Deal Labs

Make deal reviews a system for judgment,
not a forum for advice.

The only place where presales judgment becomes visible at scale. If you don't inspect judgment, you can't scale it.

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Dmitri Lee facilitating a structured Deal Lab session for presales teams

Most Deal Labs fail quietly.

They don't explode. They slowly teach teams to perform instead of think.

  • Teams optimize for approval, not truth
  • Leaders reward polish over uncertainty
  • Risk gets hidden, not surfaced
  • Weak deals linger instead of being deprioritized
"If your Deal Lab feels productive but doesn't change behavior, it's theater."

Three disciplined phases.

Most teams blur them. That's where it breaks.

Phase 1: Inspection

No fixing. No advice. Leaders ask only inspection questions. COMPASS clarity, SAIL sequencing, ANCHOR integrity. "If you solve during inspection, you corrupt the data."

Phase 2: Coaching

Limited and intentional. Focused on thinking patterns, not tactics. Reflect, reframe, redirect. "Coach the lens, not the move."

Phase 3: Decision (Optional)

Escalation, risk acceptance, or stop decisions. "Decision is not mandatory. Clarity is."

Every Deal Lab runs through three lenses.

COMPASS — What Must Be True
  • Is clarity explicit and customer-repeatable?
  • Is discovery owned — or inherited and never revisited?
  • Is alignment confirmed by each stakeholder?
SAIL — What Moves Next
  • Is the customer authoring the story — or repeating yours?
  • Are next steps customer-owned decisions?
  • What insight is being avoided?
ANCHOR — Which Stress Test Fails
  • Does the vision survive budget pressure?
  • Is the cost of delay quantified and personal?
  • When ANCHOR fails. Which principle needs rework?

Three services. One system.

Deal Labs that change behavior.

Not noise. Not theater. Structured inspection that surfaces truth and improves judgment over time.

Request Deal Lab Overview