Team Report
Risk Solutions Division - SE Team Analysis
Behaviour-based analysis of demo performance across 6 sessions and 5 solution engineers. All names - customers, companies, products, and individuals - have been replaced with neutral equivalents to preserve confidentiality.
Team Overview
Session & Presenter Summary
Score Overview
Category Scores Across All Presenters
Scores reflect the primary presenter's performance in each session. Where a BDM contributed significantly to a category, this is noted in the individual deep dives.
| Category | Marcus | Claire | James | Nina | Anton | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demo Framing & Expectation Management | 7 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| Discovery & Insight Creation | 7 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 6.6 |
| Customer Engagement & Conversation Quality | 7 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 6.6 |
| Demo Control & Facilitation | 8 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 6.8 |
| Communication & Rhetoric | 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 6.4 |
| Relevance & Personalisation | 7 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 6.4 |
| Business Value Communication | 6 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 4.8 |
| Demo Structure & Flow | 7 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 6 |
| Commercial Progression & Next-Step Ownership | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 5.2 |
| Overall Score | 7.1 | 5.6 | 6.8 | 6.9 | 5.3 | 6.3 |
Team Behavioural Frequency
Observable Patterns Across All Sessions
Across 6 sessions (~6.5 hrs), fewer than 3 value bridges per session on average. Business outcomes left for customers to infer in 5 of 6 sessions.
Used most consistently by Nina and Marcus. Claire and Anton rarely connected product back to customer-stated priorities mid-demo.
"Does that make sense?" used by Marcus 9x, James 8x, Claire 7x. Anton used "did I answer your question?" repeatedly. Pattern is team-wide.
3 sessions had a concrete next step. The transaction screening session had the strongest close (Priya). The identity verification session ended with no commercial direction.
Claire used a specific calculation (27 hrs/month, $4,860/year) effectively. Nina and Marcus explored pain but rarely quantified it. Anton did not quantify at all.
Only once across all sessions was a proactive objection question asked. Hidden blockers were left undiscovered in 5 of 6 sessions.
Strongest team behaviour. Nina led with 12+, Marcus 9+. Questions about current workflows, pain points, and volumes were used well across most sessions.
Claire used it once clearly (manual process vs automated). Others described current state and solution separately but never contrasted them as a value frame.
Team-Wide Patterns
Recurring Habits Across Sessions
Business value is consistently left implicit - customers connect the dots themselves
Across every session, product capabilities were explained clearly and technically. What was missing in all five was the explicit bridge to business outcome. Customers were shown what the product does, but rarely told what that means for their team operationally - in terms of time saved, risk reduced, compliance assured, or revenue protected. This is the single most consistent and commercially damaging pattern across the team.
Commercial close is passive - customers drive the next step, not the SE or BDM
In five of six sessions, the next step was either proposed by the customer, agreed vaguely ("we'll be in touch"), or not established at all. Only in the transaction screening session did the team clearly own the close. The fraud intelligence session ended well because the customer took initiative. The identity verification session had no commercial close at all. The pattern suggests the team is not yet treating close as a shared responsibility between SE and BDM.
"Does that make sense?" used as the default check-in - across every presenter
This phrase appeared 38 times across six sessions. It creates passive confirmation rather than meaningful engagement. It is the most consistent team-wide language habit and one of the easiest to replace. The replacement is not complex - a single contextual question tied to what the customer just said is sufficient. This is the highest-impact, lowest-effort change available to the entire team.
Strong current-state curiosity and reality-based discovery questioning
Every presenter asked meaningful questions about how customers are doing things today. Nina's questions about payment flows and fraud patterns, Marcus's questions about transaction volumes and risk appetite, Claire's questions about manual process time, and Anton's structured discovery opening - all demonstrated genuine interest in understanding the customer's environment. This is the team's most valuable shared asset and should be the foundation everything else builds on.
Feature dumping in the middle section of demos - especially during technical deep dives
In four sessions, the mid-demo section became a sequential capability walkthrough without customer anchoring. Marcus's 20-minute screening preparation walkthrough, James's predefined search configuration section, Nina's rules engine demonstration, and Anton's slide deck all showed features in logical product order rather than in customer priority order. The discovery that happened before each demo was not consistently used to shape which features received more attention.
Individual Presenter Analysis
Session-Level Deep Dives
What Worked Well
- Exceptional technical depth - lifecycle walkthrough, false positive funnel, automated qualification explained clearly
- Strong handling of complex, multi-part technical questions from the customer's sanctions specialist
- Honest about product limitations (KYC integration, email inquiry rules) without defensive responses
- Good use of "is there any questions before I move on?" at natural breakpoints
- Email/the messaging platform notification workflow explained with a concrete operational scenario
Development Areas
- Business value stated only technically - "reduces false positives" without connecting to analyst hours saved or regulatory risk reduced
- Long uninterrupted explanation sections (screening prep module: ~15 minutes without a meaningful pause)
- "Does that make sense?" used 9x across the session
- Commercial close was passive - handed back to Priya without a clear SE value summary
- One feature gap (rule-creation UI) was deferred to a future session without commitment to a timeline
"So if all hits in a message are automatically reapplied, the entire message in itself will of course be passed automatically and you no need to deal with a message at all." - The capability was clear but the operational impact (how many analyst hours this eliminates per week) was never stated.
"What this means operationally is that your Level 1 analysts only ever see a new decision they haven't made before. Everything they've handled once is handled automatically from that point forward - without a human touching it again. Based on your volumes, that could eliminate a significant portion of your daily queue."
Top Coaching Recommendation
After every major capability shown, add one sentence beginning "What this means for your team is…" - targeting analyst time, regulatory confidence, or operational speed. Marcus already explains features expertly; the value translation is the missing layer. Also replace all 9 instances of "does that make sense?" with "How does this compare to what you're doing today?" - which creates a real conversation rather than passive confirmation.
What Worked Well
- Strong opening recap - customer situation summarised clearly before product was shown
- Excellent use of quantified business case: "27 hours per month, 324 hours per year, $4,860 in compliance officer time"
- Regulatory context well-integrated - the financial regulator licence requirement framed as urgency driver naturally
- Good audience management when bridging between the BDM and James roles
- Continuous reminders that setup is supported ("we sit with you for 3 days")
Development Areas
- Value bridges inconsistent - switched from business framing to feature explanation mid-section several times
- Spoke over James on multiple occasions, reducing the flow of his technical explanation
- Questions to the customer were often confirmatory rather than exploratory ("that's right, isn't it?")
- The identity verification platform upsell introduced without building a clear bridge from the customer's stated priority
- No commercial close - ended with "anything further?" rather than a proposed next step
"You'd have your Excel of 500 individuals, you'd screen them on a daily basis. And then you may have 100 new customers per month." - Technically accurate but no statement of what this eliminates for the compliance team.
"You'd run this automatically every day in the background. Your compliance team doesn't have to do anything. If someone who was clean at onboarding is added to a sanctions list next month, you get an alert that morning - before you've processed any transactions with them. That's the protection you currently can't have with a manual process."
Top Coaching Recommendation
Claire already does discovery and framing well - better than most of the team. The development area is the second half of the demo, where the BDM role transitions to supporting James rather than leading. Practice a clear verbal handover: "James, I'd like you to show specifically how the risk-based workflow works - that was the main use case we discussed." This structures James's demo and keeps Claire's good setup visible throughout.
What Worked Well
- Excellent demo control - clear verbal signposting ("I'll show that just now", "let me come back to that")
- Strong data literacy - explained fuzzy matching, false positive reduction layers, and custom list logic clearly
- Proactively offered relevant context ("there's a lot of talk at the moment about once a pep, always a pep")
- Good use of the photo feature as a differentiator - no other vendors have this
- Handled the the CRM system integration demo naturally and with confidence
Development Areas
- Relevance personalisation low - demo ran in product order rather than customer priority order
- No connection between predefined search configuration and the specific risk profile discussed in discovery
- Value bridges absent - capabilities explained but "what this saves your team" not stated
- "Any questions on the data file before I move on?" used as a generic break rather than a contextual check-in
- Commercial close was entirely passive - no summary of value, no proposed next step
"This is the core of the configuration setup - this is where we define how the platform processes data." - No connection to the customer's stated workflows or risk categories.
"You mentioned earlier you're classifying clients as low, medium, and high risk with different onboarding requirements. This next section is exactly how you'd reflect that in the platform - a different predefined search for each tier, screening against different lists, with completely different workflows. Let me show you what the high-risk version would look like for your use case."
Top Coaching Recommendation
James's technical fluency is excellent. The single highest-impact change is to open every new demo section by naming the customer's stated pain or use case first: "You mentioned X - let me show you how that works." This transforms a product walkthrough into a tailored demonstration. Target: at least 6 context bridges throughout the demo portion of any session.
What Worked Well
- Outstanding real-time technical engagement - built live rules during the demo in response to specific customer questions
- Strong contextual questions throughout: "what does the fraud look like in your business?", "how many merchants do you have?"
- Excellent use of the customer's data to shape what was shown (a secondary market volumes, recurring vs new payments)
- Consistently explained the "why" behind technical choices - not just what the rule does, but what it detects
- Strong handling of edge cases (an offline payment channel flow, a secondary market card rails) - adapted live without losing composure
Development Areas
- Opening was unstructured - session started with rapport/small talk with no session framing or agenda
- Business value stated technically ("this is how you build the rule") rather than commercially ("here's what this prevents")
- Rules engine section ran long without pausing to check customer relevance or priorities
- No objection surfacing at close - "are there any rules you can't do that you'd like to?" was asked but no commercial blockers explored
- Commercial discussion (volumes, professional services, next steps) was left to Leo to lead
"So this is credit card count same device… most people don't have 10-20 credit cards. But if this device is trying testing stolen credit card numbers from the dark web, a frosted device will absolutely have this." - Excellent explanation. Missing: what this means for the merchant's chargeback rate or fraud losses.
"This is one of the most powerful rules we have for catching card testing fraud - the kind where someone runs hundreds of stolen card numbers to find active ones. For most payment processors, this goes undetected until the chargebacks arrive. With this rule, you intercept it at the point of payment. The merchants don't see the chargeback. The reputational damage doesn't happen."
Top Coaching Recommendation
Nina is the team's strongest technical communicator. The next level is connecting each rule or capability to a specific fraud type that has cost a business money - in concrete terms. Prepare five "war stories" or use-case outcomes for the five most commonly built rule types. When a rule is shown, deliver the outcome narrative. This turns a technical demo into a commercially compelling one.
What Worked Well
- Handled the NDA restriction professionally - adapted to slides-only without losing the narrative
- Good industry context at the start (a major market pensions sector regulatory drivers, digital transformation wave)
- Explained the core biometric flow clearly and logically (consent → ID capture → selfie → face match → token)
- Privacy-by-design explanation (tokenised storage vs high-res) well delivered
- Responded to the elderly client photo scenario with empathy and relevant technical detail
Development Areas
- No live demo shown - slides only due to NDA; this significantly reduced engagement and left key questions unanswered
- Framing was product-centric throughout - "the way the identity verification platform works" rather than "the way your verification problem gets solved"
- Long uninterrupted slide narrative (~15 minutes) with only brief pauses
- No business value framing - the fraud cost of failed verifications, the operational burden of manual callbacks, the regulatory risk of ID failures - none of this was stated
- Session ended with a question to the audience rather than a clear proposed next step
"In a sense, also it's quite interesting that we discuss in this particular topic biometric verification or authentication because believe it or not, there is currently a significant wave of vendor selection processes in our market…" - Extended industry context without connecting to the customer's specific stated problems.
"You described two specific problems today - elderly clients whose ID photos no longer match their current appearance, and a callback verification process that's creating operational delays. this platform addresses both directly. Let me show you how the face comparison works when the ID photo is decades old, and then how the callback trigger would work in your withdrawal process."
Top Coaching Recommendation
The NDA situation created a forced limitation, but it revealed a structural habit: Anton leads with product architecture rather than customer problems. Before the next session, prepare two or three "your problem, our answer" opening frames for the most common customer scenarios in this vertical (elderly verification, deepfake prevention, onboarding compliance). Then structure the slides around those problems, not around the product's feature set. Also: never end a session with "from your perspective, what would be the main incentive?" - that question belongs at the opening, not the close. The close should be: "Based on what we've discussed, here's what I'd suggest as the next step."
Exact Language Improvements
Replace These Phrases - Team-Wide
| Instead of… | Use this instead… | Why it works better |
|---|---|---|
| "Does that make sense?" (38x across team) | "How does this compare to what you're doing today?" | Creates a real conversation with actual customer insight instead of passive confirmation |
| "Any questions before I move on?" | "You mentioned [X] earlier - is this what you had in mind?" | Reconnects to customer context and validates relevance specifically |
| "This is a really powerful feature…" | "What this eliminates for your team is…" | Moves from feature description to business outcome in one sentence |
| "Let me show you how this works." | "You mentioned [problem] - this is how that gets solved." | Every demo action anchored to a customer-stated priority |
| "Any other questions? OK, great." | "Based on what you've seen today, does this address what you described? And what would the right next step look like?" | Converts passive close to commercial momentum |
| "We'll be in touch." | "The logical next step is [specific action] - can we set that up before we close today?" | Ownership and timeline versus vague follow-up intention |
| "Would this be helpful for you?" (hypothetical) | "How are you currently handling this today?" | Reality-based question creates real discovery |
| "There's a lot to show, I'll try to give you an overview…" | "I'm going to focus on the three areas most relevant to what you described - [X, Y, Z]." | Signals control and personalisation |
Team Improvement Priorities
What to Focus on as a Team
Team Development Plan
Recommended Focus - Next 90 Days
- Team challenge: ban "Does that make sense?" for 30 days - track and share count at each team call
- Every SE adds one value bridge sentence after each major capability in their next 3 demos
- BDM and SE agree before each session: who owns the commercial close and what the proposed next step is
- Each SE records one demo and watches it back specifically counting value bridges vs feature descriptions
- Team shares one strong contextual check-in question per week via internal channel
- Each SE builds a "value library" - 5 before/after statements for the 5 most commonly shown capabilities
- Practice quantified pain exploration: every discovery should surface frequency, time, cost, or risk in numbers
- Team role-play: SE presents a 5-minute capability section, BDM counts value bridges - debrief together
- Introduce objection surfacing language: "What would prevent this from moving forward on your side?"
- Develop standard demo structure: customer problem first → outcome shown early → mechanics explained second
- Every session ends with: value recap → objection surfacing → proposed next step with owner and timeline
- SEs develop a "war story" for each product - a specific customer outcome with measurable results, in 60 seconds
- Team reviews one commercial close from the previous month together - what worked, what could be stronger
- BDMs coach SEs on objection handling - SEs coach BDMs on technical credibility signals
- Target: every session in Month 3 has a mutually agreed next step before goodbye
Final Coaching Summary
Main Takeaway for the Team
The technical foundation is strong. The commercial layer is the team's next level.
Across six sessions and five presenters, the pattern is consistent: strong product knowledge, genuine curiosity about customer situations, and good handling of complex technical questions. Customers left technically convinced in every session. That is a meaningful starting point.
What is missing is the layer that converts technical conviction into commercial momentum. Features are explained but their outcomes are not stated. Customers are engaged but rarely asked what would stop them moving forward. Sessions end with goodwill but without direction. The team's discovery instincts are genuinely good - the work now is to let those instincts drive the structure of every demo, and to make business value as explicit as the product architecture.
The highest-impact change requires no new skills - just a change in habit: after every feature shown, say what it eliminates, what it saves, or what risk it removes. One sentence. Every time. That is the difference between a demo that impresses and a demo that moves a decision forward.