Purpose
Use this lesson to use customer facts to build a proposal without inventing promises. The aim is to produce work that a colleague can review and act on, not merely text that sounds convincing.
Lesson Explanation
Scenario: A prospect needs reporting automation and has a three-month target.
Better instruction: Create discovery questions and a proposal outline for reporting automation. Include only confirmed needs; label unconfirmed assumptions; do not promise a delivery date.
Sales prompts should distinguish facts from opportunities to discover. Capture the problem, stakeholders, success metric, budget signal, and timeline, then reserve commitments for approved scope and delivery teams. The proposal separates confirmed needs from assumptions and avoids an unapproved promise.
Work in a short cycle: provide the relevant input, state the result and limits, inspect the draft against the acceptance criteria, then revise the instruction when a requirement is missing. Keep the final human decision with the person responsible for the work.
Practice Questions
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What is the main work outcome in “Sales Discovery and Proposals”?
View Answer
use customer facts to build a proposal without inventing promises.
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Why is this request incomplete: A prospect needs reporting automation and has a three-month target.
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It leaves important decisions to guesswork. The lesson shows how to supply the missing purpose, context, boundary, or format.
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Which instruction makes the request operational: Create discovery questions and a proposal outline for reporting automation. Include only confirmed needs; label unconfirmed assumptions; do not promise a delivery date.
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It defines a concrete result that can be checked instead of asking for a vague response.
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What principle should guide your prompt for this lesson?
View Answer
Sales prompts should distinguish facts from opportunities to discover. Capture the problem, stakeholders, success metric, budget signal, and timeline, then reserve commitments for approved scope and delivery teams.
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What would count as an acceptable result here?
View Answer
The proposal separates confirmed needs from assumptions and avoids an unapproved promise.
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Name one detail you would verify before using an AI result for “Sales Discovery and Proposals”.
View Answer
Verify the source facts, inputs, numbers, names, dates, policy limits, or assumptions that affect the real decision.
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What should you add if the result is polished but not usable for the scenario in this lesson?
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Add the missing acceptance criteria or output structure, then regenerate and compare against the stated requirement.
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Which is safer: asking for a general answer or stating the business context in this lesson? Why?
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State the business context because it reduces irrelevant guesses and lets the AI tailor the work to the actual situation.
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How would you test the output from “Sales Discovery and Proposals” before sharing it?
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Check it against the requested facts, format, limits, and acceptance criteria; then have the appropriate human reviewer approve it.
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What should the AI do when a required fact is missing in this scenario?
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Flag the missing fact or ask a focused question rather than silently inventing an answer.
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What risk does the lesson warn about for “Sales Discovery and Proposals”?
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Treating fluent output as automatically correct, complete, approved, or fit for real-world use.
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Write the shortest useful improvement to the weak request in this lesson.
View Answer
Create discovery questions and a proposal outline for reporting automation. Include only confirmed needs; label unconfirmed assumptions; do not promise a delivery date.