The CRO, not product marketing, is closest to the customer and knows what they will buy. The product roadmap should be a collaborative effort driven by the CRO, who can directly tie feature delivery to ICP expansion and revenue forecasts. This creates accountability and predictable growth.

You can't skip a fundamental agreement stage, like getting problem buy-in before proposing a price. However, you can and should look for opportunities to achieve multiple agreements within a single meeting. This combines stages, condensing the sales cycle without missing crucial validation steps.

SKOs often fail with high-level corporate presentations. A better approach is to put top-performing reps on stage to share specific, tactical "how-to's" for key sales activities like cold calling, email outreach, and champion building, fostering peer-to-peer learning.

After a group discovery call, don't just set one follow-up. Schedule brief, individual breakout sessions with every stakeholder. This creates multiple parallel threads, uncovers honest feedback people won't share in a group, and builds momentum across the entire buying committee, dramatically increasing deal velocity.

Frame your sales stages around the decisions you need from a prospect (a 'get'), not the tasks you must complete (a 'do'). For example, the goal isn't 'do a demo,' it's 'get agreement that you're the vendor of choice.' This encourages creativity and efficiency, preventing unnecessary activities.

When one rep achieves a significant win in a new vertical, use the SKO to create industry-specific breakout sessions. Have that rep detail their exact process, sharing materials and insights to enable the rest of the team to replicate that success across similar accounts.

To sell effectively, avoid leading with product features. Instead, ask diagnostic questions to uncover the buyer's specific problems and desired outcomes. Then, frame your solution using their own words, confirming that your product meets the exact needs they just articulated. This transforms a pitch into a collaborative solution.

Your company doesn't need to invent the perfect way to handle every sales challenge. The "gold standard" already exists within your team. The goal of an SKO is to create interactive forums, like role-plays, to discover and amplify this hidden, peer-generated brilliance.

Don't measure deal progress by the number of meetings held. Instead, define specific exit criteria for each sales stage. A deal only moves forward when the prospect meets these criteria, which can happen with or without a live meeting. This reframes velocity around outcomes, not activities.