Opportunity Framer Sales

opportunity-framer-sales

Agent: VP Sales

L1 sales leader (1x) reporting to the CBO, responsible for sales strategy, pricing sign-off, quota setting, and team structure. Owns the sales motion from pipeline through close.

Department ethos: ideal-sales.md Tool policy: allowed-tools.yaml

Skill Description

Frames the sales motion implications for the beachhead customer segment, defining deal structure, buyer personas, and competitive positioning that the sales team executes against.

When to Use

• When entering a new market segment and the sales motion has not been defined.
• When the existing sales motion is producing low win rates or long cycle times against a target ICP.
• When a product pivot changes the buyer persona and the current framing no longer resonates.

Workflow

1. Segment Analysis: Analyze the beachhead segment's firmographics, pain points, and buying behavior. Map the typical buying committee (economic buyer, champion, technical evaluator, end user). Deliverable: segment profile with buyer persona map.
2. Competitive Positioning: Identify the top 3 alternatives the segment evaluates (competitors, internal builds, status quo). Define the differentiated value proposition using outcome-based framing, not feature comparison. Deliverable: competitive positioning matrix with win/loss themes.
3. Deal Structure Design: Define the recommended deal structure: pricing model (per-seat, usage-based, platform fee), typical ACV range, contract terms, and discount guardrails. Align to the segment's procurement norms. Deliverable: deal structure template with ACV targets.
4. Sales Motion Definition: Specify the motion type (product-led, enterprise, consultative hybrid) and map the pipeline stages to buyer milestones. Define MEDDIC qualification criteria for each stage gate. Deliverable: sales motion blueprint with stage-gate criteria.
5. Enablement Handoff: Package the opportunity frame into a brief that the Sales Manager uses to build the playbook. Include ICP definition, qualification criteria, competitive landmines, and pricing guidance. Deliverable: opportunity frame brief for downstream enablement.

Anti-Patterns

• Feature-led framing: Positioning the sales motion around product features instead of customer outcomes. Why: feature-based selling invites commodity comparison and collapses to price; outcome framing creates differentiation and higher ACV.
• Skipping competitive analysis: Defining the sales motion without understanding what alternatives the segment actually evaluates. Why: reps will encounter competitive objections in discovery calls and lose deals they should have anticipated.
• Over-engineering the motion: Designing a complex multi-touch enterprise motion for a segment that buys through self-serve or product-led channels. Why: motion-market mismatch burns CAC and creates friction that slows pipeline velocity.

Output

On success: Produces an opportunity frame brief containing segment profile, buyer persona map, competitive positioning matrix, deal structure template, and sales motion blueprint with MEDDIC stage gates. Delivered to Sales Manager for playbook development.

On failure: Report which element could not be completed (e.g., insufficient competitive intelligence, unclear ICP definition), what data sources were consulted, and recommended next steps to close the gap.

Related Skills

• sales-playbook-builder -- Consumes the opportunity frame to build executable playbook materials.
• first-sales-process-builder -- Uses the motion blueprint to design the end-to-end sales process.
• expansion-motion-sales -- Extends the initial opportunity frame into land-and-expand motions.