M · Metrics
What changes
$150K ACV across four displacements. Replaced Cision, Brandwatch, and PR Newswire on the original land. Won the Social Media RFP from Khoros post-close. $80K land, +$20K Global Wires, +$50K Social RFP.
E · Economic Buyer
The EB shifted
Initial EB: Lisa Popyk, senior comms leader. Exited mid-cycle in a restructure. Paul Kaiser absorbed functional approval. Post-close, Susan Thiele, Sr. Director, Head of Product & Therapeutic Communications NA, surfaced as upper-level EB for expansion.
D · Decision Criteria
What they evaluated on
Data unification across media monitoring, social listening, and wires · measurement unification in one source of truth · alerting systems the team can act on · Microsoft integration · security and governance from our perspective · auto-renewal terms · procurement onboarding.
D · Decision Process
Steps to YES
Signal → demos → 2-week PoC success → proposal → negotiations → finance, legal, and procurement intake → Adobe Sign sent with all redlines → accepted → close in April.
I · Identify Pain
Why now
New comms team in place. Four parallel point solutions (Cision, Brandwatch, PR Newswire, Khoros) were being manually stitched together across media, social, and wires. The team needed functionality on top of their existing vendors that they didn't realize existed until we reached out and walked them through it.
C · Champion
Paul Kaiser
Paul carried the deal end-to-end on the corporate communications team. Wrote "shortened version" status emails through internal politics, escalated when legal stalled, brought in Marah Oberfield as Lisa's interim, then Susan Thiele for expansion. I worked him for signal, not access.
C · Competition
Four displacements, one tool-sprawl story
Cision (incumbent media monitoring, won outright) · Brandwatch (social listening, won outright) · PR Newswire (wire distribution, won outright via GlobeNewswire) · Khoros (incumbent social mgmt, won the Social Media RFP post-close, engaged the omnichannel marketing team to expand).