About

Your SE team wins the technical evaluation.
Then the deal dies.

I spent two decades watching that happen from inside SE organizations. Presales Navigator exists to fix it. I install a deal management system that gives presales teams clarity, consistency, and intent, on every deal.

My Mission

Turn presales into a strategic operating function.

Not by teaching more skills. By installing how work actually gets done.

Most presales teams are smart, experienced, and capable. What's missing is not talent. It's a system, for how deals are run, how leaders reinforce execution, and how all of it scales beyond individuals.

What I Believe

Presales is strategy, not support
Consistency beats heroics
Truth creates urgency
Leadership is a system, not a title
Every deal is a decision, serve the decision, not the deal

The Frameworks

COMPASS · Direction

Seven principles that answer: where is this deal actually going? Clarity over charisma. Ownership of discovery. Craft that multiplies through collaboration. Alignment before action. Strategy in every stage.

SAIL · Momentum

Four habits that answer: is the deal actually moving? Make the customer the author, the story they write survives without you. Customer-owned action, not vendor-managed meetings. Insight and leadership from the middle.

ANCHOR · Stress Test

Six stress tests that answer: is the deal real? ANCHOR tests everything COMPASS and SAIL built. When the test fails, it tells you exactly which principle to go back and fix. That's what makes it a system, circular, not linear.

The Founder

Dmitri Lee

Amazon Bestselling Author, The Presales Navigation System™
Creator of COMPASS, SAIL & ANCHOR

28 years in presales. Ran the field, ran teams, ran continents. Spent the last decade running enterprise-scale SE orgs across the Americas and globally.

The Presales Navigation System is the operating system I built to solve the losses that couldn't be pinned on skill, deals we earned technically that walked out at "no decision," or slipped past close because nobody was inspecting the deal the same way twice.

"Before every call, every demo, every follow-up, ask yourself one question: does what I'm about to do help the customer make a decision?"

Speaking

Keynotes for kickoffs and conferences.

I also keynote sales kickoffs and presales conferences on why deals die after the technical win. If you're building an SKO or an event agenda, see Speaking.

For Event Organizers

Short bio · 40 words

Dmitri Lee is the founder of the Presales Navigation System and author of the book by the same name. He spent 20+ years leading Sales Engineering organizations, most recently as Head of SE, Americas at Zerto (HPE). He speaks on why deals die after the technical win.

Long bio · 100 words

Dmitri Lee is the founder of the Presales Navigation System, a deal management methodology for presales teams, and the author of the book by the same name. Over 20+ years leading Sales Engineering organizations, most recently as Head of Sales Engineering, Americas at Zerto (HPE), he watched the same pattern repeat: teams win the technical evaluation and then lose the deal. His frameworks, COMPASS, SAIL, and ANCHOR, give SE teams and their leaders a system for seeing which deals are real before the forecast finds out. He keynotes sales kickoffs and revenue events, and installs the system with teams over 12-month engagements.

Your SE team wins the technical evaluation.Then the deal dies.