By the middle of Q1, sales teams can already see the patterns that will define the year ahead: strong opportunities, stalled deals, and the pressure to move faster without losing accuracy. The difference between winning and losing? It comes down to alignment.
In our webinar, Win deals in 2026: Three sales workflows to get aligned, Amber Rutgers, AVP of Client Solutions at Mural, and Lisa Lee, Strategic Sales Lead at IBM, talk about when complex deals get messy, and how teams can fix their collaboration before momentum disappears.
The conversation centered on three real workflows sales teams live in every day:
- Discovery
- Deal strategy
- High-stakes customer conversations
Human-centered design, when applied practically helps teams align inside each one.
“When we say human-centered design, we’re talking about the skills and mindsets that allow us to deeply understand our customer … then design solutions that drive adoption, loyalty, measurable business outcomes.” – Amber Rutgers, AVP of Client Solutions at Mural
Workflow 1: Sales discovery fails without a shared source of truth
In complex enterprise deals, sellers often worry they’re not asking the right questions, especially when multiple reps engage the same client separately. Without a unified discovery process, each seller leaves with a different understanding of the problem. That misalignment can slow momentum and even stall the deal.
Lisa shares, “it’s really necessary to get everyone’s thoughts out of their heads onto something that can be read and reacted to by the entire team.” Surface-level discovery often hides the real blockers: budget cycles, leadership changes, competing initiatives … the things clients don’t always volunteer unless given a visual space to reflect.
That’s where What’s on Your Radar? can help. Teams invite them into a shared space and ask one a simple question like: What’s on your radar as your organization plans for the next 12 months?
Amber says “This method specifically helps us run a much sharper discovery that uncovers real problems, and then the urgency, and then value drivers that’ll help us in our proposal moment in the sales cycle.” The outcome? Alignment, on both sides of the table.
Workflow 2: Deal strategy fails without stakeholder visibility
If discovery is about understanding the problem, deal strategy is about understanding people. Lisa shared her thoughts about the importance of having the right relationship connections to the person who has the budget:
“Arguably, [relationships are] the number one thing that wins or loses a deal for you, just in terms of decision makers and stakeholders.” – Lisa Lee, Strategic Sales Lead, IBM
In white-space deals especially, teams often don’t realize they’ve missed a critical influencer until it’s too late. Someone cared deeply about cost. Someone else about risk…. but no one was covering that angle.
Amber walked through how Stakeholder Mapping changes that dynamic. Instead of treating stakeholders like an org chart, teams build a living map: who influences whom, what people care about, and where relationships actually exist.
One fun twist: Amber shared that she sometimes brings clients into this exercise and asks, “Is this right?” That moment may surface more truth than weeks of internal speculation.
Workflow 3: Customer meetings stall when next steps aren’t shared
Most stalled deals don’t feel stalled in the moment. Meetings go well. Energy is high. Then? Nothing happens.
Lisa described how IBM formalizes this with close plans and communication matrices. And Amber noted that sometimes, teams rush to assign tasks without checking whether they’re aligned on what actually matters next.
Amber paired two methods together for the next workflow: Importance / Difficulty Matrix and Visualize the Vote.
First, it helps teams slow down just enough to debate tradeoffs: what’s impactful, what’s hard, and what’s worth tackling now. Then, instead of defaulting to the loudest voice, everyone votes. Lisa chimed in to say: “I love that because you can quantify what’s most important and what’s most doable.”
The combo of the two methods means sales teams have a really clear, prioritized, next step based on impact and effort. No ambiguity or silent nodding, just shared commitment.
What sales teams need to win complex deals in 2026
This conversation revealed that complex deals sometimes don’t fail loudly. They often fail quietly, through small misalignments that compound over time.
The teams that win in 2026 will be the ones that:
- Surface assumptions early
- Make power and priorities visible
- Leave key moments with shared clarity
“I feel like I could apply [these methods] to a deal that I’m working right now, and it’ll go over really well.”
– Lisa Lee, Strategic Sales Lead, IBM
If your team is seeing strong opportunities stall despite good meetings, these workflows, and the LUMA methods behind them, are designed to expose what’s missing and help you move forward with confidence.
Watch the full on-demand webinar with Amber Rutgers and Lisa Lee for a closer look at how sales teams can leverage human-centered design to get aligned and win deals. Ready to learn more? Set up some time to chat with our team.
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