# Marcus Delaney, VP of Sales at Fieldwork (B2B SaaS, 95 employees) — read of Discovery Call AI, May 6 2026

> 14 years in sales, last 6 managing teams of 8-20 AEs across two SaaS startups. Currently running Gong, Outreach, and Salesforce. Saturday mornings I coach my daughter's U10 soccer team and I'm usually on this stuff by 6 AM before anyone else is awake.

## How I got here

LinkedIn ad caught me while I was scrolling through some deal review drama in a private sales ops group. The ad said something about discovery call scoring and I clicked because we just lost a $180K deal where the AE did a terrible first call and nobody caught it until stage 4. Bad timing, bad mood, willing to look at anything.

## What I clicked first

"Proven to increase close rates by 23% in 60 days." That's the hero stat, and it's doing a lot of work. I stopped on it because 23% is suspiciously specific. Not 20%, not "up to 30%." Twenty-three. That precision is either from a real cohort study or from someone who read that odd numbers feel more credible. I have no idea which. The page does not tell me.

## Where I paused

"No dropped calls, no excuses." That line on the mobile companion feature made me read it twice. It's a weird flex. Aggressive in a way that felt like it was written for a founder demo, not for me. I'm not sure what "excuses" means here. Excuses for what? For a rep missing a call? For the app failing? The phrase landed as chest-puffing rather than confidence.

Also paused on "discovery-call maturity." That's a real internal concept I've used in QBRs, and seeing it here either means someone on their team has actual sales ops chops, or they scraped the phrase from Gong's blog. Those are very different things.

## What I distrusted

Three things:

First, "Built by Wishdeal Studio." I've never heard of Wishdeal Studio. I'm not saying that's disqualifying, but it's notable. There's no founding story, no team faces, no names. Just a studio name that sounds like a deal aggregator site. That's a trust gap.

Second, the 23% stat has zero sourcing. No "across 47 sales teams," no "median team size of 12," no link to a methodology page. I have a stat too: close rates vary so wildly by vertical, deal size, and sales cycle length that a headline number like that is essentially meaningless without context. It might be true. It might be true for one team in one vertical over one quarter. I can't tell.

Third, I already pay for Gong. Gong does call transcription, scoring, coaching, CRM integration, and team analytics. This page does not once acknowledge that category leader exists. That's either strategic or naive. I lean toward the latter because the feature list maps almost exactly to what Gong pitches, minus the revenue intelligence layer. If you're entering that market, you need to tell me what you do that Gong doesn't. This page doesn't try.

## What would convince me

A comparison table specifically against Gong and Chorus. Not a generic "why us" table with checkmarks. A real one that says "here's the thing Gong doesn't do that we do." Even if it's just price -- Gong is expensive and painful to get approved at our size. If this is a fraction of the cost with 70% of the features, say that.

Also: one story from a VP of Sales at a company I could call. Not a logo. Not a quote. A name, a title, a company, and a phone number I could cold-call to verify. That's the level of proof that would move me.

## What I'd ask in an email reply

1. We're already on Gong. What does your platform do that Gong doesn't, specifically, and what does Gong do that you don't? Be honest about the second part.
2. The 23% close rate increase -- what was the study population? How many teams, what average deal size, what sales cycle length, and who ran the analysis?
3. How does your live coaching overlay actually work on Zoom without the rep looking distracted or the customer seeing a second window? Do you have a screen recording of a real call I can watch?

## Verdict: on-the-fence

The problem they're solving is real -- I've got three AEs who butcher discovery and I have limited bandwidth to coach them personally. But this page doesn't differentiate itself from tools I already own, doesn't source its main claim, and doesn't acknowledge the competitive landscape. I'd reply to a cold email from this founder if they led with the Gong comparison. I wouldn't fill out a trial form from this page.

---
*Memo by skeptic persona, generated 2026-05-06. Studio breaks own self-grading loop.*