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.

The Presales Navigation System uses three frameworks: COMPASS for direction, SAIL for momentum, and ANCHOR for stress testing whether a deal is real.

Request Deal Lab Overview
Dmitri Lee facilitating a structured Deal Lab session for presales teams

What changes: deal reviews stop being theater and become an inspection rhythm. Every SE knows what they are being asked and why. Truth surfaces earlier. Weak deals get killed instead of dragged.

The Problem

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."
The Model

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."

Inspection Through the System

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?
Metrics · The Deal Lab Dashboard

This is what your leaders see once the system is installed.

Deal integrity, capacity reclaimed, and pipeline health, inspectable at the individual SE and organization level. Illustrative snapshot showing what an installed team's dashboard surfaces about 6 months in.

78 /100
Deal integrity · avg ANCHOR score
68%
Deals passing · ANCHOR ≥ 70
240h
Capacity reclaimed · ~$28K SE time
86 /100
Installation index · discipline holding
$4.2M
Scored pipeline · 14 valued deals
$340K
Pipeline at risk · health < 50
$2.8M
Modeled to close · current health
$720K
Recoverable upside · if lifted to 70

Powered by Deal Lab Coach. Illustrative numbers showing what the dashboard surfaces about 6 months into the program. Your team's numbers populate on your own pipeline.

How It Fits Together

Three services. One system.

SE Training

Installs judgment at the individual level. 17 principles. 17 forcing moves.

Explore →

Leader Training

Installs leadership enforcement. Inspection, coaching, rhythm.

Explore →

Deal Labs

Makes the system visible, inspectable, and sustainable. The place where it all becomes real.

You are here

Deal Labs that change behavior.

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

Request Deal Lab Overview