation. **Diana:** That's different. Most of our sales conversations don't even touch on change management. **Sarah:** There's the gap. **Diana:** How do you bring that up without sounding like you're selling more services? **James:** You lead with the business reality. "Diana, you're going to invest in this. To get the ROI you're expecting, we need a 90-day adoption plan. Here's what that looks like. Here's the training. Here's how we do quick wins. Here's the executive check-in cadence. That's how we move from you buying a product to you actually realizing the business case." **Diana:** And the customer pays for the services to make it happen? **Sarah:** Ideally, yes. But the way you position it is: "This is not an extra cost. This is the way we ensure you hit the ROI target. It's part of your investment to get the outcome you're buying." Different framing. **Diana:** *(nods)* That actually makes sense. So the deal is not just software licensing—it's the outcome. And the services are how you achieve the outcome. **James:** Exactly. And if you frame it that way, the CFO understands it better too. They're not paying $250K for software—they're paying $250K for $500K in annual savings. The services are part of how you get there. --- ### PART 4: NAVIGATING COMPETITION AND LEGACY SYSTEMS (22:45-29:10) **Diana:** Let me pivot for a second. When I lose deals, it's often to legacy systems—SAP, Maximo, or just a homegrown database. The customer already has something. How do you win against that? **Sarah:** That's the hardest fight, because you're not just selling against a competitor—you're selling against inertia and switching costs. **Diana:** Right. The customer has to migrate all their historical data. They have to retrain people. It's a big project. **James:** And they have to acknowledge that their current system isn't working. Which is hard, because they've invested so much in it. **Diana:** Exactly. So how do you overcome that? **Sarah:** Honestly, I think the answer is in the diagnostic work you're doing early. You need to quantify the cost of staying on the legacy system. Not just the cost to switch, but the cost to stay the same. **James:** Can you give an example? **Sarah:** Sure. Let's say a customer is on SAP. SAP is expensive—$100K a year in licensing and support. But it's designed for ERP across the whole company, not really optimized for maintenance management. So their maintenance team is using SAP for some things and a separate system for mobile work orders and another spreadsheet for reporting. They have three systems and three different data sources. **Diana:** That's pretty common, honestly. **Sarah:** Right. So you do the diagnostic and you show them: "You're paying for three systems. You have data inconsistency issues. Your maintenance manager spends 20 hours a month reconciling data. You could consolidate to one system, reduce annual costs, and have real-time visibility instead of waiting for nightly batch updates." Now the switching cost doesn't look so bad. **James:** You're making the argument that *staying* on the current system is more expensive than switching. **Diana:** But some customers will say, "Yeah, but we've already paid for SAP. The switching cost is real money today." **Sarah:** True. And that's a fair point. But if you've done the math right, you're saying, "If you stay with SAP and keep the three-system approach, you're spending $500K a year in operational cost and lost productivity. If you switch to us, the migration cost is $100K one-time, but your annual cost is $250K, and you have better outcomes. Payback is 8 months." **Diana:** And you can only make that argument if you have the data. **James:** Exactly. And here's the kicker: SAP is never going to do that analysis for you. They're not going to show you it's too expensive. So if you do the analysis and you present it credibly, it's a powerful differentiator. **Diana:** What about situations where SAP is actually the right choice? Like, if a customer is an enterprise with a complex ERP ecosystem, SAP might actually be better. **Sarah:** Good question. And the honest answer is: some customers should stay on SAP. You're not going to win every deal. But you can win the ones where there's a mismatch between the system and the problem. And you do that by being honest about it. **James:** I think what Sarah is saying is: the diagnostic conversation also helps you disqualify deals you shouldn't be winning. If they truly need a full ERP, and that's your core business, that's okay. You'd rather have a shorter deal cycle with five customers who are a great fit than a long, painful deal cycle with one customer who's the wrong fit. **Diana:** *(pauses)* That's interesting, because I think we've been trying to be everything to everyone. We'll sell to companies on SAP, companies on Maximo, companies with custom systems. And every deal is different, which makes it hard to scale. **Sarah:** It is hard. And it's one reason your sales cycle is long. Every deal is custom because you haven't really defined what you're great at. **Diana:** What should we be great at? **James:** That's a bigger strategic question. But I'd start with this: what type of customer, in what industry, with what current situation, do you get the best ROI for? And where is it easiest to demonstrate that ROI? **Diana:** Probably mid-market manufacturers with 3,000+ employees. They're large enough to have a real operations budget but not so large that they've already standardized everything. And they usually have a mix of reactive and preventative maintenance, so there's clear opportunity for us. **Sarah:** That's your beachhead. That's where you focus your sales motion, your case studies, your messaging. Not everywhere. **Diana:** But we don't have one unified sales pitch for that market. We're customizing every deal. **James:** That's a bigger project. But what you could do is this: take your best customer—the one where you got the biggest ROI—and reverse-engineer the sales cycle. What did you do differently? How did you get multiple stakeholders bought in? What was the proof of concept? What was the adoption plan? Build that into a repeatable process. **Diana:** And then we can scale it? **Sarah:** Yes. And over time, you can optimize it. You'll learn what's working and what's not. And your sales team will have a framework instead of winging it every time. --- ### PART 5: EXECUTIVE SPONSORSHIP AND GOVERNANCE (29:10-32:00) **James:** One last thing I want to talk about—executive sponsorship. You mentioned earlier that deals tend to stall when they go up the chain. Why is that? **Diana:** I think it's because by the time they get to the executive level, the momentum has stalled. Or there's a budget issue. Or there's some other priority that's more urgent. **Sarah:** So you're not actively managing the executive conversation? **Diana:** Not really. We try to set up a meeting, but it's hard to get on a busy CFO or VP of Ops calendar. **James:** What if instead of waiting for the facilities manager to escalate, you had a systematic way to do the escalation? **Diana:** What would that look like? **Sarah:** You have the diagnostic data. You have a clear business case. You have the operational champion. Now you write a one-page executive brief—just one page—that walks through the problem, the solution, the investment, the ROI, and the timeline. Then you have the facilities manager or operations director send that to their CFO or VP with a note: "I think we should explore this. Can we get 15 minutes?" **Diana:** And that gets more traction than the rep trying to schedule a meeting? **James:** So much more. Because it's not a cold introduction from a vendor. It's a peer recommendation from someone the CFO already trusts. **Diana:** But we're coaching the operations director on what to say? **Sarah:** You're enabling them. You're giving them the materials, the talking points, maybe even prepping them on a call. "Here's what we recommend you say to your CFO. Here's what they're going to ask, and here's how to answer it." You're making them a better champion. **Diana:** That's kind of like a manager coaching a player, not a vendor selling a product. **James:** Exactly. And that's the shift that makes these deals close. **Diana:** *(reflecting)* Okay, so just to synthesize what I'm hearing: We need to change how we approach the market. Instead of showing a product to a facilities manager and hoping they escalate, we need to do diagnostic work upfront, identify the business case, enable that facilities manager to become a champion, coach them on escalation, then manage the executive conversation with credible data. And throughout the process, we're building an adoption plan to ensure they actually get the ROI they promised. **Sarah:** That's it. **James:** And it requires a different sales motion, different training, different tools, and honestly, a different way of thinking about sales at your company. **Diana:** *(nods slowly)* I know it's the right thing to do. The question is: how do we get there? **James:** That's what we'd like to explore with you. Not as a vendor pitch, but as a real partnership. We've helped other companies make this transition. And we know what works and what doesn't. **Diana:** What does that look like? **Sarah:** Ideally, we'd do a diagnostic on your current sales motion. Look at your best deals—the ones that closed quickly and profitably. And reverse-engineer what worked. Then we'd build a playbook with you that you can scale across your team. **Diana:** And Salesloft fits in how? **James:** Salesloft is the platform layer. It's how your reps execute the playbook. The content library, the sequences, the coaching data—all of that lives in Salesloft. So the playbook is the "what" and "why." Salesloft is the "how" and "where." **Diana:** That makes sense. And you said you work with companies like Schneider Electric doing this? **Sarah:** Yes. Different industries, but the problem is the same. Sales to operations buyers. Tactical users. Legacy system competition. Long deal cycles. Once they shifted to this diagnostic-first, champion-led, escalation-driven model, deal cycles compressed and win rates went up. **Diana:** I'm interested. What's the next step? **James:** How about we set up a deeper workshop with your sales leadership? Your VP of Sales, your sales ops person, maybe your best rep. We walk through two of your closed deals—a win and a loss—and we map out what happened at each stage. That'll show us what's working and where the biggest gaps are. **Diana:** How long would that take? **Sarah:** Two to three hours, probably spread across a couple of sessions. **Diana:** Okay, I'm in. Let's do it. **James:** Perfect. And Diana, thank you for being so candid today. This is exactly the kind of conversation we need to have to actually move the needle for you. **Diana:** Thank you. Honestly, I feel like I've learned more in 30 minutes than I have in the last six months of sales meetings. So I appreciate it. --- ## Key Takeaways & Insights ### 1. **The Core Problem: Wrong Buyer, Right Product** - SMS is selling to facilities managers (tactical users) when the economic buyer is the VP of Operations or CFO - Current sales motion is feature-focused demo, not business-focused diagnosis - Without executive alignment early, deals stall or lose to status quo bias ### 2. **Diagnostic Discovery is the Bridge** - Need to conduct baseline assessments before demoing (production data, cost analysis, gap identification) - This shifts conversation from "here's our product" to "here's what we found about your business" - Diana's professional services team has this knowledge—needs to be brought into sales process early - Creates an "event" that pulls leadership into conversation, not just facilities manager enthusiasm ### 3. **Three-Tier Sales Motion Required** 1. **Operational Champion** (Facilities Manager): Identified through discovery, provided coaching/enablement 2. **Economic Buyer** (VP Ops/Director): Sold on business case and ROI with production data 3. **Finance/CFO**: Validates ROI payback period, implementation costs, budget timing ### 4. **Executive Escalation Through Enablement, Not Cold Outreach** - Rep's role is to coach the operational champion on upward escalation - One-page executive brief delivered by peer (facilities manager to their VP) > cold email from vendor - Clear messaging: problem identification, solution, investment, ROI, timeline ### 5. **Adoption & ROI Realization are Sales Problems** - Change management must be part of initial pitch, not figured out during implementation - Quick wins strategy: start with one workflow that makes job easier immediately - 90-day adoption plan with training, check-ins, and metrics ensures promised ROI is achieved - Low adoption = low ROI realization = churn/non-renewal risk ### 6. **Switching Cost Argument Flips When You Have Data** - Currently losing to legacy systems (SAP, Maximo) due to switching inertia - Turn the argument: quantify the cost of staying (3 systems, data inconsistency, lost productivity) vs. switching cost - Only works if you have baseline data showing true operational cost - Be honest about fit—some customers *should* stay on legacy system; disqualify appropriately ### 7. **Execution Path Forward** - Build repeatable playbook by reverse-engineering SMS's best closed deals - Create diagnostic assessment template for baseline evaluation - Develop executive brief template for upward escalation - Establish adoption/change management plan as standard sales deliverable - Use Salesloft as platform for playbook execution (content library, sequences, coaching) ### 8. **Root Cause of Long Deal Cycles** - Not building business case early with executive visibility - Waiting for internal escalation instead of enabling it - No structured adoption plan = expected ROI not achieved = stalled expansion - Competing on features (product) instead of outcomes (business impact) ### 9. **Immediate Opportunities** - Diana recognizes need to systematize sales motion across team - Professional services team is untapped resource for baseline assessment data - Best sales rep's intuitive approach should be documented and trained across team - Beachhead market identified (mid-market manufacturers, 3K+ employees) for focused messaging ### 10. **Next Steps (as Agreed)** - Facilitate workshop with VP Sales, Sales Ops, top rep - Deep-dive analysis of 2 closed deals (1 win, 1 loss) - Map gap analysis at each deal stage - Build replicable playbook from findings - Implement through Salesloft + Clari platform for visibility and execution --- ## Notable Quotes > "We close a lot of deals where the facilities guy loves us, but then finance gets involved and says, 'Wait, why are we paying for this if we already have SAP?'" > "We have the data to prove ROI, but we're not deploying it early enough." > "Our professional services team knows what bad looks like, what good looks like, what best-in-class looks like. But they're not talking to sales early. They get engaged after the contract is signed." > "You're basically helping them understand they have a problem before you sell them the solution." > "If they're not willing to acknowledge the problem, no amount of features is going to help you." > "The adoption piece is critical to hitting the ROI you promised." > "The deal is not just software licensing—it's the outcome. The services are how you achieve the outcome." > "You're not just selling against a competitor—you're selling against inertia and switching costs." > "The facilities manager is never going to pitch SAP. So if you do the analysis and you present it credibly, it's a powerful differentiator." > "I feel like I've learned more in 30 minutes than I have in the last six months of sales meetings." --- ## About the Participants **Diana Robinson** - VP Sales, Strategic Maintenance Solutions Inc. - Responsible for $45M ARR in recurring revenue - 150-person organization across sales, product, operations - 8+ years in maintenance management software industry - Prior experience in operations consulting - Known for: Data-driven decision-making, willingness to challenge status quo, commitment to scaling **James Chen** - Enterprise Account Executive, Salesloft + Clari - 12+ years in sales enablement and sales operations technology - Focused on operational buyer markets (manufacturing, asset-intensive industries) - Specializes in: Sales motion design, deal playbook development, organizational change **Sarah Mitchell** - Solutions Architect, Salesloft + Clari - 10+ years in sales engineering and customer success - Deep experience with complex, multi-stakeholder deal structures - Specializes in: ROI modeling, business case development, adoption strategy --- **Document prepared:** January 8, 2024 **Transcript duration:** 32 minutes, 14 seconds **Word count:** Approximately 4,100 words