Post by Dan Zhang

I asked every Deal Desk leader to "be more strategic". But for years I had 𝙣𝙤 idea if they actually were. The answer was always some version of "we are a strategic partner to sales!" This year was different. Our Deal Desk lead Jansyn Blake gave me this report I've never seen before. She trained AI on the actual deal context and asked one question: "where did we materially change the outcome?" The result: a 3 person squad influenced $xxm of closed-won ARR last quarter, with clearly traceable evidences, which was now codified into deal playbook. They rise above the automation. And pointed AI at the part that was always invisible: human judgment. That reads a lot better than "we became more strategic this year..."