Stabilize Difficult Client Discovery Process

Project Background

You are an Account Executive at Google responsible for a strategic mid-market territory. Over the last quarter, your team saw a 17% drop in progression from first discovery call to qualified opportunity for Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 packages. Sales leadership believes reps are struggling in difficult, highly situational customer conversations that feel stiff, reactive, and inconsistent rather than consultative.

Google's sales enablement team has asked you to lead a 6-week pilot to improve how AEs handle these conversations without extending average sales cycle time. The pilot will cover 24 Account Executives across two regional pods and must be ready before the next quarterly business review.

Key Stakeholders

Stakeholders include the Regional Sales Director, Sales Enablement Lead, Legal partner reviewing call-recording guidance, frontline sales managers, and participating AEs. Their priorities conflict: leadership wants fast improvement in pipeline metrics, managers want minimal disruption to quota-carrying time, and Legal is cautious about any use of recorded customer conversations.

Constraints

• Timeline: 6 weeks total, with a go/no-go decision in Week 4
• Budget: $45,000 for enablement content, coaching support, and measurement
• Team: You, 1 Sales Enablement Program Manager, 2 frontline managers, and 1 Sales Operations analyst
• Pilot scope: 24 AEs, 120 customer conversations expected during the pilot
• No CRM changes allowed; tracking must use existing Salesforce and Gong setup

Complications

1. One regional manager insists the issue is rep quality, not process, and resists standardization.
2. Legal may restrict use of recorded call snippets for coaching in EMEA accounts.
3. Two top-performing AEs say a structured framework will make conversations sound scripted.

Your Task

1. Build a 6-week execution plan for the pilot, including milestones and owners.
2. Define how you would balance standardization with flexibility in live customer conversations.
3. Propose success criteria and how you would measure impact using existing Google sales tools.
4. Identify the top risks, escalation points, and fallback options if adoption is low.
5. Recommend whether to launch broadly, extend the pilot, or stop after Week 6.