Salesloft MCP Demo Server

# Customer Interview Transcript: George Baker, CRO at MES Inc. **Date:** December 12, 2024 **Duration:** 32 minutes **Participants:** - George Baker, Chief Revenue Officer at Manufacturing Execution Systems Inc. (MES Inc.) - Sarah Chen, Enterprise Account Executive, Salesloft + Clari - Marcus Williams, Solutions Engineer, Salesloft + Clari **Company Context:** MES Inc. | $180M ARR | 250+ manufacturing clients globally | On-premise legacy systems | Sales org scaling from 45 to 75 reps --- ## Opening: Setting Context **Sarah:** George, thanks so much for taking the time today. We've been tracking MES Inc. for a while because your scale and your customer base—manufacturing operations—that's a really specific vertical we've been investing in heavily. Before we dive into what Salesloft and Clari can do, I'm curious: what's triggering the conversation now? What's on your plate? **George:** Appreciate it, Sarah. Look, honestly, we're at this inflection point. We've grown from 45 to 52 reps in the last 18 months, and we're about to add another 20-25 in the next 12 months. The problem is, our tools are... let's call them "legacy." We've got Salesforce—been on it since 2008—and our sales managers are still using email and spreadsheets to track pipeline. It's chaos. But here's the real issue: our CFO and I are having very different conversations about what we need to invest in. The board wants to invest in the product roadmap, wants to invest in that third manufacturing vertical we're going after. And I'm saying, "We need to professionalize our go-to-market stack." Those conversations are getting tense. **Marcus:** That's a really common tension, especially at your scale. Before we get into solutions, I'm curious—is there budget allocated for sales tech this year, or is this something you'd need to make the case for? **George:** That's the hard part. We have a small discretionary budget—maybe $150K for this year—but the majority of any software spend has to come from OpEx, which means it has to hit a specific ROI threshold. My CFO, Dave, he's not unfriendly to it, but he wants to see clear payback. "How many deals do we close faster? How much faster?" He's literally asking me to model that out. --- ## Budget and Executive Sponsorship **Sarah:** That's actually really important context, George. And I think it's honest. So let me ask directly: if we're asking you to invest in Salesloft for sales engagement and Clari for revenue intelligence, we're probably talking about a combined investment of $250K to $350K annually, depending on your org size. That's less than half a percent of ARR, but Dave needs to know: what's the business case? **George:** Right. And that's where I get stuck. Look, I can *feel* that we need better visibility into pipeline. I know we're leaving deals on the table because reps aren't following up consistently. I know we're losing forecast accuracy because managers are guessing. But can I *prove* it's costing us $2M in lost revenue? Not yet. **Marcus:** That's a really fair point. And I think here's what we hear from other CROs in your space: the ROI isn't just "deals close faster"—it's actually threefold. One: pipeline visibility means you can forecast better, which makes your CFO happy because you're less likely to miss quarter. Two: sales engagement—sales reps staying in touch with prospects—reduces your sales cycle by 15-20% on average. Three: you catch deals earlier that are going to slip, so you course-correct instead of lose. The first one actually resonates most with CFOs because it's a risk mitigation story, not just a growth story. **George:** Okay, I like that framing. But walk me through it. If I have Clari, and Clari tells me on September 15th that we're going to miss our number, what exactly does Dave gain from knowing that earlier? The money's not in the bank yet. **Sarah:** Fair point. But Dave doesn't benefit—*you* do. Because on September 15th, instead of panicking on October 5th when it's too late, you can make decisions. You can flex your marketing campaigns. You can ask product for discounts on services deals. You can accelerate whatever's in your pipeline. You know that for a $5M deal that's slipping, a 15-day acceleration is worth $150K in your pocket. And having 30 days' notice instead of 5 days' notice? That changes everything. **George:** That's actually the story I need to tell Dave. Not "it'll help us grow," but "it'll reduce quarterly surprise." Dave hates quarterly surprise. **Marcus:** Exactly. And one more thing—a lot of manufacturing companies like MES Inc., you have seasonal patterns, right? Q4 is typically stronger because of budget cycles? **George:** Yeah, absolutely. Q4 is crucial. If we miss Q4, we're scrambling for Q1. **Marcus:** So imagine if Clari shows you by mid-September that Q4 is tracking weak, and you can actually *prepare* for it. Maybe you pool a couple of reps to do special account expansion in October. Maybe you accelerate your fall campaign. You're not surprised; you're strategic. **George:** I get it. The question is: does Clari actually catch those things, or is it just pulling from Salesforce data we already have? **Sarah:** That's a great question. Clari is doing a few things beyond your Salesforce. It's analyzing email patterns—are reps actually engaging with accounts? It's listening to the health of opportunities based on engagement. It's even parsing some of your calendar data to see if meetings are happening. So it's *predicting* risk, not just reporting what you already know. **George:** Alright. So the pitch to Dave is: "We invest $350K to reduce forecast risk and get better visibility." But I still need to attach an ROI number. What's reasonable? What are you seeing with other manufacturers? **Sarah:** We typically model it as follows: for a company your size, if you can improve forecast accuracy by just 5%, that's worth $9M in better predictability for cash flow planning. For Dave, that alone might justify the investment. On top of that, if you pick up even 2-3 extra deals a year by having better follow-up and engagement tracking, that's $2-5M in incremental revenue. So a reasonable model is: $350K investment for $11-14M in value. That's a 30-40x return. **George:** Is that *actual* return from customers, or is that a model? **Marcus:** It's based on customer data. We have customers in manufacturing—not MES, but logistics and parts manufacturing—where we've actually modeled it post-implementation. The engagement piece—shortening sales cycle by 15%—is pretty consistent. The forecast accuracy is harder to quantify, but honestly, most CFOs care more about the prediction accuracy than the speed improvement. **Sarah:** And here's the thing, George: we'd want to propose this as a pilot with specific metrics. Not a three-year commit. Maybe a 90-day pilot on a subset of your sales org, and then we measure: did you improve pipeline visibility? Did you get better engagement? Then we decide if it scales. **George:** Now you're speaking my language. A 90-day pilot is something I can sell to Dave without him thinking I'm betting the company. --- ## Implementation: The Bottleneck **Sarah:** Great. So let's shift gears to something I know is on every CRO's mind at your scale: how do we actually implement this without breaking your sales organization? **George:** [laughs] Yeah, that's... that's the thing. My VP of Sales, Jennifer, she's already telling me, "George, we don't have time for another platform. Our reps are slammed with Q4." And she's right. I've got 52 reps doing their jobs, and I can't pull them or their managers off the field for weeks to learn new tools. **Marcus:** That's probably the number one concern we hear, and it's legitimate. So here's what we've learned: bad implementations fail because you try to train everyone at once and then wonder why adoption is terrible. Better implementations focus on the manager first, then selective early adopters, then the rest. Here's what we typically propose for a company your size: **First week:** We onboard your sales leadership—you, Jennifer, your VPs. We set up Clari in read-only mode so you can start seeing what the dashboards look like. We configure Salesloft to match your sales process without changing it. **Weeks two and three:** We onboard your best sales team first—probably two or three of your top reps and their managers. They use it in parallel with their current workflow. No ripping out anything yet. **Weeks four and five:** We iterate based on what we learned. Usually what we find is: "Oh, we need a different dashboard for managers," or "Oh, reps need a one-click way to log calls from Salesloft." We build those workflows. **Weeks six to eight:** We onboard the rest of the organization in cohorts of 10-12 reps, with 30-minute training sessions that your managers run—not us. That's key. Your managers become the experts, not some external consultant. **George:** And during that time, are my reps *forced* to use Salesloft, or is it optional? **Sarah:** That's a conversation with you and Jennifer. Most companies we work with make engagement logging optional for the first 30-45 days. It's voluntary—"Hey, try it." Then after 45 days, it becomes mandatory. The reason is adoption: if you force people to use something they don't understand, you get garbage data. If you let them experiment, they see the value. **George:** What does "garbage data" mean in this case? **Marcus:** Salesforce gets full of fake logs. Reps pretend they called someone when they didn't. Pipeline data becomes unreliable because people are just doing the minimum to check a box. We want data quality, not compliance theater. **George:** [nods] Okay, that's honest. So you're saying this is a change management problem more than a technical problem. **Sarah:** 100%. The technical part is actually the easy part. We can get you live in days. The part that's hard is getting adoption right. And honestly, that's where we see a lot of customers struggle—not because we failed them, but because they didn't invest in the change piece. **Marcus:** So let me ask: does Jennifer have dedicated capacity? Like, a person who can own the implementation? We're not asking for full-time, but maybe 20 hours a week? **George:** She has a senior manager, Tom, who runs the sales operations function. He's probably at 60% capacity right now. He could probably take this on. **Sarah:** That's actually perfect. Tom becomes our primary contact. We work with Tom to build the playbook, create the one-sheets for your managers, schedule the training. And here's the thing: after the implementation is done, Tom owns the ongoing success. He owns making sure the tool stays healthy. **George:** So this isn't a "Salesloft implements and walks away" scenario? **Marcus:** No. We typically propose ongoing success planning. That means quarterly business reviews where we look at adoption, we look at your metrics, we ask: "Are we getting the forecast accuracy you wanted? Are we getting the speed improvement?" And we iterate. Some customers want monthly touchbases for the first 90 days, then quarterly. It depends. **Sarah:** And honestly, George, we also have a partner ecosystem now. We work with SI partners who specialize in sales tech implementations—people who've done this 50 times and can bring playbooks. Some of our customers in manufacturing use partners for the actual onboarding while we handle configuration. **George:** What does that cost, and how do we know we're not just adding another vendor? **Marcus:** Fair question. A partner typically costs $30K to $50K for a 90-day engagement, depending on complexity. That sounds like a lot, but most companies that do it without a partner end up spending three times that in lost productivity. So it's actually cheaper. But here's the thing: you don't have to use a partner. We can do it with your team. It just requires Jennifer or Tom to be more hands-on. **George:** I think for a pilot, we'd probably do it ourselves. But if we're scaling this to 75 reps, I'd want a partner. I don't want my sales ops team burning out. **Sarah:** That makes total sense. And we can build that into the pilot—like, we execute the pilot with your team, we document what works, and then if you decide to scale, we bring a partner in to do the same thing across the larger org. --- ## Partner Strategy and the SI Relationship **Marcus:** Speaking of partners, I want to ask you something, George, because I think this is where things get interesting for MES Inc. specifically. You have a deep relationship with large systems integrators—the Deloittes, the Accentures of the world. They're often involved in your customer implementations, right? **George:** Yeah. We're selling software, but a lot of our deals include services—implementation, customization, integration. And yeah, Deloitte is one of our top three partners. They probably generate 30-40% of our customer base because they're recommending us to their clients. **Sarah:** That's actually a huge opportunity that we haven't fully explored. Here's the thing: when a customer buys MES from you, and then Deloitte is doing the implementation, Deloitte often recommends sales tools for their teams. Right now, maybe they're recommending Salesforce (which you already have), or they're not thinking about it at all. But what if Deloitte had a financial incentive to recommend Salesloft + Clari to you? What if they could also offer Salesloft + Clari to their own enterprise account teams? **George:** Okay, so you want deal registration with Deloitte? You want them to send deals our way? **Sarah:** Not quite. We want partnership alignment. Look, here's what I mean: Deloitte's account teams are probably using whatever tools their enterprise uses. But when they're working with MES on customer implementations, they see the value of Salesloft. They see the engagement, the visibility. We want to create a scenario where Deloitte sees revenue upside in being a Salesloft partner. **Marcus:** Let me be more direct. We have a partner program where SIs can resell Salesloft or integrate it into their delivery. The partner gets margin—typically 20-30% depending on the deal size. For Deloitte, that's probably not interesting because the margin is small. But what *is* interesting is influence. If we co-market Salesloft + Clari as an add-on to manufacturing implementations, we're doing joint go-to-market. Deloitte's sales teams get Salesloft at a discounted rate. Deloitte's account teams recommend it to MES Inc. customers as part of the implementation package. **George:** So you're asking me to give Deloitte a reason to recommend you to our customers. **Sarah:** Exactly. And here's why that matters: Deloitte is your door opener for new customers. If they're recommending Salesloft + Clari as best practice for manufacturing sales, suddenly you're selling your customers not just MES software, but a complete revenue stack. That makes your deal stickier. **George:** I see. So there's upside for us too. We're selling more value to our customers. **Marcus:** Right. And there's an alignment question here: does Deloitte have a relationship with your competitive set? Do they resell Genesys, or HubSpot, or any other stack? **George:** Yeah, they work with Salesforce obviously. They have some HubSpot relationships. I don't think they have a deep Salesloft relationship, but that's because we've never talked to them about it. **Sarah:** That's a conversation worth having. And look, I'm not saying you need to manage that relationship—we can. But the reason I'm bringing it up is that if we're going to scale Salesloft + Clari at MES Inc., and if you're serious about competing in the manufacturing vertical, having your top partners aligned on the stack matters. It's a selling advantage. **George:** Does this change the pricing for us? **Sarah:** Not at all. Your pricing is independent. But what we could do is offer a partner discount to Deloitte for your customers who want to buy Salesloft + Clari as part of their implementation. We handle the deal reg, you get visibility, and everyone wins. **Marcus:** And honestly, George, in your vertical, this is increasingly what customers expect. They don't want a point solution; they want a stack. MES + implementation + sales tools. That's the modern expectation. So helping your customers understand that Salesloft + Clari is part of the modern stack is actually a customer service thing. **George:** I like it. I'll need to talk to our Deloitte relationship owner about it, but I think there's something there. --- ## Vertical Specialization: Manufacturing Needs **Sarah:** Good. And that actually connects to something Marcus and I have been discussing—the manufacturing vertical specifically. George, I'm going to be honest: Salesloft is really strong in enterprise SaaS, financial services. We're good at 10-person sales teams selling $10K deals and 200-person sales teams selling $1M deals. But manufacturing? We don't have the same depth. **George:** So what are you asking? **Marcus:** We're asking: as a customer, would you help us get better at this? Specifically, we want to understand manufacturing sales better. How are you selling? What are the buying committees? What are the deal structures? What do your reps struggle with that we might solve? **George:** I mean, yeah, but isn't that what you should already know? **Sarah:** Fair point. [laughs] But here's the honest answer: we have some manufacturing customers, but we don't have deep vertical expertise. You're $180M ARR with 250+ customers. You understand your vertical better than we do. And we want to get good at it because manufacturing is a growing market. If we can be the vertical specialist for manufacturing sales tech, we win. You win because you get tools built for your specific challenges. **George:** Okay, so what does "help us get better" mean? **Marcus:** A few things. One: case studies. If you're willing to be a reference for other manufacturers, that's huge. Two: collaboration on product. Like, if you identify a problem—for example, "Our reps really struggle with the sales cycle for complex implementations with multiple stakeholders"—we can prioritize features to address that. Three: co-marketing. We could publish thought leadership on manufacturing sales. You could be a co-author. That establishes you as a voice in the space. **George:** And this helps you become the manufacturing vertical expert. **Sarah:** Yes. And it helps you, because then Salesloft becomes positioned as *the* tool for manufacturing sales. When you're competing against HubSpot or Pipedrive or whoever, we're not a generic sales tool—we're the specialized tool built for manufacturing. That's a selling advantage for you. **George:** I'd want to see that play out before I commit. But the concept doesn't bother me. **Marcus:** Totally reasonable. What if we proposed this: as part of the pilot, we also do a mini research project. We interview 5-10 of your top reps, we document the manufacturing sales cycle, we identify the top three pain points in your process, and then we write a white paper. You could use that internally, or we could publish it jointly. That gives us a proof point, and you get assets. **George:** That's actually smart. Yeah, I'd do that. **Sarah:** Great. And one more thing on vertical: do you have customers who are similar to you? Like, other SaaS companies selling to manufacturing? **George:** Sure. We have competitors, obviously, but we also have some adjacent companies—the Datorama, the Logistiq, that space. Why? **Sarah:** If you're willing to be a reference in the manufacturing space, we can use you with other manufacturers. "This is how MES Inc. sells," etc. That's golden for us. **George:** I'd do that selectively. Like, not for competitors. But for non-competing verticals? Sure. **Marcus:** Perfect. That's actually all we need. --- ## The Cloud Migration Question: Legacy and Risk **Sarah:** Okay, so I want to pivot to something that I think is a longer-term question, but it's relevant to the Salesloft + Clari conversation. George, how much of your customer base is still on-premise? **George:** [sighs] A lot. I'd say 60% on-premise, 40% cloud. And the 60% are our oldest, most loyal customers. They're also the most profitable because they've been with us for years. But they're also the slowest to move. They've got systems that are deeply integrated into their manufacturing operations. They're not quick to change. **Sarah:** So when you're selling them additional services—like implementation, like cloud migration—what's the sticking point? **George:** Risk. They don't want to take the risk. They've got working systems. Why would they move to the cloud? The internet goes down, suddenly their manufacturing line shuts down. That's not acceptable to them. **Marcus:** Okay, so here's a question: when you're trying to get an on-premise customer to consider cloud, what's your pitch? **George:** Usually, it's cost. Cloud is cheaper over time. Or it's "easier updates, less maintenance." But honestly, that doesn't land well. They don't care about the cost that much, and they like having control over updates. So the pitch doesn't work. **Sarah:** What if the pitch was different? What if it wasn't "move to cloud," but "augment your on-premise with cloud services"? Like, you keep your manufacturing system on-premise—that's your system of record—but you add a cloud-based sales tool on top that integrates with your data? **George:** Interesting. So a hybrid approach. **Marcus:** Exactly. And here's why that matters: Salesloft + Clari are cloud-native. They're not competing with your on-premise infrastructure. They're *solving* a problem that on-premise creates—which is visibility and integration across systems. An on-premise customer probably has ten different systems—ERP, manufacturing execution system, CRM, order management, etc. Salesloft + Clari sit on top and create a unified view. **George:** So you're saying Salesloft actually makes on-premise stickier? **Sarah:** No, we're saying Salesloft makes the transition *to* cloud easier when the customer is ready. Because they've already got cloud tools. Cloud isn't scary anymore. They're using it for sales. Then it's easier to say, "Let's move the system of record to cloud too." **George:** That's actually a smart pitch for our customers. Right now, migration is our biggest growth opportunity. We have $50-60M of land that we think we can migrate from on-premise to cloud. If we can position Salesloft + Clari as a stepping stone to cloud migration, that helps us. **Marcus:** Exactly. And here's the risk mitigation piece: imagine a customer is nervous about cloud. They run a pilot with Salesloft + Clari for 90 days. They see that cloud doesn't break their business. That reduces risk for larger migrations. So you're actually using our tools to de-risk their cloud journey. **George:** I like that. But this is a longer-term thing. They won't migrate for six months or a year. **Sarah:** Right. But it's worth knowing about because it changes your pitch. Instead of "Salesloft + Clari are new tools," you're saying, "Salesloft + Clari are first steps to a modern cloud stack." That's a narrative. **George:** My question is: if a customer is completely on-premise, including their Salesforce—like, they host Salesforce on their own infrastructure—can Salesloft integrate? **Marcus:** That's a good technical question. Salesloft integrates with Salesforce via APIs, so as long as Salesforce is accessible from our cloud, yeah, it works. Even a self-hosted Salesforce. What we'd want to understand is their infrastructure—are they behind a firewall, is there a VPN, etc.? But generally, we can make it work. **George:** Okay. Because some of our customers are that locked down. They literally will not have traffic going to the public internet from their manufacturing systems. **Marcus:** For those customers, there might be limitations. We'd need to evaluate each one. But the general answer is yes, it's doable. **Sarah:** And honestly, George, these are questions you'll want to explore with your technical team and with us during the pilot. Part of a successful pilot is proving that Salesloft + Clari work in your specific environment. We'd want to have 2-3 customers participate in the pilot so we're testing in real conditions, not just in a lab. **George:** That's fair. I'd have to ask my customers, but I think we have a few who would be willing to be involved in a pilot. They like us and they want us to succeed. --- ## Closing: Next Steps and Concerns **Sarah:** George, I know we've covered a lot. Let me summarize what I'm hearing, and then I want to make sure we're aligned on next steps. You're facing three challenges: one, your CFO wants to see ROI before you invest in new sales tech. Two, your sales org is stretched, so implementation has to be smooth. Three, you need tools that work for your vertical and your customer base, including on-premise legacy systems. **George:** That's accurate. **Marcus:** So here's what we're proposing: a 90-day pilot with three phases. Phase one is us getting you and your leadership team trained and familiar with the tools. Phase two is early adopter reps using Salesloft + Clari in parallel with their current workflow. Phase three is broader rollout and measurement. During the pilot, we focus on three metrics: forecast accuracy, sales cycle length, and adoption rates. We document what works, we iterate, and then we decide if this scales to your full org. The investment for the pilot is $75K for three months, which covers software, implementation, and some success support. We'd also propose a co-marketing and vertical research component where we're learning about manufacturing sales and you're getting thought leadership assets. And we can explore the partner piece with Deloitte separately. **George:** Okay, so the decision I'm making is $75K for 90 days to test whether this works. If it does, we scale. If it doesn't, we stop. **Sarah:** Right. And the question you're answering is: "Can Salesloft + Clari improve our forecast accuracy and sales velocity in a manufacturing context?" **George:** Fair. My one hesitation is: if we decide it works and we want to scale, what's the commercial term? I don't want to fall in love with it and then find out the pricing for a full rollout is prohibitive. **Sarah:** Great question. So for a 75-rep org, you're probably looking at $350K to $400K annually depending on your modules and whether you use our professional services. But here's the thing: we'd want to price the pilot in a way that's favorable—like, the pilot price converts at a discount to the full price. So if you pay $75K for 90 days, and then you commit to a one-year contract at scale, you'd get credit for the $75K. **George:** So it's not $75K plus $350K. It's that the $75K is part of the $350K. **Sarah:** Exactly. We want the pilot to be a stepping stone, not an additional cost. **Marcus:** And we'd want to get rough agreement now on: what would it take to decide "yes, we scale"? Like, what does success look like? Is it "forecast accuracy improves by 3%"? Is it "adoption is above 70%"? What are your success criteria? **George:** I think the success criteria are: adoption above 70%, forecast accuracy improves, and my reps tell me they see value. If those three things happen, we scale. **Sarah:** Perfect. So we'd measure those three things monthly during the pilot, and we'd have a checkpoint at 60 days to decide: are we on track, or do we need to adjust? **George:** That works for me. My one other ask: I want to talk to a customer. A manufacturing customer who's implemented Salesloft + Clari and who's seen the benefits. I don't want to trust just your word on this. **Marcus:** Totally fair. We have a customer in logistics and parts manufacturing—not direct competition, but similar scale and structure. They've been on Salesloft + Clari for about six months. They've seen about a 12% reduction in sales cycle and significantly improved forecast accuracy. I can set up a reference call for next week. **George:** Good. I'll want to grill them. **Sarah:** [laughs] Please do. That's exactly what we want. And then, George, one more thing: when you talk to your CFO about the ROI model, I'm going to send you a template that we use with other customers. You can modify it based on MES Inc.'s specifics. The $11-14M value return is reasonable, but the real story is the forecast accuracy and risk mitigation. **George:** I appreciate that. I think I can get Dave comfortable with a 90-day pilot investment. The scaled investment is going to require more proof, but we'll see how the pilot goes. **Marcus:** Awesome. So our next steps: one, we send you the ROI template. Two, we send you the reference customer intro. Three, you talk to Dave, and we have a follow-up call with him if he wants to be involved. Four, we draft a pilot SOW and get legal aligned. Does that sound reasonable? **George:** Yeah. How long do you need from us to move forward? **Sarah:** Ideally, we'd want to start the pilot in early January. So if we can get alignment on the SOW in the next 3-4 weeks, we can get a contract signed and kick off right after New Year's. That means you'd finish the pilot at the end of March, right before you're heads-down on Q2. **George:** That timeline works. But I'll need to loop in Jennifer and Tom from sales ops. They need to be part of this decision. **Sarah:** Absolutely. In fact, we'd want to have an alignment call with you, Jennifer, Tom, and ideally Dave from finance. We call it a "sales leadership workshop." We walk through the platform, we talk about implementation, we address questions. It usually takes 90 minutes and it's really valuable for getting everyone on the same page. **George:** I'll schedule that. How about next Tuesday? **Marcus:** Perfect. Sarah will send a calendar invite. And George, before we wrap up, is there anything we didn't cover that's on your mind? **George:** I think we covered a lot. My biggest remaining concerns are: one, can you really deliver the implementation smoothly without crushing my team? Two, can this actually work in our vertical, or are you selling us something that works better for SaaS companies? Three, if we scale, are we building a relationship where we're actually partners, or are you going to move on to the next customer? **Sarah:** Those are fair concerns. On the first one, implementation smoothness is 80% on us and 20% on you. We can't do it without your team's buy-in, but we also own the execution. On the second, we're committing to getting better at manufacturing specifically. This pilot is partly us proving we can do that. And on the third, we only win if you win. If Salesloft + Clari are improving your forecast and your speed, we become part of your strategic stack. We want that relationship. **George:** I believe that. Okay, let's move forward. **Marcus:** Awesome. I'm excited about this. We'll send that calendar invite for next Tuesday, and we'll have everything else to you by EOD Friday. --- ## Key Takeaways **George's Primary Concerns:** 1. **CFO alignment required** - Budget is available but requires clear ROI; forecast accuracy and risk mitigation angle resonates more than pure revenue growth 2. **Implementation bandwidth** - Sales org is at capacity; needs pilot approach with phased rollout and manager-led adoption strategy 3. **Vertical expertise gap** - Concerned that Salesloft is built for SaaS, not manufacturing; interested in co-development and thought leadership 4. **Customer fit** - 60% on-premise customer base creates technical and adoption challenges; interested in hybrid cloud positioning 5. **Partner leverage** - Deloitte relationship is significant; opportunity for co-marketing and customer integration exists **Salesloft/Clari Value Propositions Landed:** - **Risk mitigation over growth** - Forecast visibility reduces quarterly surprise vs. chasing incremental deals - **Pilot-first approach** - $75K for 90 days with clear success metrics de-risks larger commitment - **Vertical positioning** - Becoming manufacturing specialists benefits both parties through co-marketing and vertical expertise - **Hybrid integration** - Cloud tools on top of on-premise systems as stepping stone to full cloud migration - **Partner ecosystem** - SI relationships (like Deloitte) can be monetized and leveraged for customer adoption **Next Steps Agreed:** - Leadership workshop with George, Jennifer, Tom, and Dave (scheduled for next Tuesday) - Reference customer call with logistics/parts manufacturing customer - ROI template provided for CFO discussion - Pilot SOW drafted with January 2025 start date - 90-day pilot completion by March 31, 2025 - Success metrics: 70%+ adoption, forecast accuracy improvement, rep perception of value **Open Questions:** - Specific integration requirements for on-premise Salesforce instances - Deloitte deal registration and partner economics structure - Manufacturing vertical research scope and timing - Customer reference availability for pilot (2-3 customers needed) - Financial services org structure (vs. manufacturing) differences in sales process