When procurement enters a deal at the final mile, the seller has already left them with one lever: price. Meredith Chandler and Michael Shields spend this episode examining that dynamic from both sides of the table.

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Michael has been leading procurement teams at enterprise tech companies for over 10 years. He challenges the assumption that procurement is the adversary in a deal and makes the case that sellers have largely created that dynamic by arriving late and leaving procurement with nothing to do but negotiate on price.

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If you're navigating a complex deal where procurement is in the picture, or trying to build a process that stops stalling in the final stage, this conversation will change how you approach it. Brought to you by Aligned.

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👤 Guest Bio

Michael Shields is VP of Procurement at Tropic, an intelligent spend management platform trusted by 500+ companies to bring visibility and control to their software spend. He built the procurement function at Qualtrics from scratch, has led procurement organizations at multiple enterprise tech companies, and is an adjunct professor at BYU in operations and supply chain. He speaks at SKOs and regularly coaches sellers on how buying works from the other side of the table.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why procurement's top pain point with sellers isn't price pressure but being looped in too late, after the only lever left is commercial negotiation
• How to qualify what kind of procurement person you're actually dealing with, from strategic partner to purchasing checkbox, and why that changes your approach
• The three questions procurement asks before price ever comes up: does this tie to a business result, why is this prioritized over the other hundred projects, and why now
• Why every concession you give without a condition trains procurement to push harder next cycle, and the difference between flexibility and optionality
• What ABCD (Always Be Constantly Discovering) looks like in a multi-stakeholder deal, and why treating discovery as a phase instead of a continuous motion puts your deal at risk
• Why champions fail in internal approval rooms when they can't answer "why this vendor," "why this problem," or "why now," and what sellers need to give them instead of a pitch deck
• How procurement's land-and-expand goal is structurally more aligned with sales than most sellers realize, and what it takes to become a supplier they want to grow

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Aligned - AI deal workspace for enterprise sales; show sponsor. Build your first room free.

Most sellers have lost a deal because they didn't see a stakeholder change coming, or because a big opportunity moved too slowly and died in the pipeline. This episode is about both of those problems.

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Meredith Chandler sits down with Morgan Shelly Erazo, Founding Head of Sales at Revenue Vessel, to break down how Morgan closed a $1M+ deal in the SMB segment at Deel, in under a quarter, on a closed-lost opportunity that came back inbound. They cover what created that deal's velocity, how prep and honest expectation-setting moved stakeholders fast, and why LinkedIn connections are one of the most underused tools in any active deal.

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Morgan also shares what becoming a buyer for the first time taught her about how bad most outreach actually is, and how she's building her team at Revenue Vessel around the same principles that made her one of the most recognized SMB closers on LinkedIn.

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👤 Guest Bio

Morgan Shelly Erazo is the Founding Head of Sales at Revenue Vessel, an early-stage logistics sales intelligence platform that gives freight forwarders, customs brokers, and 3PLs comprehensive import data across air, ocean, and cross-border shipments. Before joining Revenue Vessel full-time, she spent 4.5 years at Deel as a Senior Account Executive, where she closed a $1M+ deal in the SMB segment and ranked among the top sales performers in North America. She was named to the 100 Powerful Women in Sales '25 list.

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📌 What We Cover

• How a PE acquisition and new stakeholder hires turned a closed-lost opportunity into a $1M+ deal that closed in a single quarter
• Why new stakeholders entering an account are often a buying signal, not a reset, and how to approach them differently
• How Morgan used an Aligned deal room as a direct differentiator: the key stakeholder cited it as part of the decision-making criteria
• Why brutal honesty with buyers, including delaying her own onboarding timeline, built the trust that accelerated the close
• The pre/post call prep structure that turns a 30-minute meeting into actual deal momentum, and why blocking internal debrief time immediately after calls is a top-1% behavior
• How to use AI for account research without letting it replace genuine curiosity about the buyer's business
• What Morgan now sees as a buyer: why most outbound is unreadable, what gets a response from a sales leader, and why fifth-grade language outperforms jargon every time
• Why connecting with every stakeholder on LinkedIn at the start of an evaluation is one of the most underrated deal moves in the book, and how it creates a live feed of buying signals throughout the cycle

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Aligned — AI deal workspace for multi-stakeholder enterprise deals
• Revenue Vessel — logistics sales intelligence platform
• Morgan Shelly Erazo on LinkedIn

Most sellers multithread by going up the org chart. They get the exec meeting, pitch the economic buyer, and assume momentum will follow. It won't - not without the people below the line already on your side. In this episode, Meredith Chandler uses a real internal evaluation she ran at Aligned to show exactly how below-the-line players shape buying decisions - even when they have zero budget authority. The plays she shares are specific, repeatable, and built for complex deals where consensus is required and one skeptical end user can quietly kill your momentum.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why multithreading down the org chart matters as much as getting exec access - and what you miss when you skip it
• How Meredith ran a real call recording tool eval at Aligned and what her reps' daily inputs revealed about BTL influence
• The "out of sight, out of mind" executive reality: why your deal is not top of mind for the buyer's leader, and what that means for your BTL strategy
• Four specific plays to build below the line support: sending relevant resources, gamification, asking directly how to help them get it approved, and echoing day-to-day language over ROI
• Why speaking ROI to a BTL signals you don't understand their world - and what to say instead
• How keeping BTLs looped in between calls surfaces critical deal intelligence, including procurement involvement you wouldn't otherwise know about
• Why your BTL is likely the one who walks you up the chain - and what it costs you if that relationship is weak

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Aligned - AI deal workspace for multi-stakeholder enterprise deals. Build your first room free.
• Get the full, Advanced Multi-Threading playbook

Most sellers think multithreading simply means getting more people onto the same Zoom call or flooding a group inbox. But the top 1% of sellers approach it completely differently. Host Meredith Chandler breaks down how to build individual relationships across stakeholders to keep complex deals moving forward.

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To navigate non-linear buying cycles, you have to run parallel conversations. This requires meeting with stakeholders individually while actively building group consensus. You cannot talk to a sales leader the same way you talk to marketing, RevOps, or finance. You have to tailor your outreach.

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Meredith shares real examples of multithreading done well and multithreading done poorly. You will learn how to send targeted agendas, write tailored email recaps, and warm up key players before a meeting ever happens. If you want to stop chasing a single person who might never show your tool to anyone else, this strategy is mandatory.

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What We Cover

• Why multithreading requires one-on-one or small group meetings to build individual relationships.
• How to tailor your interactions to what matters distinctly to sales, marketing, RevOps, and finance leaders.
• What to do when stakeholders cannot attend every single group call.
• Sending separate agendas ahead of time so you can focus strictly on delivering value during the meeting.
• How to write recap emails that highlight outstanding questions for both the large group and specific individuals.
• The danger of looping senior leaders into highly technical communication threads without setting the stage.
• Why keeping an executive up to speed without asking for anything makes them naturally curious and more prone to engage.

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Resources Mentioned

• Get the full, Advanced Multi-Threading playbook

Let's dig into one of the most misunderstood roles in enterprise sales: the champion. Meredith Chandler breaks down what actually makes someone a champion and why betting your entire deal on just one person is a massive risk. A true champion does far more than reply fast or love your product. They sell on your behalf internally when you are not in the room.

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Meredith explains how to tell the difference between a real champion and a helpful ally. Sellers often suffer from "happy ears" when someone shows initial excitement. But if that person does not know the internal buying process or lacks influence, your deal will stall. You need a stakeholder who can actually show you how to buy.

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This solo episode details the criteria every champion must meet: power, motivation, and personal gain. Meredith also shares a recent story about a large deal that slipped because the sole champion left the company. You will learn why multi-threading from the very first call is critical to surviving internal transitions.

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What We Cover

1. The exact difference between a true deal champion and a supportive ally.
2. How to pressure test a prospect's excitement to confirm actual purchasing power.
3. The specific traits every champion must have: power, influence, motivation, and personal gain.
4. Why your internal sponsor needs a direct tie to their core KPIs to push a deal forward.
5. How personal goals like leaving work on time drive urgent purchasing decisions.
6. The danger of single-threading and why win rates jump 30% when engaging four or more stakeholders.

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Resources Mentioned

1. Aligned: The AI deal workspace to handle complex multi-stakeholder deals. Build your first room for free at alignedapp.com.
2. Playbooks and Guides: Access complex sales tips via the link in the podcast description.

Waiting until the final approval stage to involve executives is a quick way to stall your deal. Sellers often fear that contacting leadership means going over their champion's head. Meredith Chandler kicks off this multi-threading series to kill that urban myth entirely.

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Meredith breaks down why early executive involvement is critical for enterprise deal execution. She explains how to get your name on an executive's radar without flooding their inbox with requests for 20 minutes of their time. The secret is sending updates with absolutely zero asks.

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Meredith shares a real evaluation story where early executive outreach revealed hidden success criteria. Discovering those different priorities early saved a month of selling to the wrong use case. Applying these tactics keeps your stakeholders aligned and separates you from competing vendors.

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What We Cover

1. Why the fear of going over a champion's head is an urban myth that slows down sales.
2. How to loop executives in early using group communications or individual updates.
3. Writing zero-ask outreach to keep leaders informed without requesting a meeting.
4. Using LinkedIn to proactively align stakeholders before formal introductions.
5. How discovering different executive success criteria early can shave weeks off your sales cycle.
6. Setting yourself apart from competitors by proactively managing the evaluation.

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Resources Mentioned

1. Aligned: The AI deal workspace is built to handle complexity in enterprise sales. Build your first room for free at alignedup.com.

In this trailer, host Meredith Chandler introduces Complex Sales: Decoded, a show for sellers and sales leaders working long, nonlinear enterprise deals. Expect practical conversations with top AEs and sales leaders on how to build champions, uncover stakeholders, sell between meetings, and keep momentum in high-stakes opportunities. If you want every episode to leave you with something useful for your next deal, start here.

Betting an entire enterprise deal on just one person is a risk you cannot afford. Sellers often confuse an excited ally for a true champion. A real champion does more than reply fast and likes your product. They actively sell on your behalf internally when you are not in the room.

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Host Meredith Chandler breaks down the exact criteria that separate helpful allies from deal-closing champions. She outlines how to qualify your contacts based on power, motivation, and personal gain. If your contact cannot navigate the buying process or check all three boxes, you only have an ally.

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Meredith also explains the dangers of single-threading your deals. When champions take time off or leave the company suddenly, deals die or slip into the next quarter. You will learn why parallel multi-threading is necessary to reduce risk and increase your win rates.

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What We Cover

• The stark difference between an internal ally and a true deal champion.
• Why your contact must have the power and influence to navigate the paper process.
• How to identify a champion's professional motivation and personal gain.
• The warning signs of a new contact who does not know how to get your deal done.
• Why relying on a single champion puts your deal at risk of stalling out or dying.
• How to use multi-threading to secure introductions to other stakeholders.
• The specific stakeholder count that can increase your win rate by 30%.

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Resources Mentioned

• Aligned: The AI deal workspace is built to handle the complexity of enterprise sales.
• Get the full, Advanced Multi-Threading playbook

Many sellers believe the urban myth that they need approval to reach out to leadership. This hesitation creates unnecessary delays and stalls complex evaluations. Host Meredith Chandler kicks off the multi-threading series by explaining why executive touchpoints must occur much earlier in the buying cycle.

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Meredith Chandler breaks down how to build visibility with leadership without overstepping. The secret is keeping them informed with zero asks. By proactively sending quick updates or connecting on LinkedIn, sellers establish a presence before the deal ever reaches the final desk.

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When you keep executives up to speed, you get your name and face on their radar. Meredith shares a real example of how looping in an executive early uncovered different success criteria. Finding out those priorities right away saved a month of selling time and kept the deal moving forward.

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What We Cover

• Why is executive involvement required long before the final approval stage?
• How to send proactive updates to executives without asking for anything in return.
• Examples of simple messages to keep leaders up to speed on current evaluations.
• The importance of getting your name and face on an executive's radar early.
• How uncovering different success criteria from leadership saves weeks of selling time.
• Strategies to handle multi-threading without making your champion feel bypassed.

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Resources Mentioned

• Aligned: The AI deal workspace is built to handle complex, multi-stakeholder deals and develop champions with mutual action plans.
• Get the full, Advanced Multi-Threading playbook