The one-line version
I designed a modular content system that enabled non-designers to create branded interactive mockups in under an hour, improving lead quality and removing design burden from the sales team.
The problem worth solving
4 hours. 6% conversion. No guardrails.
When I joined Foleon's Sales Engineering team, I discovered our BDRs were spending up to 4 hours creating custom branded mockups for inbound leads who had only filled out a form on our website. The conversion rate on those mockups was around 6%.
The deeper issue wasn't effort. It was structure. There was none. We were asking salespeople with no design background to extract branding from prospect websites, apply it inside Foleon, and deliver polished interactive experiences to marketing leaders with high brand standards. There were no guardrails, no templates, no constraints. Every mockup required dozens of design decisions that non-designers weren't equipped to make.
To make it worse, the lead magnet driving this workflow was promising a fully redesigned document in exchange for a form fill, with no qualification, no commitment, no discovery call required. We were doing expensive creative work for unqualified leads and still underdelivering.
The diagnosis
The problem was the promise upstream, not just the process
The quality of the output was a symptom. The promise upstream was the actual problem. By offering free bespoke design work with no qualification criteria, we had created a process where sales reps made design decisions they weren't equipped to make, prospects arrived with expectations we couldn't meet, and most of the time and effort was going into leads that would never convert.
Fixing the process without fixing the expectation upstream would only go so far.
What I built
Structure that removes decisions, not tools
A flexible brand kit using the 60-30-10 rule
Rather than asking reps to decide where color goes, I built a pre-styled brand kit with three defined slots: primary, secondary, and accent. Reps only needed to match colors and fonts from a prospect's website. The rest was already decided. Paint by numbers, not open canvas.
A modular content system built for assembly, not redesign
I designed a template Doc showcasing Foleon's core use cases: landing pages, short-form highlights, long-form reports, and editorial articles, each with its own grid structure. All sections were saved as categorized block templates so reps could assemble pages without designing them. Heavy use of stock imagery reduced the need for manual color application and kept visual weight consistent.
The workflow redesign
Two tracks. Effort matched to intent.
Testing revealed that even with the improved system, reps were still trying to recreate customer PDFs, still making too many decisions, still spending too much time. I restructured the sales workflow into two clear tracks:
Track 01 / Rep-built
1-Hour Mockup
Brand kit applied, stock media swapped in, template intact. Built by reps. Shows platform capability and brand fit without custom design investment.
Track 02 / Design-built
Showcase
Fully custom design built by me or the Professional Services team. Only offered after a discovery call to qualify the lead. High effort reserved for high-value opportunities.
The outcome
Faster, more consistent, better leads
Mockup creation time dropped from roughly 4 hours to under 30 minutes.
Visual consistency and brand accuracy improved significantly across all rep-built mockups.
Sales reps required less design oversight, freeing up capacity across the team.
Lead quality improved through better expectation-setting earlier in the funnel.
Ongoing "Dos and Don'ts" documentation created to onboard new reps into the system.
The principle it reinforced
Designing for non-designers requires clarity, not creativity. The goal isn't to give people more tools. It's to reduce the number of decisions they have to make.