If you’re in B2B sales and your deals don’t close themselves, you know the drill: long sales cycles, endless calls, a mess of stakeholders, and a graveyard of “single source of truth” tools that somehow make things more confusing. You’ve probably heard about Prelay and a dozen other go-to-market platforms, all promising to make complex sales less painful. But which actually helps, and which is just another subscription on your credit card statement?
This guide is for sales leaders, ops folks, and sellers who actually have to use this stuff. I’ll break down how Prelay stacks up against other B2B sales solutions—and what to actually care about if you want to close more deals with less chaos.
The Real Problem With Complex B2B Sales
Before diving into the tools, let’s call out why this space is such a mess:
- Multiple stakeholders. Your buyer’s team is four to fifteen people, all with different priorities.
- Long sales cycles. Deals drag out for months, sometimes quarters.
- Lots of moving parts. Demos, pilots, security reviews, legal, procurement, you name it.
- Everyone’s “collaborating” in a dozen places. Slack, email, project management tools, spreadsheets, CRM notes…it’s a zoo.
Most sales tools promise to “align revenue teams” or “streamline collaboration,” but end up adding another layer of process or another inbox to check. The result? More admin, not more closed-won.
What Is Prelay, and Why Does It Get Attention?
Prelay bills itself as a “team selling” platform for complex B2B sales. The pitch: it gives everyone (sales, solutions, execs, and even the customer) a shared workspace for each deal. You map out stakeholders, next steps, and mutual action plans in one place, instead of chasing updates in Slack or digging through Salesforce.
In other words, it’s trying to be the playbook and project manager for deals that can’t be tracked in a spreadsheet without someone losing their mind.
Prelay's main features: - Mutual action plans (“MAPs”) shared with customers - Stakeholder mapping (internal and external) - Timelines, tasks, and progress tracking - Integrations with CRM (Salesforce), email, calendar, Slack
The idea is to replace the Frankenstein stack of Google Sheets, PowerPoints, and scattered email threads with a single source of (actual) truth for each deal.
How Does Prelay Compare to Other B2B Sales Tools?
Let’s break down how Prelay stacks up against the big buckets of “go-to-market” solutions you’ll hear about.
1. CRM Systems (Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics)
What they’re good at: - Storing contact data, activity logs, pipeline stages - Reporting and forecasting - Integrating with other sales tools
Where they fall flat: - Actual deal execution. CRMs are databases, not collaboration spaces. - Stakeholder mapping is usually a custom field or an add-on. - Mutual action plans? You’re on your own.
If you’re trying to run complex deals out of a CRM alone, you’re going to need a lot of workarounds.
Pro tip: Don’t try to force your CRM to be a project management tool. You’ll just end up with a mess of custom fields nobody updates.
2. Sales Enablement Platforms (Seismic, Highspot, Showpad)
What they’re good at: - Storing and sharing content: decks, case studies, one-pagers - Tracking who views what - Sometimes basic training or onboarding
Where they fall flat: - No real deal collaboration or project management - No stakeholder mapping or mutual action plans
Sales enablement is about content, not process. You still need a way to actually run the play.
3. Project Management Tools (Asana, Trello, Monday, ClickUp)
What they’re good at: - Task tracking, deadlines, assignments - Flexible (“make anything a project”)
Where they fall flat: - They’re generic. You’ll spend hours customizing for sales use. - No native CRM or sales process features - No built-in stakeholder mapping or MAP templates
If your team is disciplined, project management tools can work—but getting sellers to update tasks is like herding cats. Also, sharing with customers gets awkward fast (“Uh, here’s a link to our Monday board, ignore the columns we don’t use…”).
4. Deal Collaboration Tools (Accord, Mutual, Dock, Prelay)
This is the newest batch of tools—Prelay included—built specifically for complex B2B sales. They focus on mutual action plans, shared timelines, and stakeholder management.
What most of them offer: - Mutual action plan templates - Shared customer workspaces - Some level of stakeholder mapping - Basic integrations with CRM, email, calendar
Where Prelay stands out: - More robust stakeholder mapping (not just a contact list) - Better support for internal AND external collaboration - Plays nicely with existing tools (e.g., Slack, Salesforce) - More flexible for different sales processes (not just SaaS)
Where Prelay is similar: - Like its competitors, you’ll have to get both sellers and buyers to actually use it. That’s always the hardest part. - Setup isn’t a magic button—you’ll need to align on process.
What to ignore: Any platform in this category promising “instant adoption” or “AI-powered everything” is overselling. People hate changing the way they work, especially salespeople.
5. Custom Google Sheets/Docs/Slides
Let’s be honest—most teams still use these. They’re: - Free (or already paid for) - Flexible - Familiar to everyone
But: - They don’t scale. Version control is a nightmare. - Zero automation or integrations - No visibility or reporting for leadership
If your deals are few and your team is small, this can work. But as soon as things get hairy, you’ll wish you had a real system.
Key Questions to Ask Before You Buy Anything
Don’t get distracted by demos or feature lists. Here’s what actually matters:
- Will your buyers use it? If customers won’t log in or update tasks, the MAP is useless.
- Does it fit how your team actually sells? Not just “best practices”—your real process, warts and all.
- Can you integrate it without a six-month IT project? If it doesn’t talk to your CRM, it’ll end up as another data silo.
- How much admin work does it add? You want less busywork, not more.
- Will it survive turnover? Fancy tools are pointless if only one champion knows how to set them up.
Pro tip: Run a pilot with a real deal, not a fake account. If it helps you close faster (or with less confusion), it’s worth it. If not, move on.
What Works (And What Doesn’t) in the Real World
What works: - Having a single place to track who’s involved, what’s next, and what’s done—especially when both sides can see it. - Tools that nudge people to update status or check off steps without nagging. - Integrations that actually save time (e.g., auto-logging emails, syncing with calendar).
What doesn’t: - Forcing sellers or buyers to use yet another login, unless they get real value out of it. - Over-customizing. The more complex the setup, the less likely anyone keeps it updated. - Relying on “AI” to solve process problems. At best, it’s glorified autocomplete.
Common traps: - Buying for “visibility” instead of real process improvements. - Assuming everyone will suddenly collaborate because you bought a new tool. - Chasing every new feature instead of getting the basics right.
Honest Take: Is Prelay Worth It?
If you’re running complex, multi-threaded deals with lots of handoffs, Prelay (and tools like it) can help bring order to the chaos. It’s especially strong if you need robust stakeholder mapping and want to work across teams—sales, solutions, execs—without losing the thread.
But no tool is a silver bullet. If your team isn’t bought in, or if your buyers don’t see value in mutual action plans, it’ll just become another tab no one checks. And if your process isn’t dialed in, software won’t fix that for you.
Who should use Prelay? - Teams with complex, multi-stakeholder deals - Organizations tired of losing deals due to “dropped balls” or confusion - Sales orgs with enough process maturity to actually adopt something new
Who shouldn’t? - Small teams with simple deals (stick with Sheets) - Orgs where buyers will never log in to anything
Bottom Line: Keep It Simple, Iterate Fast
Complex sales are messy. No software will fix that overnight. The right tool should make things less complicated and more visible—without turning your job into a project manager’s.
Start small, test in the real world, and don’t be afraid to ditch what doesn’t work. It’s your process—don’t let the software tell you otherwise.