Negotiate for me

Captured on the call

• Metrics: 40 percent of students drop language practice by week 6, they want completion above 70 percent
• Pain: teachers spend hours building review sheets Saga would auto-generate
• Champion: Priya Rao, district curriculum lead, pushed for the pilot herself
• Decision criteria: classroom dashboard, offline audio, rostering via their SIS

Still missing

• Economic buyer: budget owner never named, likely the assistant superintendent
• Decision process: no timeline or approval steps confirmed
• Paper process: procurement and data-privacy review requirements unknown

Next step

Theo asks Priya to bring the budget owner to the follow-up on Thursday and to walk us through how the district approved their last software purchase.

The objection

District buyers like the product but push back on rollout: teachers already juggle a gradebook, an LMS, and two messaging apps. A curriculum lead at Northwind Academy put it plainly: 'If it needs a training day, it is dead on arrival.'

How reps handled it

• Best: Theo showed the 10-minute class setup live on the call, then offered a 2-week pilot with one teacher. Both deals advanced
• Weak: two reps pivoted to feature depth, which reinforced the 'too much tool' fear. Neither deal moved

Recommended response

Lead with the single-teacher pilot, not the district rollout. Show class setup live, and share the Harborview pilot story: one teacher, zero training, 38 students active in week one.

What the prospect said

A district admin named Priya Rao said LingoPeak quoted them 30 percent less per seat and pitched a classroom dashboard as their headline feature. She admitted teachers found its lessons repetitive after a few weeks.

Where they beat us

• Lower per-seat price on annual school plans
• Polished teacher dashboard demo, strong first impression
• Faster procurement, they offer a standard district contract

Where we win

• Learners stick around, our streak retention is roughly double theirs
• Listening-first lessons and the podcast feature, nothing comparable on their side
• Real audio from native speakers versus their synthetic voices

Suggested counter

Do not fight on price. Ask the buyer to compare week 6 engagement in both pilots, that is where LingoPeak's repetitive lessons show. Offer the Saga classroom pilot with the progress digest for teachers.

What we heard

On the Q3 QBR, district admin Priya Rao said teacher logins dropped from 210 to 125 weekly seats after the spring term ended, and the new curriculum lead is running a side pilot with another vendor for their French program.

Why it matters

• Renewal is 12 weeks out and usage is the main metric their board reviews
• A competing pilot means the renewal conversation will not be uncontested
• Priya was our champion for the original deal; the new curriculum lead has never seen a Saga demo

Counter-signal

Priya also asked whether Saga podcasts could cover their Spanish AP track next year. If usage recovers, that is a natural expansion path worth pricing into the renewal.

Recommended next step

Book a 30-minute walkthrough with the new curriculum lead before mid-August, and send Priya a usage recovery plan tied to the fall onboarding week.