Your Operating System.
MEDDPICC. Command of the Message. Big Rocks. Pipeline discipline. This is how we got to #1 — and how we get back. Everything on this site is built from the Master Playbook, QBR data, Gong call intelligence, and Salesforce pipeline reality. No fluff. Use it.
Every deal inspected against all 7 MEDDPICC letters plus the 3-level problem ladder. No quantified pain = no deal. No Economic Buyer = no Commit. No next step on calendar = no control. Command of the Message is how we sell value — not features — at every stage.
Single source of truth for ICP, persona entry points, deal types, discovery scripts, pricing defense, and objection handling. This is not optional reading — it is the operating system. Every coaching conversation, every deal inspection, every forecast decision maps back here.
Pipeline creation expectations tied to territory capacity — reps know their math. Contact minimums, discovery targets, pipeline creation cadence. Big Rocks are weekly non-negotiables, not stretch goals. The system works when you work the system.
Commit/Best Case walk every week with MEDDPICC proof audit. 4–5x coverage math enforced. No stale stages, no wishful thinking, no inflated scores. Pipeline cleaning pass monthly. A deal without MEDDPICC proof cannot live in Commit — no exceptions.
| Day | Activity | Non-Negotiable Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Monday AM | Forecast Updated | Every Commit deal has MEDDPICC proof and a confirmed next step BEFORE the pipeline call starts. |
| Monday | Team Meeting + Pipeline Review | Laptop open and ready. All opps updated in SFDC. Know your stage, next steps, decision process, and close date for every deal. |
| Mon / Tue | 1:1 with Manager | 1:1 recap doc sent within 24 hrs. Action items from last session complete. Funnel metrics memorized. One deal to inspect with MEDDPICC + CoM language. |
| Wednesday | Dial Block AM + PM | Both sessions are mandatory. Prospect list loaded and ready. Dials logged in Gong from laptop. 75 dials per session target. |
| Friday | Forecast Call + SFDC Updated | End the week showing deal progress and cycle time discipline. SFDC fully updated — next steps, close dates, MEDDPICC fields — by COB. |
| Weekly Recap | Submitted by Friday COB | Big wins, pipeline created, Big Rocks metrics, one deal spotlight, one coaching ask. Not optional. |
The Big Rocks
Big Rocks are the revenue-driving activities entirely within your control. We don't get to choose whether deals close — but we absolutely control how many calls we make, how many meetings we set, and how many opportunities we create. When the Big Rocks are hit, quota follows. The funnel math is proven and non-negotiable.
| # | Big Rock | Weekly Target | Why It Exists |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dials |
150 |
Top of funnel. Every deal starts with a dial. No dials = no pipeline. No pipeline = no quota. |
| 2 | Discovery Meetings Set |
4 |
Ensures enough qualified pipeline entering the funnel every single week. |
| 3 | Discovery Meetings Completed |
4 |
Show rate discipline. Set it and hold it. Ghosted meetings must be rescheduled same day. |
| 4 | New Opportunities Created |
3 | Min $49,200 ARR |
$16,400 avg ARR per opp. Builds pipeline depth. 3 opps/week = 12/month = 4–5x coverage math. |
| 5 | Alliance Payroll Opportunity |
1 | Min $15,000 ARR |
Strategic partner revenue. Non-negotiable add-on motion. Without Alliance engagement, we cannot hit target. |
| 6 | Partnership Network Meeting |
1 |
Referral generation. This is how we scale top-of-funnel without additional headcount. |
| 7 | New Gong Email Cadence Created |
1 |
Force multiplier. Automated touches while you're on calls. Every cadence compresses your sales cycle. |
| 8 | SDR Strategy Meeting |
1 (min 30 min) |
Alignment on target accounts, contacts, and intent signals. Your SDR is a force multiplier — use them correctly and your top-of-funnel production doubles. |
Why this Rock is vital: Every single deal that has ever closed started with a dial. There is no shortcut. The fastest reps in this region built their pipeline the same way — volume discipline on the phones, compounding over time into a healthy funnel. When dial attainment drops, pipeline creation drops 6–8 weeks later. The Q2 pipeline report showed the team averaging 84 dials per week versus the 150 standard — 56% of target. The result was a drop from 1st to 3rd in pipeline ranking within the same quarter. The correlation is direct.
What consistency builds: A rep hitting 150 dials per week for 12 straight weeks builds an entirely self-sufficient pipeline engine. They become less reliant on inbound, less anxious about any single deal, and more confident in their forecast because they know the math behind it.
Minimum Standard
- 150 dials per week
- All logged in Gong from laptop
- Self-sourced only — inbound excluded
- Wednesday Dial Blocks are mandatory (both AM + PM)
- Prospect list loaded before blocks begin
What Good Looks Like
- Multi-threaded across decision-maker + champion + influencer at same account
- Calls tied to ICP accounts on your Top 25 / Middle 25 list
- Call connected to a trigger (intent signal, news, Alliance partner referral)
- Personalized opener — not a generic script read
- Immediate follow-up email if voicemail left
Common Failures
- Dialing dead accounts with 10+ touches and no opp created
- 70–90% of activity on non-opportunity accounts
- Not loading prospect list before Dial Block begins
- Logging dials on mobile instead of Gong/laptop
- Counting inbound call-backs toward the target
Why this Rock is vital: A discovery meeting is the first real MEDDPICC touchpoint. It's where Identified Pain gets surfaced, Metrics get quantified, and Champions get developed. A meeting that gets set but not held is wasted pipeline capacity. Show rate discipline means: if they ghost you, you reschedule within 24 hours or you move on. It also means the rep is qualifying the meeting before it happens — not showing up to educate a contact who has no authority or no pain.
What consistency builds: Reps who hold 4 qualified discovery meetings per week develop discovery muscle faster than any training program can deliver. They hear more objections, refine their PBO-first openers, and learn which questions unlock the real conversation. Gourmondo — the deal showcased at the company All-Hands as a discovery gold standard — was built on exactly this cadence.
Pre-Meeting Must-Do
- Research account: # of locations, current tech stack, likely pain points
- Identify persona: CFO/Controller, GM/Ops Director, or Owner/CEO
- Prep 2–3 discovery questions specific to their profile
- Set the agenda and confirm attendee 24 hrs in advance
- Know your PBO opener for their role before you dial in
During the Meeting
- Open with a PBO question, not a product pitch
- Use the 3-level pain ladder: surface → dig → quantify cost
- Confirm the Metric: "So if we could cut that from X to Y, what does that mean?"
- Identify Champion vs. Economic Buyer — are they the same?
- End with a defined next step and a date on the calendar before you hang up
After the Meeting
- Log opp in SFDC same day
- Populate MEDDPICC fields immediately — memory fades
- Send recap email: their pain in their words
- Set Gong email cadence within 24 hrs
- Update stage and next step in SFDC before end of day
Why this Rock is vital: 3 opportunities per week at an average of $16,400 ARR builds the 4–5x pipeline coverage the playbook requires. Pipeline coverage is the insurance policy against deal slippage, competitive losses, and black-swan events. The $49,200 weekly minimum ARR creation target exists because pipeline is not just about count — it's about value. A pipeline of low-ARR deals cannot mathematically produce quota attainment in the commercial segment.
What consistency builds: Reps who create 3 qualified opps every week for a full quarter enter the next quarter with pipeline confidence instead of pipeline anxiety. They know their number. They know their coverage ratio. They stop being reactive to deal slippage because the math always provides buffer. This is how Drew Busse went from 5% attainment in Q1 to leading the team with $940K Q2 pipeline in the same quarter.
Opp Qualification Standards
- ICP: 2–50 locations, restaurant operator
- Identified Pain must exist — not just interest
- Minimum $16,400 ARR per opportunity
- MEDDPICC fields started same day opp is created
- Stage reflects actual deal status — not wishful thinking
What Disqualifies an Opp
- Contact has no authority to influence a purchase
- No pain identified — only general curiosity
- Outside ICP (e.g., non-restaurant, 1-location with no growth plan)
- Already disqualified and re-entered to inflate count
- Created from inbound without MEDDPICC qualification
Pipeline Coverage Math
- Target: 4–5x monthly quota in active pipeline
- 3 opps/wk × 4 wks = 12 opps/month
- 12 opps × $16.4K avg = $196.8K/month pipeline created
- Monthly quota ~$68.8K (based on $825K annual / 12)
- = ~2.9x coverage monthly creation alone
Why this Rock is vital: Given our per-location pricing ceiling in the commercial segment, Alliance adoption is not optional — it is how this team hits target. Without strong Alliance engagement, we have zero mathematical path to goal. Alliance Payroll at $5K/month ARR per deal adds significant contract value to every close and brings a strategic partner dimension that protects the deal from competitors who can't match a full platform solution. Every Alliance opp is a competitive trap set against point solutions.
What consistency builds: Reps who embed Alliance into every discovery conversation stop treating it as an add-on and start treating it as the platform story. The combined accounting + payroll + ops narrative is what separates R365 from MarketMan, 7shifts, and Toast — and that story only works if payroll is in the deal. Consistent Alliance prospecting also deepens partner relationships with Toast, US Foods, and others who actively co-sell.
How to Source Alliance Opps
- Ask in every discovery: "Who runs payroll and how is it connected to your accounting?"
- Partner referrals from Toast, US Foods, Sysco channel
- Existing accounts using 3rd-party payroll — easy pivot
- SDR strategy meeting: flag payroll-ready accounts together
- Territory map: identify accounts where payroll change = trigger event
Selling the Payroll Story
- Tip credit, tip pooling, dual-rate OT — natively in the engine
- Split-shift premiums, state-specific wage rules — no manual override
- Single platform: one database, no sync, no lag
- RC: "System must handle restaurant payroll rules natively"
- Trap: "Does your current payroll handle tip credit without a workaround?"
Alliance ARR Math
- $15,000 ARR minimum per Alliance opp
- 1 per week = $780K+ Alliance ARR annually (team)
- Alliance deals increase average contract value 30–40%
- Competitive moat: bundled platform vs. standalone payroll
- Co-sell credit with Toast/US Foods accelerates deal velocity
Why this Rock is vital: A partner referral is the highest-quality lead you will ever receive. They come pre-warmed, pre-qualified on the ICP, and with an implicit endorsement from a vendor the prospect already trusts. One partnership meeting per week that generates one referral per month adds 12 high-quality leads to your pipeline annually — without a single cold dial. The only way to build at scale without adding reps is through force multipliers. The partnership network is the biggest one available.
What consistency builds: Reps with active partner relationships stop starting every conversation from scratch. Partners route new restaurant openings, platform migrations, and multi-unit expansions directly to you. This is especially powerful in territories with high Toast penetration — a co-sell relationship turns a competitor into a referral source.
Priority Partners by Territory
- Toast — POS integration story; they need accounting
- US Foods / Sysco / Shamrock — distribution network
- InKind — marketing platform with shared restaurant base
- Local restaurant consultants and CPAs
- Foodservice-focused banks and lenders
Partnership Meeting Agenda
- Share 2–3 accounts you want intros to (named, specific)
- Offer reciprocal value — what can you send them?
- Review any warm leads they've passed — update on status
- Ask: "Who in your book is struggling with back-office right now?"
- Enroll in referral program if not already active
Referral Referral Math
- 1 mtg/wk → 1 referral/month → 12 leads/year (conservative)
- Partner leads close at 2–3x the rate of cold outbound
- Average ARR on partner deals tends to be higher (multi-unit)
- Log all partner leads as Alliance-eligible in SFDC
- Tag source: "Partner — [Name]" for tracking and recognition
Why this Rock is vital: A Gong email cadence runs while you're on calls, in meetings, and off for the weekend. One cadence touches 10–20 prospects over 2–3 weeks without requiring your manual attention. Compounded over 12 months, a rep who creates one new cadence per week builds an automated outreach engine that runs on its own — driving responses, re-engagement from dead accounts, and meeting requests from contacts who weren't ready six months ago. This is the definition of working smarter.
What consistency builds: Reps who use cadences consistently find that their pipeline has a steadier inflow. Instead of feast-or-famine cycles driven by dial weeks, they have a background engine that surfaces warm conversations. The cadence also serves as a CoM training tool — writing a personalized, PBO-first email sequence forces you to articulate the prospect's problem in their language.
What Makes a Good Cadence
- Opens with their PBO — not what R365 does
- Subject line references their specific situation (# of locations, current system)
- 3–5 touch sequence over 10–14 days
- Mix of email, voicemail drop, LinkedIn touch
- Clear call-to-action: 20-minute call, specific ask
Cadence Personas
- CFO/Controller: close the books faster, AP automation
- GM/Ops Director: real-time food cost, labor visibility
- Owner/CEO: scale from X to Y locations, one source of truth
- QuickBooks migrators: "your spreadsheet dependency" angle
- Toast users: "your POS closes but your books don't" angle
Cadence Hygiene
- Remove anyone who responds immediately — don't spam a live conversation
- Review reply rates weekly — low open rates = subject line problem
- A/B test subject lines across two versions per cadence
- Log all cadence-generated meetings as self-sourced outbound
- Archive old cadences and tag performance in Gong
Why this Rock is vital: Your SDR is a force multiplier. Used correctly, they double your top-of-funnel output without doubling your own hours. Used incorrectly — or ignored — they fill your calendar with meetings that don't match your ICP, and you end up spending time disqualifying inbound instead of building your own pipeline. The weekly SDR strategy meeting exists to align on target accounts, prioritize by intent signals, and make sure your SDR is hunting the same accounts you are in the same sequence.
What consistency builds: AEs who run effective SDR strategy sessions get better leads. The SDR learns the AE's ideal account profile, the qualification bar, and which opening lines work. Over 90 days, an AE-SDR team running weekly strategy sessions produces 2x the qualified pipeline of a team that just "sends over accounts and hopes."
Meeting Agenda (30 min)
- Review last week's SDR-sourced leads — quality feedback (5 min)
- Share this week's Top 10 target accounts by name (10 min)
- Align on intent signals and triggers to prioritize (5 min)
- Review cadence performance — what's getting replies? (5 min)
- Agree on this week's outreach sequence and messaging angle (5 min)
What to Bring
- Your Top 25 account list — updated with recent Gong/SFDC activity
- Any intent signals from ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, or partner referrals
- ICP filters: 2–50 locations, current system gaps, growth signals
- Your Gong cadence performance stats from last week
- 2–3 accounts you want personalized multi-touch sequences on
SDR Handoff Standard
- SDR-sourced meeting must have a confirmed pain or trigger
- Contact must be a decision-maker or confirmed champion
- SFDC updated with SDR notes before AE takes the meeting
- AE provides feedback within 24 hrs of any SDR-sourced meeting
- No credit toward Big Rock targets from SDR-sourced meetings
MEDDPICC Standard
Every deal. Every inspection. No quantified pain = no deal. No Economic Buyer = no Commit. No next step on the calendar = no control. These are the non-negotiables — not guidelines.
What is the explicit, named operational problem? "We want better reporting" is not broken. "We close the books in 22 days and our controller works every weekend of the first three weeks of the month" is broken. Get to the specific.
Is there a Champion who feels the pain personally? Do they have organizational influence? Will they advocate internally when you're not in the room? A Champion who can't get a meeting with the EB is not a Champion — they're a sponsor.
Quantified in dollars or hours or both. "35 hours per month on invoice reconciliation" is quantified. "A lot of manual work" is not. No quantified pain = no deal. This is the number your Champion uses to build the internal case.
What is the compelling event that makes this quarter the quarter to solve it? New location opening, system failure, leadership change, audit, prior-year loss tied back to bad data. Without a compelling event, the deal lives in "someday."
This is the cost-of-inaction question. If they don't solve this in Q2, what happens? Another quarter of overruns? Another period-close fire drill? Another hire they don't need? The compelling event creates urgency; the cost of inaction eliminates the "maybe later" reflex. This question also exposes deals that are stuck in Best Case because there is no real consequence to waiting.
MEDDPICC fully proven. Next step on calendar. Verbal timing confirmed. No unresolved objections. Do not put a deal in Commit that you would not bet your paycheck on.
Strong deal with 1–2 MEDDPICC elements missing. Champion validated but EB not yet engaged. Clear path to Commit if gaps are closed in the next 1–2 weeks. Must have a defined action to move to Commit.
Early stage. Identified Pain exists but multiple MEDDPICC elements unconfirmed. Build Value stage. Primary coaching focus: deepen MEDDPICC, get EB access, confirm Decision Process.
Command of the Message
When you lead with features, you invite price comparison. When you lead with PBOs, you anchor the conversation in what the customer is already trying to solve. Command of the Message is how we control the narrative — from first call to signature.
Discovery That Wins
Great discovery questions don't just gather information — they shift how the prospect thinks about their problem. A Gold Standard discovery call surfaces a gap the prospect didn't realize was costing them something and positions R365 as the obvious solution before you ever pitch it.
"Walk me through what your month-end close looks like — start to finish. Who touches it and how long does each step take?"
Surfaces manual steps, single points of failure, and timeline. Sets up the days-to-close metric conversation. Almost always reveals an FTE doing work that shouldn't require one.
"When's the last time you reconciled your actual food cost against your theoretical? What was the variance, and when did you know about it?"
Almost always surfaces a lag problem. If they say "we don't track theoretical," you have your opening — that's a guaranteed 3–5% food cost overrun they've normalized. Quantify it immediately: "At your volume, that's roughly $X per month hitting your P&L."
"If your highest-volume location had a labor problem on Tuesday, when would you know about it — and what would you do?"
Tests real-time visibility. Most operators say "end of week" or "when payroll runs." That's your metric gap. Lock in the number: "So for 4–5 days you'd be running blind. What does that typically cost you when it happens?"
"How many systems does an invoice touch between the time it arrives and the time the vendor gets paid?"
Exposes AP complexity. Every handoff is a failure point — and often a duplicate payment risk. The answer typically involves a spreadsheet, someone's memory, and a reconciliation step that only one person knows how to do.
"If you added 5 locations next year, how would your back-office operations change? What breaks first?"
Forces the scalability conversation. Owner/CEO loves this — it reframes the software conversation as a growth infrastructure conversation. Also surfaces that their current system won't scale without proportional headcount growth.
"Who builds your consolidated P&L right now? How long does that take, and what happens if that person is out?"
Finds the single-point-of-failure — usually a controller with a master spreadsheet. This is a high-urgency trigger. "We had a CFO once who said her team spent 35 hours a month reconciling invoices using a spreadsheet only she understood. One wrong formula and the whole month fell apart."
"We have some manual processes in our close."
Rep mistake: stopping here. This is the surface problem. It gets you a feature conversation, not a value conversation.
"Our controller spends the first 3 weeks of every month reconciling."
Better. Now you know who is affected and what they're doing. But still no number.
"That's 120 hours per month — basically a full FTE — doing work that shouldn't require one. At $60/hr, that's $7,200/month in labor cost tied to a broken process."
Now you have a business case. Now the Champion can sell internally.
Traps & Competition
A trap question is one you plant with the prospect to ask your competitor — or ask about their current state. The answer makes R365 the only logical choice. You're not attacking. You're just asking an innocent question that only R365 can answer well.
R365 wasn't a generic ERP that added a restaurant module. Every workflow — chart of accounts, period close, payroll tax rules — was designed around how restaurants actually operate. Competitors built a module. We built a platform.
Our integrations with Toast, Square, Aloha, and 100+ POS systems are built and maintained by R365. They don't break every time the POS pushes an update. Middleware connections break. Ours don't.
One database. No syncing between systems. When sales data enters the POS, it updates your P&L automatically — no export, no re-entry, no lag. This is how you close books in 3 days instead of 18.
Not just at period close, and not just in aggregate. Managers see variance by menu item, by location, in real time. So they can act before the period closes — not 11 days after the week ended when the damage is already done.
Tip credit, tip pooling, dual-rate OT, split-shift premiums — in the engine, not a workaround. One less thing for the controller to manually adjust every cycle. Ask the competitor: "Does your payroll handle tip credit without a manual override?"
Days-to-close: 3–5 vs. 15–20. Food cost variance: <1% vs. 3–5%. AP processing: <5 min per invoice vs. 30–45 min. Average annual savings: $50K+. These are not estimates — they are customer-reported outcomes from your territory and beyond.
Team Intel
Current state of the Southwest team sourced from QBR data, Gong activity logs, Salesforce pipeline reports, and weekly meeting agendas. Updated continuously. Use this to know where the team stands and where coaching is focused.
| Rep | Tenure | Status | Pipeline (Last QBR) | Primary Coaching Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raj Modha | ~8 mo | Developing | $716K (team-leading) | Confidence, deal progression, accountability rhythm |
| Drew Busse | ~27 mo | Breakout | $460K+ (incl. Gourmondo) | Maintain system discipline as deal volume grows; close rate |
| Alex Gandelman | ~15 mo | Solid | $296K (MEDDPICC 90–100 on top deals) | Close rate improvement; EB access on top deals |
| Carson Furrier | ~6 mo | Ramping | $142–181K | Discovery depth, volume consistency, channel mix |
| Andrew Clement | Varied | Focus Area | Active pipeline | MEDDPICC validation depth; activity lift plan; Alliance targets |
| Trey Taylor | New | Onboarding | $61–291K (including $138K early deal) | MEDDPICC acumen, Decision Process/Paper Process, Big Rocks discipline |
Playbook Rules
These are the operating principles that run this team. They come from the Master Commercial Sales Playbook, the QBR, the Operating Rhythm doc, and the Master Playbook, the QBR, and the Operating Rhythm doc. Follow them exactly.