Alex kicks things off by shining a light on the rise of Sales Deal Rooms—a trending category that even Gartner and G2 are talking about. There’s been a big shift in the GTM world where fragmented sales, customer success, and marketing teams are now all rolling up under the same revenue umbrella. The rise of RevOps is a prime example of this trend.
As the first marketing hire at Lattice, he stumbled upon the idea of creating private microsites for sales reps to share with prospects. The idea was popular and reps ended up creating 600 sales deal rooms. Alex quit Lattice 3 years ago to start Dock and, today, Dock is helping over 250 customers improve their sales processes.
“What we're trying to build at Dock is a place for revenue teams to collaborate with each other and their customers. One of the best ways to do that is a sales deal room.” - Alex Kracov
Jump to the clip to hear how the idea of Sales Deal Rooms has exploded on LinkedIn, Gartner, and G2.
The sales landscape has done a 180. Gone are the days of "growth at all costs," unlimited resources, and investment in sales teams. You have to achieve the same big goals as a sales organization but with smaller teams and less support. Add in distributed teams and you have new challenges with training, ramping, and ensuring CRM hygiene.
"Every deal feels like it requires CFO approval," Alex notes. Buyers have increased budget scrutiny and bigger buying committees because they’ve been burned by software in the past. At the same time, buyers spend only 17% of their total buying time interacting directly with sales teams.
“There was this whole predictable revenue engine that we tried to create over the last 10 years. We just sent our sequences expecting a really linear progression. And that is not how it works at all.” - Alex Kracov
Jump to the clip for a deep dive into how much the sales environment has changed over the last few years.
The modern buyer isn't messing around. They want personalized experiences, quick answers, and they definitely don't want to sift through a cluttered inbox for information. Alex introduces the concept of buyer enablement, a shift from the old-school sales enablement, which is all about empowering the buyer.
The focus should be on what the buyers want and think, and working backward to build revenue processes, as opposed to starting from the seller and working to the buyer. We need to make it really easy for the buyer to buy. It's also about supporting their research by creating different collateral to help answer questions while always being upfront and transparent.
Jump to the clip for a thorough definition of Buyer Enablement.
Buyer engagement within Deal Rooms is a top-notch predictor of deal success. One of Dock's customers, Nectar, saw a 31% increase in close rates using Dock. The more a prospect engages with the Deal Room, the higher the likelihood they’ll sign on the dotted line.
For RevOps, tracking engagement metrics in deal rooms is like having a cheat sheet for forecasting and pipeline management. You can see in real time if people are engaging in your sales process. This informs your sales forecast and even your coaching methodology. It also shortens the sales follow up time.
"If they're not going to click a link, they're probably not going to buy your product." - Alex Kracov
Jump to the clip to learn how Alex sees the impact of Sales Deal Rooms as a CEO.
With Dock, you can see who's viewing what, when, and for how long. Are they viewing the overall deal room? Which pages are they checking on? How much time are they spending on pages? Which mutual action plan steps are they going through? You have a real-time feed in Slack.
Imagine getting a Slack notification when a prospect views the pricing page or shares the Deal Room with their CFO. That's your cue to swoop in or update your forecast. As Alex puts it, "it's such a good signal for the rep and the managers about whether that deal is actually going to progress."
Jump to the clip for answers to the question: How should people look at signals from sales deal rooms?
While Dock hasn't jumped on the AI bandwagon just yet, Alex sees huge potential in using AI for content creation and data analysis. AI would be great for listening to what's going on in the sales process and updating the deal room for you on your behalf or suggesting edits. AI can also help make sense of the data and surface insights and signals.
“In the same way Figma revolutionized the way people do design, I think of deal rooms and client workspaces as a similar trend for sales teams.” - Alex Kracov
Jump to the clip to learn how Alex sees the future of AI in Sales Deal Rooms.
Worried that adopting Deal Rooms will be like climbing Everest? Think again. Alex walks us through how to get started—beginning with creating templates that map to your sales process. He emphasizes the importance of starting small and scaling up.
"You can start really small," he assures. Even a simple Deal Room with a personalized video, customer logo, and next steps can make a huge difference. Plus, the positive feedback from buyers is the cherry on top.
Jump to the clip to hear how sellers rely on Dock templates to get started fast.
Alex makes a compelling case for shifting the focus from internal tools and processes to buyer-centric ones. Traditional sales enablement tools are all about training the seller, but the real magic happens when you empower the buyer. For RevOps, this means re-evaluating the tech stack and perhaps trimming the fat to focus on tools that enhance the buyer's experience.
“I think people have really bloated stacks and overbuilt platforms that are too focused internally. I think you should focus more externally.” - Alex Kracov
Jump to the clip for Alex’s thoughts on why you don’t need so many sales enablement tools.
So where does RevOps fit into all this? When companies prioritize hiring RevOps, even before salespeople, RevOps can support the buyer journey, systems, and data so sales managers can focus on coaching reps.
By leveraging Deal Rooms, RevOps can collect richer data, improve forecasting accuracy, and ultimately drive more revenue. It's about creating a seamless experience from the first touchpoint all the way through onboarding and renewals.
Jump to the clip to hear a discussion on how RevOps can play a part in seller and buyer enablement.
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