Salesloft MCP Demo Server

# Interview: Maria Santos - Healthcare Analytics VP Sales ## Metadata - **Date:** January 2, 2026 - **Duration:** 32 minutes - **Interviewer:** David Chen, Enterprise Sales Director, Salesloft + Clari - **Interviewee:** Maria Santos, VP Sales, Healthcare Analytics Inc. - **Company Context:** Healthcare Analytics - $70M ARR, 450+ sales team members across 6 regions - **Discussion Focus:** Sales execution platform evaluation, ROI expectations, implementation considerations --- ## Transcript [SALESLOFT REP] Maria, thanks so much for taking the time. I know you're busy, and I really appreciate you making room for this. Before we dive in, I want to set some context—I've been talking to a lot of VPs in the healthcare space, and there's a common thread I'm hearing: everybody's wrestling with how to scale their sales operations without losing quality or visibility. Is that resonating with what you're experiencing? [MARIA] Absolutely. You know, we've gone from $45 million to $70 million in about three years, and that growth has been great, but it's created this operational nightmare. We've gone from a tight, maybe 80-person sales team to over 450 people now, and the infrastructure hasn't kept pace. We're literally using spreadsheets in some cases, Salesforce in others, and a couple of legacy tools that frankly nobody uses anymore. The visibility I had three years ago when I could know every deal in flight—I've completely lost that. [SALESLOFT REP] That's the challenge that usually brings people to us. And I'm guessing that loss of visibility is costing you—not just in terms of deals that slip, but probably in terms of pipeline quality and your ability to forecast accurately? [MARIA] Exactly. Last quarter we missed our forecast by $8 million. Our regions didn't align on what constituted a real opportunity versus something someone thought they could close. We had deals in our forecast that never should have been there, and we had deals that should have been there that weren't getting attention. It's not a sales problem—it's an execution problem. We have talented reps, good products, decent conversion rates. But we can't see what's working and what isn't. [SALESLOFT REP] Okay, so this isn't about hiring better salespeople. It's about making the people you have more effective. That changes the whole value equation. Let me ask you this—when you think about solving this, what's your mental model? Are you thinking you want to buy something, or are you thinking you might build something internally? [MARIA] That's actually the debate we're having right now. Our CTO and I have very different views on this. He's arguing—and he has a point—that we have the capability to build. We have a decent engineering team, 20, 25 people in our ops and data team. And he's saying, "Why are we paying someone else to do what we can build faster and tailored exactly to our process?" But my pushback is, we're a healthcare analytics company. That's what we should be focused on. Selling insurance analytics products to healthcare payers. Not building sales infrastructure. [SALESLOFT REP] That's a really smart debate to be having, because it usually comes down to three things: capability gap, speed to value, and opportunity cost. Let me ask you—if you built it, how long before you had something meaningful? [MARIA] Honestly? Six, nine months minimum. We've got competing priorities. Our engineering team is heads-down on product development. We'd have to pull people off of that, which means we're slowing down product innovation. And even then, we'd be building version one. We wouldn't have the sophistication that a platform like Salesloft has built over years. [SALESLOFT REP] Right. So you're looking at 6-9 months, significant opportunity cost, and at the end of it, you're playing catch-up to what we've already built. Then you've got to maintain it. Versus if you implement with us, you could be live in weeks. But—and I want to be totally honest with you—there's a different kind of challenge, which is integration and data. That's usually the real bottleneck. How are you thinking about that? [MARIA] Yeah, that's... that's the part that keeps me up at night, honestly. Our data is a mess. We've got Salesforce as our source of truth, but it's not clean. We have deals in there with incomplete information, reps aren't using consistent naming conventions, our account hierarchy is all over the place. And then we've got customer success data in a different system, revenue data somewhere else. The idea of actually pulling all of that together and getting your platform to work with it—I don't even know where we'd start. [SALESLOFT REP] Okay, so this is more common than you might think, and it's exactly why we built what we call a data assessment phase into every implementation. Before we even talk about implementation timelines, we need to understand what you're working with. Can I walk you through what that actually looks like? [MARIA] Please. Because that's my number one concern right now. [SALESLOFT REP] So here's the thing—we've learned that trying to clean all your data before you implement is a path to failure. You'll spend six months trying to achieve perfection, and it never happens. Instead, what we do is we come in, we do a two-week diagnostic. We're looking at Salesforce data quality, we're looking at what's in your customer success system, revenue system, any other tools you're using. We're documenting what you have, what you need to integrate, and crucially, what we can work with on day one versus what needs to be cleaned up. [MARIA] And what does that look like practically? How much of my team is involved? [SALESLOFT REP] Not as much as you'd think. We typically need a Salesforce admin and maybe one person from your operations team to be available maybe 10-15 hours a week for those two weeks. We're not asking your sales team to participate at this stage. We're asking you, your ops team, and maybe a few power users to validate what we're seeing. Then we come back with a scope document and an implementation plan. That's when you know exactly what you're signing up for. [MARIA] And how long does the actual implementation take after that? [SALESLOFT REP] For a company your size, typically 8-12 weeks from kickoff to go-live. And—this is important—you're seeing value long before that. By week three or four, you've got initial dashboards up, you're starting to see pipeline visibility. By week six, you're starting to train reps on the tools. By week eight or nine, you're live on the platform. The last few weeks are about optimization and training. [MARIA] Eight to twelve weeks. So if we kick this off in Q1, we're looking at... mid-Q2 before we're actually seeing the full implementation? [SALESLOFT REP] Potentially, yes. And I want to be transparent about that timeline—it extends if you have significant data cleanup, or if you have competing priorities and your team can't dedicate the focus. We've done it faster with companies that are super committed. We've also seen it stretch to 16 weeks with companies that have other priorities. But here's what's important: you're not waiting until week 12 to see value. [MARIA] That's encouraging. But I want to talk about ROI, because that's ultimately what's going to sell this internally. Everyone's got a budget problem. We've done well, but the board is looking at efficiency, not top-line growth. What are we realistically looking at? And I'm not trying to get a sales pitch—I want to know what's realistic. [SALESLOFT REP] I appreciate that. Let me give you what we actually see with companies like yours. The first year ROI has three main components. First is deal cycle acceleration. We typically see 15-25% improvement in sales velocity. That's less time in early stages, faster progression through the funnel. For you at $70 million, that could mean $4-7 million in accelerated revenue. [MARIA] That seems aggressive. How do you measure that? [SALESLOFT REP] We measure it by looking at your historical conversion rates and cycle times, then comparing them to companies in your segment that use Salesloft. We're not pulling numbers out of thin air. It's benchmarking. But here's the important caveat—that requires that your reps are actually using the tools, and that your managers are coaching to the data. If you buy the platform and don't change your process, you won't see it. [MARIA] Fair point. What else? [SALESLOFT REP] Second component is win rate improvement. We see 5-10% improvement in win rate because you're doing better opportunity qualification and you're engaging with prospects more effectively through our engagement tools. For you, that could be another $3-4 million. Third is reduced rep ramp time. It takes 6-9 months typically for a new rep to hit quota. With our platform, we see that drop to 4-5 months because the rep has playbooks, coaching, real-time guidance. If you're hiring 50-75 reps a year like most companies at your scale, that's meaningful. [MARIA] Okay, so first-year impact could be, what, $7-12 million? [SALESLOFT REP] In the best case scenario with strong adoption. But I want to be realistic with you—that assumes you actually change your go-to-market motion. That assumes your managers start coaching differently. That assumes your reps adopt the tools. I've seen companies in your space realize $2-3 million in year one and then $8-10 million by year three as they optimize and scale. It's not day one. [MARIA] That makes sense. But what about the second and third year? Because what I need to explain to my CFO is that this is not a one-year bet. [SALESLOFT REP] This is actually where it gets really interesting. By year two, you've got your playbooks refined. Your reps are proficient with the tools. You're not paying implementation costs anymore. You're seeing the full benefit of the platform. We typically see companies realize 2-3x of their year-one benefit in year two. And then year three is usually about optimization and competitive advantage. You're selling faster and better than your competitors. [MARIA] And the cost side? What are we looking at to implement, plus ongoing licensing? [SALESLOFT REP] So licensing depends on your team size. You've got 450 sales people. Our base pricing for a team that size is typically $500K to $700K annually, depending on the specific features and modules you need. You're also looking at implementation services—we charge either a flat fee or a percentage of the annual contract value. For your size, implementation might be $75K to $150K depending on complexity. And then you need to factor in your internal resource costs—your ops person's time, your Salesforce admin's time, potentially hiring a dedicated revenue operations person if you don't have one. [MARIA] Okay, so we're talking about $600K annually, plus maybe $100K in implementation, plus internal costs. That's real money. [SALESLOFT REP] It is. But if we're real about it, you're spending a lot more than that on inefficiency right now. You missed your forecast by $8 million last quarter. You've got reps spending time on administrative tasks instead of selling. You probably have at least one person in operations who spends 40% of their time doing manual reporting and data cleanup. [MARIA] [laughs] I have two people basically doing that full-time, actually. [SALESLOFT REP] There you go. So the question isn't whether you can afford this. It's whether you can afford not to do it. But I understand the skepticism. So let me address something else you probably have concerns about—we talk about guaranteed outcomes, and I think there's a lot of BS in our industry around that. What does that actually mean? [MARIA] Yeah, what does it mean? Because I've heard that before from other vendors, and it sounds great until you read the fine print. [SALESLOFT REP] So here's what we actually do. We have what we call a success guarantee. It's not a guarantee that you'll hit a specific revenue number—because that depends on too many factors outside of our control. What we do guarantee is that if you hit certain adoption metrics and follow our implementation playbook, you'll see measurable improvement in your leading indicators within 90 days. And if you don't, we'll extend your contract at no cost and bring in senior implementation resources to figure out what's wrong. [MARIA] So it's not a money-back guarantee. [SALESLOFT REP] No, it's not. And I'll be honest, we could probably sell a lot more if we offered that. But the companies that are actually successful with us are the ones that are going to drive adoption and change their processes. And money-back guarantees don't create that incentive. What we are saying is: if you do the work, and we do the work, you will see results. If the results aren't there, we'll figure out why together. And if it's a platform fit issue, we'll work with you on a path forward. [MARIA] I appreciate the honesty. But let me push on that a little bit. If I implement this, spend six months getting my team trained, change my processes, and at the end of it the ROI isn't there, am I stuck? [SALESLOFT REP] Not completely. Our contract typically has an 18-month minimum, but it has performance milestones built in. So at months 6 and 12, we're looking at specific metrics together. We're measuring pipeline coverage, rep utilization, forecast accuracy, those kinds of things. If we're seeing strong adoption but the business metrics aren't moving yet, we know there's a different kind of problem. Maybe your product-market fit is the issue, or your go-to-market strategy needs adjustment. That's not a Salesloft problem. But if we're seeing weak adoption and weak metrics, then we've got work to do on our side to make sure the platform is being used effectively. [MARIA] Okay, that's actually more reasonable than I expected. Let me circle back to something you said earlier about data integration. You mentioned we'd have to deal with the data cleanup, but I want to understand the actual risk there. If our data is as messy as I think it is, what happens? [SALESLOFT REP] Good question. So there are different levels of mess. The worst case is that you have deals in your system that are completely inaccurate—wrong amounts, wrong close dates, wrong stage. The best case is that you have deals that are accurate but your metadata is inconsistent—rep names are spelled differently, account names are inconsistent, that kind of thing. In the data assessment phase, we'll identify where you are on that spectrum. [MARIA] And then what? [SALESLOFT REP] Then we prioritize what we need to fix. For example, if your deal amounts are wrong, that's going to affect forecast accuracy, which is probably why you missed your forecast last quarter. We need to fix that before you go live. If your rep names are spelled three different ways, that's annoying, but we can build in data mapping to handle it. The key is being proactive about it, not trying to ignore it and hoping it goes away. [MARIA] How long does that take? [SALESLOFT REP] Depends on the scope. For a company your size with this level of complexity, probably 4-6 weeks. And it's not sexy work. It's your ops team and our team doing a lot of auditing, validation, and cleanup work. But it's necessary. And honestly, even if you never implement Salesloft, cleaning up your Salesforce data would be worth doing. That's the foundation of everything. [MARIA] Fair point. Let me ask about something else—we've got a pretty strong relationship with our Salesforce partner. They've been pushing us toward their own analytics tool, Einstein Analytics. Are you seeing that as a competitive threat, or is it a complement? [SALESLOFT REP] It's an interesting question because they're not really direct competitors. Einstein gives you a reporting layer on top of Salesforce. What we do is we help your reps execute better. So theoretically, you could use both. But here's the honest answer: Salesforce is getting increasingly focused on being a platform vendor and pushing their own tools. And their tools are improving. But they're not going to compete with us on the sales execution side, because that's not their core business. Their core business is CRM. The question you should be asking yourself is: do you want your primary sales execution platform to be built on top of Salesforce, or do you want it to be independent of Salesforce? [MARIA] What's the advantage of being independent? [SALESLOFT REP] Flexibility. You're not locked into Salesforce's roadmap. You're not paying for features you don't need. And if Salesforce ever raises their licensing costs—which, let's be honest, they do—it doesn't directly affect your cost. Plus, we integrate with other systems beyond Salesforce. If you ever want to move your CRM, you're not completely screwed. [MARIA] That's a good point. So to be clear, you're not replacing Salesforce. You're sitting on top of it. [SALESLOFT REP] Exactly. Salesforce remains your system of record. We're reading data from it, enriching it, and providing visibility and coaching tools that Salesforce doesn't provide natively. You could theoretically use us with a different CRM if you wanted to, but we've obviously optimized for Salesforce since that's where most of your data lives. [MARIA] Okay. Let me ask about the longer-term relationship piece. You mentioned that this is really an 18-month minimum commitment. But realistically, if I implement this and see success, I'm thinking about a multi-year engagement. How do you think about that? Are we talking about annual contracts where we renegotiate every year, or longer-term commitments? [SALESLOFT REP] That depends on what you're comfortable with. We can do annual contracts where we renegotiate every year. Or we can do multi-year commitments where you get a discount for locking in. Most companies your size do a 3-year deal because you want stability in your budget planning, and you want to make sure the platform is part of your long-term strategy. [MARIA] And if my needs change? If I decide that the product isn't working, or I decide to build internally, or something else comes up? [SALESLOFT REP] If it's a 3-year deal, you're locked in. But we typically build in some flexibility. For example, if you're not hitting adoption metrics by month 12, we might agree that you can walk with certain terms. Or if your business fundamentally changes—you get acquired, you pivot your go-to-market—we can discuss an exit. But we're not going to make it easy, because we're also investing in you. We're dedicating implementation resources, success resources, potentially some custom development. So we need some protection. [MARIA] That's fair. But I want to make sure that if we commit to three years, and by year two we're asking ourselves, "Why did we do this?", we're not completely stuck. [SALESLOFT REP] I'll be honest with you—if we implement this well and you see results, that's not going to happen. And if we don't implement it well, then yeah, you might be frustrated. But that's when we step in and figure out what's wrong. The key is that we need to stay connected throughout the relationship. We can't just hand off the implementation and disappear. [MARIA] How do you think about ongoing engagement? Do we get a dedicated success manager? [SALESLOFT REP] For a company your size, absolutely. You'll have a dedicated customer success manager who's responsible for your account. They'll be your single point of contact. They'll be in touch monthly, or more frequently if needed. They're responsible for making sure you're getting value from the platform. They're also responsible for identifying expansion opportunities—maybe new modules you haven't activated yet, or new use cases you could address. [MARIA] And if they're not delivering? What's the escalation path? [SALESLOFT REP] You escalate to me or my team. And we'll make sure you get the attention you need. But here's the thing I'll tell you: the best predictor of success is whether you, as the VP Sales, are engaged. If you're treating this as a "nice to have" project that you delegate completely, it won't work. If you're actively involved in driving adoption, coaching your managers, and changing your process, it will work. [MARIA] I understand. And that's actually the thing that scares me a little bit—because I'm already stretched thin. I've got product delivery issues I'm managing, customer success issues, probably should be doing more on strategy. Adding "drive Salesloft adoption" to my plate is not trivial. [SALESLOFT REP] I get it. And that's where your success manager comes in. They're going to do a lot of the heavy lifting on adoption, training, process change. Your job is to set the vision, reinforce the importance with your team, and be visible as someone who cares about sales execution. You don't have to be the implementation expert. [MARIA] Okay. Let me ask about something that I think is really important, and it's the risk mitigation side of this. We've talked about ROI, we've talked about implementation. But what about risk? What are the ways this could go wrong? [SALESLOFT REP] That's a good question, and I appreciate you asking it. The biggest risk is adoption failure. You implement the platform, reps don't use it, and six months in you're asking why you're paying for something your team isn't using. That's usually because of two things: either the change management wasn't done well, or the platform doesn't fit your specific process. So the way we mitigate that is through strong change management, clear communication about why you're implementing, and building the platform to match your process, not forcing you to match the platform. [MARIA] What else? [SALESLOFT REP] The second big risk is that the ROI takes longer than expected to realize. You implement, you spend the money, but the payback period stretches longer than you planned. That could be because your data is messier than you thought, or because your process changes take longer to implement, or because market conditions change. We mitigate that by being realistic about timelines upfront and building in flexibility to adjust as we learn. [MARIA] And from your side, what happens if the platform itself isn't performing? Like, what if there's a bug, or what if the analytics aren't accurate? [SALESLOFT REP] We've got an SLA that commits us to uptime, performance, and support response times. We also have a dedicated engineering team that responds to bugs. But I'll be real with you—in a platform this complex, there are always going to be edge cases and things that need work. The key is that we have a process to address them quickly. And we're continuously updating the platform. We do quarterly releases with new features and improvements. [MARIA] How much of that is driven by customer needs versus just your internal product roadmap? [SALESLOFT REP] It's both. We have a customer advisory board that meets quarterly. We gather feedback from all our major customers. And that influences maybe 30-40% of our roadmap. The rest is driven by where we see the market going and what we think is going to be valuable to our customer base. But if you have specific needs, you can always escalate them. [MARIA] Can you build custom features? [SALESLOFT REP] For the right customer and the right use case, yes. But it's not cheap. We typically charge $50K to $100K for custom development, depending on complexity. And we need to be convinced that it's something that's valuable not just for you, but for other customers too. We're not going to build something that's 100% specific to your business. [MARIA] Fair. I think I've got most of what I need. Let me just ask a couple of clarifying questions about the timeline again. If we decided to move forward, what would the next steps be? [SALESLOFT REP] So here's what I'd suggest. First, let's do a more detailed conversation with your ops team and your Salesforce admin. I want to understand your current state a lot better. Then we can schedule a data discovery call where we walk through your Salesforce instance together and start identifying what cleanup is needed. After that conversation, I can come back to you with a formal proposal that includes pricing, implementation timeline, and success metrics. Then you present that internally, get approvals, and we're off to the races. [MARIA] How long does that process take? [SALESLOFT REP] From this conversation to a signed contract? With motivated stakeholders, maybe 4-6 weeks. With a more complex internal approval process, it could be 8-10 weeks. But that's just the evaluation phase. Once you're signed, we're kicking off implementation pretty quickly. [MARIA] And if we're ready to sign, when would we want to start implementation? [SALESLOFT REP] Ideally sooner rather than later. But I understand there might be budget cycles or competing priorities. If we sign in March or April, we'd want to kick off in May, targeting a go-live by August or September. That gets you through the end of the year with your new process in place, which gives you momentum into next year. [MARIA] That makes sense. Okay, I think this has been really helpful. I'm going to need to have some internal conversations about the build versus buy decision, but I appreciate the honest conversation about ROI and risk. That's way more useful to me than if you had just told me everything was going to be amazing and I'd see $20 million in returns in year one. [SALESLOFT REP] I appreciate that. And look, I'm not here to convince you that Salesloft is the right answer. I'm here to help you think through the problem and the options. If you do decide to move forward, we'll work hard to make sure you see the value. But if you decide that building internally is the right call, I get it. Just make sure you're being realistic about the timeline and the opportunity cost. [MARIA] I will. And I'll probably come back to you with some questions about the data assessment phase and the implementation team. I want to understand the people side of it—who exactly is going to be responsible for what. [SALESLOFT REP] Absolutely. I'll send over a RACI document that outlines exactly who's responsible for what at each stage. And I can probably get you in touch with a customer success manager so you can understand what ongoing support looks like. Would it be helpful to do a reference call with another VP Sales in a similar business to yours? [MARIA] That would actually be really helpful. Someone who's implemented recently, not someone who's been with you for five years. [SALESLOFT REP] Perfect. I'll set that up. I know a VP at a mid-market healthcare software company who implemented with us about 18 months ago. She can give you the real story—the good, the bad, and the ugly. [MARIA] Great. I appreciate it. Let's stay in touch. [SALESLOFT REP] Will do. And Maria, thanks again for the time. I know you've got a lot on your plate. I'll follow up with that documentation and the reference call intro. --- ## Key Takeaways **1. Build vs. Buy Decision Remains Open** - Maria is genuinely considering internal development as an alternative - Cost ($600K+ annually) is secondary to confidence in speed-to-value and execution quality - Decision will hinge on honest conversation about 6-9 month internal build timeline and opportunity cost **2. Data Integration is the Authentic Bottleneck** - Not Salesforce as a barrier, but data quality within Salesforce - Acknowledged need for data assessment before committing to implementation - Realistic about 4-6 week data cleanup workstream as prerequisite to value **3. ROI Realization Requires Phased Expectations** - Year 1: $2-3M conservative, up to $7-12M with strong adoption - Year 2-3: 2-3x multiplier effect as processes mature - Success dependent on adoption and process change, not just platform deployment **4. Implementation Complexity Accepted, Timeline Critical** - 8-12 week implementation timeline understood and acceptable - Value visible in weeks 3-4 with dashboards and pipeline visibility - Multi-year commitment (3 years preferred by vendor, 18-month minimum acceptable) **5. Risk Mitigation Concerns Addressed** - Adoption failure is the primary risk - Performance guarantees focus on leading indicators, not revenue guarantees - Success manager relationship is expected to be ongoing and responsive **6. Next Steps Defined** - Formal data discovery with ops team required - Reference call with similar customer needed before internal approval - Timeline: Evaluation by April, implementation kickoff May, go-live August-September - Maria remains skeptical but seriously engaged in the evaluation process