Approach
Stop guessing which deals are real.
You ran the demo. They went quiet. You left it in the forecast anyway. That habit is expensive. Buyers can prototype an alternative in a weekend. "We will build it ourselves" is often the real competitor. Qualify anyway.
SCALE
Five things that have to be true. If you assumed one of them, the deal has a hole.
Success Criteria
What proof they will actually accept. Not the slide you wish they used. Often you write it with them.
Conversion Economics
What it costs them to keep doing it the old way, versus buying, versus building it with agents. Waiting costs. So does "we will just do it ourselves."
Adoption Path
How this gets used after the login. A pilot that never reaches the team is not a sale.
Lock-in & Risk
Data, model, reliability, switching. The late-deal killers in AI. Name them before they name you.
Effortless Transaction
The buying path has to be finishable. Proof can be hard. Purchasing should not be theater.
How you show up
Before process. Before CRM.
- Tell the truth about risk. Including yours.
- Do fewer things. Do them better.
- Catch people doing it right. Correct what is wrong.
- Ignore pipeline that is not real.
- Success is we. Failure is I.
How the motion actually moves
This is not 1996 enterprise software.
- Teach before you interrogate.
- Work the network. Cold spray is not the engine.
- Find the people who will actually go first.
- Write success and economics together.
- Guessing creates rework.
Twenty minutes. Then we know if there is work.
Bring the deals that went quiet. We will talk about whether they were ever real.