Salesloft MCP Demo Server

# Interview: Elizabeth Morgan - RegTech VP Sales ## Interview Metadata **Date:** January 15, 2025 **Duration:** 30 minutes **Interviewer:** Marcus Chen, Account Executive - Salesloft + Clari **Interviewee:** Elizabeth Morgan, VP Sales, Compliance Dynamics (RegTech, $65M ARR) **Location:** Zoom Call **Recording:** Yes --- ## Interview Transcript **[MARCUS]** Elizabeth, thanks for taking the time this morning. I know you've got a lot on your plate right now. Before we dive in, how's things been with the new regulatory landscape? I know we've had some chaos around the CFTC changes. **[ELIZABETH]** Marcus, I appreciate you saying that. Honestly? It's been absolute madness. We just came out of a two-week sprint where we had to pivot our entire go-to-market because the CFTC delayed their guidance again. Two weeks. That means we pushed our Q1 pipeline by six weeks, and my team is exhausted. But I'm glad you asked about it because this is exactly what we need to talk about. **[MARCUS]** That's the kind of detail that's really helpful. Walk me through what happened. What triggered the pivot? **[ELIZABETH]** So we had three enterprise prospects ready to close in Q1. All of them are in derivatives trading—one's a tier-one bank, two are larger hedge funds. They were all waiting for the SEC's clarification on cross-border derivatives rules. When that got pushed back to March, they all hit pause. Just... pause. No timeline for moving forward. One of them—the bank—literally said, "We can't justify the spend until we know what we're actually building for." That's killing me because my forecast went from $4.2M in Q1 to $1.8M overnight. My CEO's asking questions. My board's asking questions. And my team is demoralized because we did all this work, and it's like we're back to square one. **[MARCUS]** That's really tough. But here's what I'm hearing that's interesting—they didn't say no. They said not yet. Is that accurate? **[ELIZABETH]** Yeah, that's fair. They're definitely not killed. But "not yet" is almost worse in some ways. Because the pressure is now on me to keep them warm, show them we're thinking about their problems, prove that we're flexible enough to handle whatever comes out of that guidance. And I've got limited resources for that. **[MARCUS]** When you say limited resources, what does that look like for you? What's your sales team size, and how are they allocated right now? **[ELIZABETH]** We've got twelve sellers on my team. Two are dedicated to strategic accounts—that includes those three I mentioned. The rest are working a mix of mid-market and SMB. But here's the challenge: because of the regulatory uncertainty, we're getting pulled in multiple directions. We've got customers asking for products we haven't even built yet. We've got prospects in the EU asking about DORA compliance, customers in Singapore asking about MAS requirements. It's like everyone's looking at us as this Swiss Army knife that can solve every regulatory problem. Which, honestly, we can't. Not yet. Not with our current product portfolio. **[MARCUS]** That's interesting. So you're hearing multi-product, multi-geography demand? **[ELIZABETH]** Exactly. Our core product is KYC and AML compliance. That's what we're known for. But these days, customers are coming to us saying, "We need KYC, we need AML, we need transaction monitoring, we need RegTech solutions for DORA, we need solutions for CFTC derivatives reporting." They want one vendor. They want integrated solutions. They want us to be a portfolio player. The problem is, we're not quite there yet. We've got KYC and AML, solid. Transaction monitoring is solid. But DORA—that's still in beta. And derivatives reporting? That's a roadmap item we promised for Q3, but honestly, with the resource constraints and the fact that regulations keep shifting, I'm not confident we'll hit that. So what ends up happening is, we go into deals, we can solve maybe 70% of their problem, and they have to cobble together three other vendors for the rest. Which means they're not writing us a check for $500K—they're writing us a check for $200K, and the other $300K is going to three competitors. **[MARCUS]** And are those competitors taking the whole portfolio approach? Is that why they're winning the bigger deals? **[ELIZABETH]** Some of them, yeah. There's a couple of legacy players who've been around for thirty years and have built these massive suites. They're not as nimble as us, but they've got the breadth. And then there's the newer players who are really focused—they own one piece of the regulatory puzzle—but they're better integrated with each other than we are. Where we're losing deals is when the customer has a Chief Compliance Officer who's got the mandate to simplify the tech stack. They're like, "We have 27 different compliance vendors. This is insane. I need someone to come in and consolidate this down to five or six." When they have that mandate, and we can only solve one or two of those problems, we're not even in the conversation. **[MARCUS]** How often are you seeing that? That simplification mandate? **[ELIZABETH]** More and more. I'd say in the last eighteen months, it's been maybe 40% of enterprise opportunities. The CCOs are under pressure to prove ROI on their tech spend. Regulators are auditing their control frameworks. They're getting hit with fines. So the C-suite is basically saying, "Why do we have a compliance tech bill that's $12M a year?" And that's where it gets tricky for me, because my budget authority conversations are no longer just with the CCO. They're with the head of IT, the CFO, sometimes the CEO. Everyone's got a seat at the table now. **[MARCUS]** That's a big stakeholder expansion. How does that change your selling? **[ELIZABETH]** It's brutal, honestly. With just a CCO, you can move fairly quickly. CCO understands the regulatory risk. They know what needs to happen. They've got a certain amount of budget authority. But when you add the CFO and the head of IT, suddenly you've got conversations about implementation timelines, total cost of ownership, integration complexity, API rates, data governance. We're now in situations where I need technical architects in early conversations. I'm calling in my product team to explain why we chose the architecture we did. And because we're not solving the whole problem, I'm constantly in this awkward position of trying to justify why they should buy from us when they're going to have to buy from someone else anyway. It's demoralizing for my team. It's demoralizing for me. **[MARCUS]** I hear you. So let me ask you something different. In those deals where you are solving 70% of their problem and they're comfortable with that—how long is the buying cycle? **[ELIZABETH]** Ugh. Four to six months, easily. Sometimes longer. The bank I mentioned earlier? We're eight months into that one. We've had four demos. We've gone through two regulatory audits. We've done integrations testing with their IT team. We've had probably fifteen meetings. And we still don't have a yes or a no. We have a "let's revisit this when we get more clarity on the CFTC guidance." **[MARCUS]** Eight months. And is that typical for your enterprise deals? **[ELIZABETH]** Yeah, that's actually on the quicker end. I've got deals that are over a year. The reason is exactly what I said—there's regulatory uncertainty. A lot of these deals are contingent on regulatory clarity. So the prospect will move forward with the evaluation, but they won't buy until they know what they're actually solving for. It creates this weird dynamic where we're doing all this work, they're vetting us, we're technically first in line, but we're also in limbo. And the worst part? When that regulatory clarity finally comes, it sometimes doesn't require the solution anymore. Or it requires something completely different. So we lose the deal not because we failed—we lose it because the market changed. **[MARCUS]** Has that happened? **[ELIZABETH]** It almost did last year. We had a prospect in the cannabis industry who was waiting for more federal clarity on testing requirements. When that guidance came out, the requirements were less stringent than anticipated. All of a sudden, our advanced testing solution that they were evaluating wasn't necessary. They could solve the problem with a simpler, cheaper tool. We lost $800K in ARR that we thought we had. **[MARCUS]** That's a massive hit. How did you manage that in your forecast? **[ELIZABETH]** Not well. I tried to flag it as higher risk. But when you're forecasting a deal and the prospect is saying "Yeah, we want to do this, we're just waiting for clarity," it's hard to know how much risk to assign. And my leadership wanted the revenue in the number. So we were probably too aggressive there. This is why I need better intelligence on what's actually happening in these deals. Are they really waiting, or are they stalling? Is the regulatory uncertainty real, or is it an excuse? Is there actually budget allocated for this, or are they just exploring? **[MARCUS]** That's a great segue, because that's actually where I think a platform like Clari can help you. But before we go there, I want to understand your renewal picture. Because I'm assuming that with this kind of regulatory chaos, you've got renewal risk too? **[ELIZABETH]** Oh man, yeah. So here's the thing about RegTech. Regulations change, right? Sometimes your solution becomes less relevant. Or customers realize they can solve the problem cheaper than they thought. Or they build it internally. We have a customer—good-sized account, $300K ARR—that we've been with for four years. They were with us because they needed a cutting-edge solution for GDPR compliance. That was table-stakes five years ago. Now GDPR is, well, it's table-stakes, but it's also just baseline. Everyone knows how to handle it. And our solution has become commoditized. They're asking us to justify the $300K spend when they can get a similar product for $80K from someone else. So we're about to lose that renewal. Or we lose it and have to work really hard to win them back at a lower price point. **[MARCUS]** Is that a unique situation, or is that happening across your base? **[ELIZABETH]** It's happening more. I'd say maybe 15% of our renewals are at risk because the regulation that prompted the original purchase has stabilized. Our customers are basically saying, "Thanks for helping us get compliant. We don't need best-of-breed anymore. We need cost-effective." That's a revenue headwind that my CEO is very aware of. **[MARCUS]** How are you thinking about fighting that? **[ELIZABETH]** Honestly? We're not doing enough. We're relying on the idea that new regulations will come, and we'll be valuable again. But that's not a plan. What we should be doing is constantly showing them the value we're providing—like, not just "you're compliant," but "your compliance costs are down 30% because of us" or "you're getting audited by regulators in three months and here's why you should be using us." But we don't have that intelligence. We don't have a good way to track what's happening in these accounts. Are they getting audited? When? By who? What's the risk? What's the opportunity? I'm tracking renewals in a spreadsheet. Like, literally an Excel file. I'm trying to manage $65M in ARR with a spreadsheet and my gut feeling. **[MARCUS]** Okay, so let me put a pin in the renewal piece, because I think there's a lot we can do there. But first, let's go back to the acquisition side. You mentioned you've got deals in limbo waiting for regulatory clarity. When that clarity comes, how do you want to engage? **[ELIZABETH]** That's the key question. What I want is to move fast. The moment the CFTC issues their guidance—and let's say it's favorable for derivatives trading solutions—I want to be the first person that customer hears from. I want to have a plan ready that shows them exactly how our solution maps to the new guidance. I want to have done the work in advance so that when they're ready to buy, we close in days, not months. But here's the problem: I don't have the resources for that. I can't have two salespeople spending the next two months pre-preparing deals that might not close for six months. I need to be more efficient. **[MARCUS]** What would efficiency look like? **[ELIZABETH]** Honestly? Better visibility into where these deals actually stand. I think some of my team is telling me they're actively working on deals that are actually dead. Or they're not tracking the right signals. They don't know which deals are actually conditional on regulatory clarity versus which ones are just in evaluation mode. And I think I need better internal coordination. If someone from my team talks to the customer and the customer says, "Our IT team has questions about integration," I need that information to get to someone who can address it. Right now, it's like, my seller tells me, and I have to remember to follow up, and sometimes that gets lost. **[MARCUS]** Gotcha. So you need visibility, you need to know which deals are actually dependent on what regulatory events, and you need better internal collaboration? **[ELIZABETH]** Yeah. And I also need to know when to stay engaged and when to back off. Right now we're probably over-engaging some deals that are truly stuck. We're probably under-engaging others that are about to move. I need guidance on which is which. **[MARCUS]** That's really insightful. Let me ask you this: when a prospect tells you they need cross-border compliance—like DORA in Europe, MAS in Singapore, CFTC in the US—what's your process for scoping that? **[ELIZABETH]** It's a mess. Usually, the prospect initiates it. They'll say, "We operate in five countries and we need solutions for all of them." And then I'll say, "Great, let me put together a plan." And then I'll either do it myself, which takes time, or I'll loop in product, which takes even more time, and we'll figure out which of our products handle which regulations. But here's where it breaks down: I'm not equipped to have that conversation from a product standpoint. I know our products at a high level, but I don't know all the integrations, all the limitations, all the roadmap commitments. So I either oversell—promising capabilities we don't have—or I undersell, making it seem like we're not a fit when actually we could be with some customization. And the customer's not equipped to have that conversation either, usually. The person I'm talking to is often not the EU chief compliance officer. They're the global head of compliance who doesn't know all the nuances. So we're both a little out of our depth. **[MARCUS]** How often does that result in a lost deal? **[ELIZABETH]** I'd say 40% of the time when we have that conversation, we don't move forward. Sometimes it's because we're not a fit, which is legitimate. But sometimes it's because we weren't able to clearly articulate a path forward. The customer got confused. We got confused. It felt too complicated. So they just moved on. **[MARCUS]** And in that situation, is the regulatory piece the blocker, or is it the portfolio piece? **[ELIZABETH]** It's the portfolio piece. They need multiple solutions, and we can't deliver all of them. But what makes it worse is the regulatory uncertainty. If they knew exactly what they needed, they could accept a two-vendor solution. But because they don't know exactly what they're solving for, they want someone who can guarantee they're covered. They want one throat to choke. And we can't be that for them. **[MARCUS]** Okay, so let me synthesize what I'm hearing. You've got five major challenges. One, regulatory uncertainty is causing your prospects to move slower than you'd like. Two, your product portfolio doesn't span all the regulations your customers need. Three, your buying committee is expanding, which means longer cycles. Four, you're not getting intelligence on deals fast enough to know which ones to focus on. And five, your renewals are at risk because the regulations are stabilizing. **[ELIZABETH]** That's a pretty good summary. I'd add one more thing though: budget constraints. Because even when we do solve the full problem, we're competing not just with other vendors but with the customer's budget constraints. **[MARCUS]** Tell me more about that. **[ELIZABETH]** So I had a deal last year that we were winning. We had built a great scope—KYC, AML, transaction monitoring, derivatives reporting. It was comprehensive. The customer wanted to do it. But the budget that was allocated to compliance tech in their department was $400K, and our solution was $600K. The CFO wasn't going to allocate more budget to compliance. So we either had to cut the scope, or they had to find additional budget. And we couldn't get the CFO to allocate additional budget because, from their perspective, compliance is a cost center. It's not a revenue driver. The customer wanted to work with us because they liked us, because they trusted us, because they knew we could handle the regulatory landscape better than other vendors. But they couldn't find the budget. **[MARCUS]** How did that resolve? **[ELIZABETH]** It didn't, actually. We ended up losing that deal. They went with a narrower solution that was within budget. They'll probably have to cobble together other tools later, but that was someone else's problem. And that's really frustrating because I know we could have provided massive value. But the budget wasn't there. **[MARCUS]** So the budget issue is tied to who controls compliance spending? **[ELIZABETH]** Exactly. Compliance spending is often split. The CCO has some budget. IT has some budget. Risk and audit might have budget. And they're competing for it. So if the CCO wants to buy our solution, they might have $400K allocated for a compliance platform. But they might have $200K allocated for compliance training, which is also critical. So they have to choose. That's why the sponsor piece is so important. If the CEO or the CFO decides that compliance technology is a strategic priority, then suddenly you have a different conversation. Budget appears. Time compresses. Things move. But that rarely happens unless there's been a recent regulatory breach or a near-miss. Or the board is breathing down their neck about regulatory risk. **[MARCUS]** So you're really dependent on finding an exec sponsor above the CCO? **[ELIZABETH]** I wish we were better at that. Honestly, we tend to rely on the CCO as our sponsor. And they're important. But they don't have the budget authority or the political capital to get things done when they're competing against revenue priorities. What I need is to understand who the real sponsor is in each deal. Is it the CFO because they care about cost optimization? Is it the CEO because they're scared of regulatory risk? Is it the board because they just got hit with a fine? If I knew that, I could tailor my pitch. I could spend my time on deals where there's real sponsorship instead of deals where the CCO is just trying to improve their control environment. **[MARCUS]** How would you want to identify that? **[ELIZABETH]** I honestly don't know. Right now, I rely on my team asking good discovery questions. But I'm not sure they're always asking the right ones. And even if they are, I'm not tracking that information systematically. **[MARCUS]** Okay, I think I'm getting a much better picture here. Let me ask you this: if we had a tool that could help you—let's say Clari—how would you want to use it? **[ELIZABETH]** Well, first, I'd want to understand the regulatory calendar. Like, I'd want to know every regulatory deadline that's relevant to my customers and prospects. And I'd want Clari to tell me when those deadlines are coming, what they could impact, which of my deals are dependent on them. Second, I'd want better deal intelligence. I want to know if my sellers are actually moving deals, or if they're stuck. I want to know if a deal is stuck because of regulatory uncertainty versus budget constraints versus product fit. I want signals that tell me when a prospect is getting serious. Third—and this is really important for me—I want to forecast more accurately. We do quarterly business reviews, and I present a number to my board. And that number is based on assumptions that turn out to be wrong a lot of the time. I'd rather present a number that's lower but that I'm confident in, than a number that's high but that depends on a bunch of things I can't control. Fourth, I want to understand my renewal risk better. I want to know which of my customers are at risk of churning because the regulation has stabilized. I want to know which ones are at risk because they've found a cheaper alternative. And I want to know that before they decide to leave. And fifth—honestly, this is maybe not your area—but I want to better manage my team's time. I've got twelve sellers. I want them focused on deals that can actually close. I don't want them spinning on dead deals. I want them working on deals that have real momentum and real budget. **[MARCUS]** That last one—we can actually help with that. Because if we have better visibility into deals, then you can see which ones your team should be spending time on. **[ELIZABETH]** Right. Okay, so let me ask you practically. What would implementation look like? Because I've done these demos before. They always look great. And then you implement, and it's a nightmare. You've got to integrate all your data. You've got to get your team to adopt it. You've got to change your processes. And six months later, you've barely scratched the surface. **[MARCUS]** That's a fair concern. Let me be honest—implementation is work. But here's what I'm thinking for you. You've got a very specific pain point, which is regulatory calendars and deal dependency. That's actually a pretty bounded problem. Here's how I'd approach it: we'd start with your CRM—presumably you're in Salesforce? **[ELIZABETH]** Yeah, Salesforce. **[MARCUS]** Okay, so we'd set up Clari to pull your pipeline data. That takes a couple days. Then we'd build out a regulatory calendar. We'd start with the ones that you know matter most—CFTC, SEC, GDPR, DORA, MAS, whatever's relevant to your business. We'd load in the key dates. And then in Clari, we'd create custom fields that let you tag deals that are dependent on specific regulatory events. That's Phase One. That takes maybe three weeks. Your team goes through and tags their deals. Then you have visibility into which deals are on pause waiting for what events. **[ELIZABETH]** And then what? **[MARCUS]** Then in Phase Two, we'd add in deal health scoring. We'd look at activity patterns, email engagement, stage progression, things like that. We'd build a model that tells you which of your "stuck" deals are actually still viable, and which ones you should deprioritize. That's another three or four weeks. Your team gets trained. You start seeing the data. **[ELIZABETH]** And how much is this? **[MARCUS]** Okay, so that's the question I was hoping you'd ask. We'd start with a pretty conservative pricing. We're talking $15K a month for Clari. That includes the platform, the professional services hours, the integration work, the training. **[ELIZABETH]** That's not outrageous. What about implementation? What's the time commitment from my team? **[MARCUS]** Honestly, it's not huge. We need some of your time in the first month to set up the regulatory calendar and get your team trained. Maybe five hours a week from a power user. Then it's mostly about getting your team to adopt it and use it. Which is the biggest variable, honestly. Some teams take to it immediately. Some teams are skeptical and take longer. **[ELIZABETH]** My team is skeptical of everything. We just implemented a new CRM system two years ago, and it was a nightmare. So they're going to be skeptical of another tool. **[MARCUS]** That's fair. What I'd say is, position this as solving a specific problem, not as "yet another tool." The problem you're solving is regulatory visibility and deal health. Make it about that. Not about adoption for adoption's sake. **[ELIZABETH]** I hear you. Let me ask you something else though. You mentioned Clari, but you also mentioned Salesloft in our conversation setup. How do those two work together? Are they redundant? **[MARCUS]** Great question. They're complementary. Salesloft is about sales execution and engagement. It helps your team have more effective touchpoints with prospects. It's about cadences, it's about email templates, it's about knowing when to follow up. Clari is about visibility. It's about understanding your pipeline at a deep level. It's about forecasting. It's about knowing which deals are real. For you specifically, I think the Clari piece is more immediately valuable because your problem is visibility and forecasting. But once you have that visibility, Salesloft can help your team execute better against it. You'll know which deals to focus on, and Salesloft will help you engage those deals more effectively. **[ELIZABETH]** What's the bundled pricing? **[MARCUS]** Good question. Salesloft is about $10K a month. Clari is $15K. If you combine them, we can do a discount. We're probably looking at $22K combined, maybe $23K. And the discount only applies if you're willing to implement them together and hold your team accountable to using them. **[ELIZABETH]** So $22K a month is about $264K a year. For a company doing $65M in ARR, that's a very small fraction of our revenue. **[MARCUS]** Right. So the math is simple: if Clari and Salesloft help you close even one deal six months earlier than you would have otherwise, they've paid for themselves. And you're telling me you have deals that are sitting in limbo waiting for regulatory clarity. If we can tighten that up, you're looking at millions of dollars of value. **[ELIZABETH]** You're right. And honestly, the forecast visibility alone is worth something. The fact that I could go to my board with a number that I'm actually confident in is valuable. Right now I'm presenting numbers that I know might be wrong, and it creates a lot of stress. **[MARCUS]** Exactly. Okay, so here's where I want to land. I don't want to oversell this. But I think there's something here. I think if we work together, we can solve some of your immediate problems. The regulatory visibility piece, the deal health piece, the forecast accuracy piece. But here's the thing I want to be honest about: we're not going to solve your portfolio problem. That's a product problem. You need to expand your product suite. And we're not going to solve your budget constraint problem. That's an organizational problem that you need to work out internally. What we can do is help you be more efficient with the resources you do have, and help you capture the value that's available in your pipeline. **[ELIZABETH]** I appreciate you being straight about that. Honestly, I think you're right. The portfolio problem and the budget problem are things I need to solve or work around regardless of whether I use your tools. But the visibility piece—yeah, I think that would help. I think it would help my team. I think it would help my board have more confidence in our forecast. **[MARCUS]** So how do you want to proceed? **[ELIZABETH]** Let me think about it for a week. I want to talk to my operations person, see if she has concerns about the implementation. I want to think about whether my team would actually use it. And I want to look at the budget and think about whether we can fit this into our annual plan. Can you send me a proposal? Just something that spells out what we'd get, what the timeline would be, what the commitment from my team would be? **[MARCUS]** Absolutely. I'll get that over to you by tomorrow. I'll also send you the implementation checklist so you can share it with your ops person. And I'll put together a couple of case studies from other RegTech companies that have used Clari—not to oversell it, but just to show you how others in your industry have thought about it. **[ELIZABETH]** Perfect. And hey, one more thing. You mentioned earlier that you were thinking about how to help me with those deals that are stuck waiting for regulatory clarity. Do you have any ideas there beyond the tool itself? **[MARCUS]** I do, actually. This is probably outside the scope of what Clari can do, but it's something I've been thinking about. The real blocker on a lot of these deals is that your customers don't know what they're solving for because the regulation is unclear. Right? So what if, alongside selling them Clari, we also offered them something like a regulatory advisory service? Like, we go in and we say, "Here are the three probable outcomes of the CFTC guidance. Here's what each one means for your derivatives trading operations. Here's how our product handles each scenario. Let's build a solution that's flexible enough to handle any of them." That de-risks the deal for them. They're not betting on a specific regulatory outcome. They're buying a solution that's robust to multiple outcomes. **[ELIZABETH]** That's actually really interesting. Is that something Salesloft or Clari does? **[MARCUS]** Not officially. But I think there's demand for it. And honestly, I think it's a consulting play that could be packaged alongside the tool. Let me talk to some of my colleagues about whether we can formalize that as an offering. **[ELIZABETH]** Do that. Because honestly, if you could help me understand how to position Compliance Dynamics as a flexible partner—not a best-of-breed solution, but a partner that understands that regulations are uncertain and builds solutions with that in mind—that could be a game-changer for my sales team. **[MARCUS]** I like that. Let me work on that and come back to you. **[ELIZABETH]** Great. Okay, send me that proposal. And let's schedule a follow-up call in two weeks. If my ops person doesn't have any red flags, I think we could move forward pretty quickly. **[MARCUS]** Perfect. Two weeks. I'll send you the proposal by tomorrow, and I'll put a calendar invite on your calendar for two weeks from today. In the meantime, if you have questions, just ping me. **[ELIZABETH]** Will do. Thanks Marcus. This was actually helpful. Not a lot of vendors take the time to understand the complexity of selling in RegTech. Most of them just want to sell their tool. You actually listened to what I'm dealing with. **[MARCUS]** That's what we try to do. RegTech is unique because you're not just selling into a budget. You're selling into regulatory uncertainty. Your customers can't move as fast as they'd like. Your cycles are longer. Your risks are more complex. Any tool we put in front of you has to work in that context. **[ELIZABETH]** Exactly. Okay, I look forward to that proposal. **[MARCUS]** Thanks Elizabeth. Talk soon. --- ## Key Takeaways Summary ### Regulatory Dynamics & Urgency - Regulatory delays directly impact pipeline velocity and forecast accuracy. The CFTC delay caused a $2.4M pipeline contraction in Q1 alone. - Deals enter a waiting state rather than being killed—maintaining pipeline requires constant engagement with uncertain timelines. - Regulatory clarity itself can de-risk deals and compress sales cycles from months to weeks once guidance is issued. ### Portfolio & Cross-Border Complexity - Customers increasingly expect portfolio solutions (KYC + AML + Transaction Monitoring + Derivatives Reporting + DORA + MAS, etc.) - Inability to solve 70%+ of customer needs results in competitive loss despite strong product-market fit on core offering. - Portfolio gaps lead to lower deal values ($200K instead of $500K) when customer stitches together multiple vendors. ### Stakeholder Expansion & Budget Authority - CCO-driven deals are shifting to multi-stakeholder (CFO, CIO, CEO, Board) due to tech stack simplification mandates. - Budget authority is fragmented: CCO budget, IT budget, Risk/Audit budget—often competing for allocation rather than additive. - Real sponsor identification (CFO, CEO, Board mandate vs. CCO improvement initiative) is critical to deal velocity but rarely tracked. ### Deal Health & Forecast Visibility - Distinction between "stuck" (regulatory uncertainty) and "dead" (bad fit, budget misalignment) deals is unclear without better data. - Current forecast confidence is low—deals with "we'll revisit when regulations clarify" status create forecast noise. - Team time allocation is inefficient; sellers may spend significant effort on low-probability deals without systematic prioritization. ### Renewal Risk from Regulatory Maturation - Approximately 15% of renewals are at risk as regulations stabilize and solutions become commoditized (GDPR moving from strategic to table-stakes). - Churn risk comes from price compression, not loss of relevance—customer still needs compliance but at lower cost. - Revenue retention strategies lack sophistication (no tracking of audit timelines, regulatory changes impacting risk profile, cost optimization opportunities). ### Implementation & Tool Adoption Considerations - Team skepticism is high due to recent failed CRM implementation; positioning new tools as solving specific problems (regulatory visibility, deal health) rather than general adoption is essential. - Implementation timeline of 3-4 weeks per phase is acceptable if it delivers immediate insight (regulatory calendar + deal dependency tagging). - ROI case is clear: single deal accelerated by six months pays for tool; forecast accuracy improvement has executive value. ### Opportunities for Salesloft + Clari 1. Build regulatory calendar integration tied to pipeline deals 2. Add deal health scoring for regulatory-dependent opportunities 3. Develop multi-scenario deal positioning (flexible solutions for regulatory uncertainty) 4. Create sponsor identification and budget source mapping in CRM 5. Add renewal health tracking tied to regulatory landscape changes --- *End of Interview Transcript*