commercial-skills

Use when reviewing or rebalancing direct vs. partner-led channel economics — computing fully-loaded cost-to-serve per channel, channel ROI with cash / LTV / marginal lenses, and optimal channel mix subject to constraints. For Head of Commercial, RevOps, and VP Sales doing quarterly channel review when pipeline is mixed (e.g., 60% direct + 40% partner-led) and nobody actually knows which channel makes money after CAC, support load, partner discount, deal-velocity differences, retention differential, and overhead allocation are all loaded in. Outputs cost to serve, channel ROI verdicts (DOUBLE-DOWN / MAINTAIN / DEFUND / EXIT), a sensitivity-tested channel-mix recommendation, and the diminishing-returns inflection (e.g., 'which channel actually makes money — direct or partner?').

Use when building a quarterly bookings forecast, ARR projection, pipeline forecast, NRR projection, or commit/best-case/pipe-only board number — especially when the CRO needs to walk the board through funnel math + cohort ARR + per-stage conversion assumptions without the theatre of a single undefended number. Decomposes pipeline into commit, best-case, and pipe-only tiers; projects cohort-level NRR/GRR to surface leaky cohorts before they show up in the consolidated number; scores per-stage funnel confidence so soft-floor stages get treated differently from high-confidence ones. Every output explicitly names the conversion rate used, the data window, and the weighting choice. For Head of Commercial, RevOps, VP Sales, and CRO at quarterly forecast or board prep. NOT financial close (see finance/financial-analysis). NOT strategic CRO hiring/territory (see c-level-advisor/cro-advisor). NOT pricing (see sibling pricing-strategist).

Use when designing or revising a company's commercial policy — the rules of engagement governing discounts off list price, approver thresholds, exception flows, and the deal framework that Deal Desk and AEs operate under. Covers discount matrix design (ARR band x term length x payment terms x strategic value), commercial policy design, exception policy, discount governance, approval thresholds, deal framework structure, and policy linting (contradictions, gaps, cliff edges, gaming surfaces). For Head of Commercial, Head of Deal Desk, VP Sales, or RevOps at the policy-design moment — NOT per-deal application (that is deal-desk) and NOT pricing model selection (that is pricing-strategist).

Use when reviewing, approving, or designing commercial motion — pricing models, deal review, discount approval, partnership economics, channel mix, commercial policy, RFP/RFI response, bookings forecast. Triggers on "review this deal", "should we discount", "pricing model", "partner economics", "RFP response", "bookings forecast", "channel mix". Forks context to route to one of seven Commercial sub-skills (pricing-strategist, deal-desk, partnerships-architect, channel-economics, commercial-policy, rfp-responder, commercial-forecaster) and returns a digest. Distinct from business-growth (sales execution) and c-level-advisor/cro-advisor (strategic CRO judgment).

Use when reviewing a specific inbound deal before close — when sales has asked for a discount that exceeds AE authority, when the customer has redlined the MSA, when per-deal economics (margin after discount, multi-year payment shape, indemnity exposure) need to be quantified, or when discount approval needs to be routed to a named human approver (Sales Director, VP Sales, CFO, CRO, General Counsel). Covers deal review, discount approval routing, per-deal margin scoring, deal exception handling, MSA redline triage, contract landmine detection (uncapped indemnity, MFN, perpetual license-back, missing DPA), and named-approver chain assembly. NEVER auto-approves — every output is a numeric scorecard plus a routing recommendation to a named human.

Use when a startup is approached by a prospective partner and someone has to decide should we sign this partner, at what partner tier (referral / reseller / OEM / SI-consulting / strategic alliance), with what joint GTM commitment, and at what revshare. Classifies partner tier from independent-demand evidence vs. preferential-terms hunting, designs a 90-day joint GTM plan, models revshare against direct-sale margin, and surfaces kill criteria for unwinding under-performing partnerships. For Head of Partnerships, Head of BD, and Founder-CEOs doing reseller agreement, OEM deal, or strategic alliance review — not technical sale enablement, not channel cost economics, not M&A.

Use when designing or revisiting product pricing — selecting a pricing model (subscription seat-based, usage-based, value-based, freemium, or hybrid), running Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter analysis on WTP survey data, or designing Good/Better/Best packaging tiers. Recommends a model and a price range with trade-offs, never a single number. For Commercial leads, Product Marketing, and CMOs at the pricing-design moment — not deal-by-deal discounting, not brand positioning.

Use when an RFP, RFI, RFQ, security questionnaire, vendor questionnaire, or proposal request arrives and the team needs a structured response — parsing multi-section buyer-dictated requirements (MANDATORY vs WEIGHTED vs NICE-TO-HAVE), building a Shipley-method proof-point matrix mapping each requirement to a verifiable proof point, articulating 3-5 win-themes that ladder up across requirements, and producing a Shipley-derived winrate estimate that informs a bid / no-bid / partner-bid recommendation. For Bid Managers, Proposal Leads, Directors of Sales, and Sales Engineers at the response-strategy moment. Surfaces GAP requirements explicitly — never invents claims. NOT free-form proposal narrative authoring, NOT contract redline, NOT marketing collateral.