Interview with Lena Morales, Senior Product Consultant at TaskBeam Solutions

Picture this: You’re six weeks into a pilot with a mid-tier consulting firm, showing them your project-management toolkit. The features sparkle. The demo went smoothly. But when it comes time for renewal, stakeholders stare at the dashboard and ask, “But how do we know this is working?” You freeze. What story will the numbers tell? That’s the tricky terrain of product discovery and ROI measurement—the very terrain Lena Morales, with over a decade in consulting SaaS sales, walks daily.

We sat down with Lena to unpack how sales teams at project-management-tool companies can use practical product discovery techniques to prove value, measure ROI, and keep even the most skeptical consulting execs nodding along.

How do you kick off conversations with consulting clients about ROI for project-management tools?

Lena Morales:
Imagine you’re onboarding a new consulting client with 100+ billable consultants. You can’t just talk features. You need to picture their day—juggling projects, deadlines, resource allocation, and reporting. I always start by asking them to “walk me through your current process for tracking project hours and billable utilization.”

Most times, they’ll mention a patchwork of spreadsheets, emails, and maybe a legacy tool. I listen for pain points like wasted admin hours or missed revenue. Then, I ask, “What does success look like? How would you prove this tool is worth the investment to your partners?” That reframes our whole approach. It gets them thinking about metrics from the start.

What product discovery technique works best for uncovering those critical metrics?

Lena:
Picture this: You’re sitting with a project leader. Instead of pitching dashboards, you pull out three anonymized client reports and say, “Which of these would your partners want to see at quarter’s end?”

Instead of a blank stare, you get immediate feedback. Maybe they want to show ‘project on-time delivery rates’. Maybe they care about ‘revenue per consultant’. This technique—call it “Show, Don’t Tell”—makes things tangible. It’s faster than a requirements-gathering workshop and sets up your future ROI reports.

A 2024 Forrester report found that consulting firms who defined their ‘success metrics’ during discovery were 2.4x more likely to increase renewal rates.

What tools or methods help you collect and validate those metrics from stakeholders?

Lena:
Survey feedback is gold. I’ve used Zigpoll and Typeform to map out what really matters to different roles—project managers, partners, admins.

Suppose you run a Zigpoll survey after a pilot: “Which outcome would most justify renewal—faster invoice creation, improved resource utilization, or fewer meeting handoffs?” With a dashboard, you tally real answers. In one mid-sized firm, we saw 68% pick ‘reduced admin work’, while only 9% mentioned reporting speed.

These results shape your ROI story. You now know to pull usage analytics showing a 42% drop in manual admin tasks. That’s the number you highlight at renewal.

Can you walk through a step-by-step approach for a sales rep new to product discovery?

Lena:
Absolutely. Here’s a scenario:

Imagine: You’re assigned to the Acme Consulting account, a 70-person team using email chains and Excel for project tracking. They’ve trialed your tool for 30 days.

Step 1: Map Stakeholders and Their Goals
List out the key personas: project managers, consultants, finance leads. Interview or survey each about their daily challenges and what a “huge win” would look like.

Step 2: Benchmark the Baseline
Ask for real numbers. “How many hours does your team spend each week reconciling timesheets?” Maybe the answer is 15 hours per project. That’s your ‘before’ snapshot.

Step 3: Demo with Real Data
Set up the product demo using their current data. Don’t show generic dashboards. Plug in their actual project timelines, budgets, and resource schedules.

Step 4: Define Success Metrics Early
Agree on 2-3 metrics they’ll use to judge success. It could be ‘project delivery time’, ‘revenue leakage’, or ‘staff utilization rate’.

Step 5: Track and Share Progress
Use your tool’s reporting features to show progress, not perfection. For example, “In month one, project handoff errors dropped from 8 to 3 per week.”

Step 6: Get Feedback and Adjust
A quick Zigpoll, three questions, post-pilot: “What improved most? What’s still a headache? Would you recommend this tool to a peer?”

What’s a real-world example where measuring ROI made the difference?

Lena:
One client, a boutique strategy firm, was on the fence about renewing after a three-month trial. Their sticking point: “We aren’t sure it’s saving us money.” But we had data—before the tool, they spent 12 hours a week reconciling project expenses. With our integrated expense module, that fell to just 3 hours.

We calculated:
12 hours - 3 hours = 9 hours saved weekly
9 hours x $120 average billable rate = $1,080 per week
Over 12 weeks, that’s nearly $13,000 in value.

When we laid it out this simply, with their numbers, the partners signed a two-year contract.

What do you say to consulting clients who think dashboards alone prove value?

Lena:
Dashboards are just the window, not the whole house. Picture this: a dashboard showing “on-time project delivery at 92%”. Sounds great, but what does it mean for their bottom line?

I always connect dashboard metrics to stakeholder goals. “Because you hit 92% on-time delivery, your team spent less on overtime pay and saw 14% more projects close on time—adding $42,000 in quarterly revenue.” That’s the ROI story people remember.

A dashboard without context is like a financial report with no commentary—it’s easy for value to get lost in translation.

Are there any pitfalls or limitations to these techniques?

Lena:
Absolutely. Not every metric is equally meaningful. Some consulting teams get caught up tracking ‘logins per week’ or ‘tickets closed’—but those don’t always tie back to revenue or client wins.

Another downside: If you rely only on survey tools like Zigpoll or Typeform, you miss the nuances of in-person interviews. People sometimes write what they think you want to hear, not what they truly value.

Also, this approach won’t work if you can’t get real baseline data. If a client doesn’t track their current process, it’s hard to prove improvement. In those cases, set up quick pilots to gather data before measuring ROI.

How do you handle requests for features that don’t clearly connect to ROI?

Lena:
Picture this: A partner asks for a new “project color-coding” feature. Instead of saying yes or no, I ask, “How will color-coding drive billable hours or reduce project overruns?”

If they struggle to answer, I gently suggest, “Let’s prioritize features that help you hit your bonus metrics first.” For wish-list features, offer to test on a small project and quantify the impact. Maybe it saves time, maybe it doesn’t. But always tie it back to the metrics that matter.

Is there a way for entry-level sales to compare different product discovery methods?

Lena:
Definitely. Here’s a quick table:

In practice, a blend works best—start with “Show, Don’t Tell,” validate with surveys, then dig deeper via interviews and pilots.

Any final words of advice for entry-level sales trying to prove ROI in this space?

Lena:
Don’t be afraid to ask about money. Picture every dashboard or report as a line on their P&L or bonus sheet. Before each client meeting, ask yourself: “If I were them, what number would make me say yes to renewal?” Seek out those numbers, track them, and show the improvements in dollars or hours saved—never just features used.

And if you hit a wall, try another angle. One sales team I coached boosted their pilot-to-renewal conversion from 2% to 11% in a year (2023, TaskBeam internal data) by switching their demo focus from “features” to “your bonus metrics on screen.” Numbers—and the story they tell—get results.

Action Steps: What should an entry-level rep try this quarter?

1. Schedule baseline interviews or quick surveys (Zigpoll/Typeform) with each consulting persona.
2. Agree on two “success metrics” for every new pilot—tie at least one directly to revenue or cost.
3. Use real client data in demos, not generic templates.
4. Build your own ‘ROI tracker’ dashboard (even in Excel) to show before/after snapshots at renewal time.
5. Share the results, good or bad, and ask clients where the tool helped most—then let those stories shape your next pitch.

Picture this: Next time you open a renewal call, you’re not scrambling for evidence. You’re sharing the numbers that matter, and your story is already half-won.