Case Study
Getting to Yes,
Again and again.
At this mid-sized AI startup, a major automotive retailer represented the company's largest opportunity to date, one capable of validating the platform in a high-stakes vertical and opening the door to broader enterprise growth. Capturing that opportunity meant building a commercial motion that could match the ambition of the product itself: sharper pitch materials, faster-moving contracts, and pricing built to hold its value under pressure while laying the groundwork for the next deal, and the one after that.
The Challenge
Full quarter pilots slowed momentum with high-value prospects.
Deals closed at nearly 50% of their proposal value during pricing discussions.
No formal sales strategy existed to provide a framework for deals.
Contract structures added friction to negotiations, extending time to signature.
Manual discovery cycles delayed the path to first workload.
What We Did
With a marquee automotive retailer in play and real momentum to build on, we developed the commercial foundation to match the product's potential. We created customized pitch materials aligned to specific buyer personas and use cases, templatized contracts to remove common points of friction, and designed a consumer-friendly pricing strategy built to hold its value through negotiation. We then moved upstream, developing an automated discovery approach with self-service demo sandboxes so prospects could evaluate the product against their own data in a secure environment, compressing the path from first conversation to first workload. The result was a landmark deal with a major automotive retailer, a sales process designed around the company's core strengths, and a pipeline built for sustained, repeatable growth.
250%
Increase in Deal Size
A buyer-aligned pricing strategy and customized pitch materials preserved and elevated deal value, reversing a pattern of significant price erosion during negotiation.
30%+
Reduction in Time to Market
Automated discovery and self-service demo sandboxes gave prospects a faster path to evaluation — cutting pilot timelines that had once stretched beyond a full quarter.
100%
Increase in Pipeline
A refined sales process and sharper positioning materials expanded pipeline generation, turning a single marquee win into sustained opportunity flow.
One deal proved the product. A repeatable process proved the business.
Winning a marquee customer is a moment. Building the sales motion to win the next ten is a strategy. By pairing sharper positioning with a faster, friction-free path from first conversation to first workload, this AI startup turned a single high-stakes win into a pipeline built for sustained, scalable growth with the process, pricing, and materials in place to keep saying yes.
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