(For Sales ONLY) Be Sure You're Asking This Question In The Demo:

What am I telling you?

In B2B SaaS Sales the demo is huge. Be sure you get it right.

Why am I telling you this?

To be profitable in Sales you need processes:

Process = Predictability = Profitability

Being process driven on a daily basis means you can churn out a predictable set of results on a monthly basis leading to profitability at an annual level.

Let’s reverse engineer this: You’ll never be profitable unless you can predictably close business. You’ll never predictably close business until you become process driven. Example: Look at your quota for 2017, break it into quarters (or months), weigh last year’s activity (‘closed deals’ to ‘deals in negotiate’ to ‘demo’ to ‘discovery’ to ‘cold-call/email’ to ‘time spent prospecting’) and extrapolate what your activity levels every day/week/month ought to look like.

This type of reverse engineering teaches you to look at today with Dec 31st in mind. Don’t stop there, look at how you want every client-facing interaction to end in it’s own right. (Call Planning) Also, look at every interaction and ask ‘How is this going to factor during the close?’ (Deal Strategy) Sales professionals need to be myopically fixated on the end lest they be sucked into the minutiae of account management tasks. (ABC)

Back to the first point: As you are crafting your activity levels recognize that not all sales activities are created equal. The demo holds more than its fair share of value during the cycle. In reality: As goes the Demo, so goes the Sell. Again, be sure you get it right.

What do I want you to do about it?

Think about how your demos end. You can tell a lot about how a deal is going to go based on how the demo ends. Do they thank you and say they’ll be in touch? It’s a Dead Deal. Do they ask you to send them pricing? Well, you need to be honest here: Are they the decision maker (DM)? If not, it’s premature for pricing. Get them to commit to bringing decision makers in before you’ll discuss pricing. The Demo probably went well; you just need to widen your influence within the company. Do they dive into technical questions? Good. Setup time with your technical resource and their technical dept. heads. You’re probably ready for the next stage.

Here’s the biggie: If you already have the DM on the line and they ask for pricing do you trial close? When they hit you with: ‘What’s it cost?’ Respond with ‘Have I shown you something that will bring you/your company value?’ They’ll be all coy about how it could potentially be valuable depending on price and so then you go in with: ‘Assuming price was not an issue, that we could agree on something fair, do you see this solution being something you/your company could use?’ What’s to goal with all this? The goal is to uncover the final leg of the journey if you have not already. That final leg might look like bringing in Finance or Technical buyers. Maybe you’ve yet to make contact with key decision makers to push your sphere of influence up into that realm. You have to or the deal will stall out and before you know it you’ll get the email ‘We went with another provider’. That email sucks. You know it sucks. I know it sucks. Prevent the deal from going that direction by ensuring that you show maximum value in the demo and get them asking about price. Here’s How:

SMART Demos: A How-To Punch List

You may or may not have heard of SMART goals. I learned about them in college but I bump into a surprising amount of people that have never heard of the goal-setting methodology. Simply & Quickly, any effective goal will have clear criteria around the following 5 categories that have been conveniently put in the acronym S.M.A.R.T.

S – Specific: Must be specific in nature

M – Measurable: Must contain milestones and clear completion criteria

A – Attainable: Must be within the realm of possibility

R – Relevant: Must be in harmony with broader Org or Dept initiatives

T – Time-Based: Must have dates attached to milestones and completion criteria

If you subtract any one of these criteria from the goal it begins to lose integrity and will collapse. Non-SMART goals aren’t goals –They’re dreams. Dreams don’t become reality until they get put into goals. People don’t care about your dreams. People do step up and take notice when a well thought out plan with SMART goals is laid out before them though. Moving on…

Building on the SMART Goal concept to tie it back into product Demos, I’ve switched up the last two words in the acronym a little:

S – Specific: Must be based off of Discovery

M – Measurable: Must contain ROI Models to quantify value

A – Attainable: Must be driven by what the prospect will be able to attain

R – Responsive: Dynamic based off of behavior exhibited by client

T – Trust Based: Must contain Case Studies

Let’s dive in!

Specific

Hopefully you’re not doing Seal Demos. Ever been to an aquarium? They have these seals that are trained to clap when the instructor tells them to and the seals do it even though they don’t have to b/c they know they’ll get a fish. The same is true when sales reps jump on an inbound lead and go straight to demo w/o doing Discovery. You don’t owe them a demo. Shocking I know, but you don’t. You can honestly use that 15-30min better by doing some cold, hard prospecting. Listen: just b/c a lead pops up on the radar and asks for a demo doesn’t mean you ought to do your clapping routine and collect the fish afterwards. Discovery must always, ALWAYS, precede demo.

During this period of discovery, you’ll find out about what has them looking, some key metrics about their business to hopefully size out the deal, who else is involved in the purchase and what their vision of a solution looks like if they even have one. Armed with this info you then setup the demo. You are not prepared to showcase the amazingness that is your product if you have not done discovery. This might shock some of you but the demo is not a show up and throw up session where you blast out the entire array of features and functions that your platform can do.

The demo is where you show a hand-picked sampling of the most pertinent modules of your product that will bring maximum impact to your prospect’s business model. It’s specific to that client.

Measurable

Hopefully you’re selling on value and not price. One of the key tenants of selling on value is to have an ROI-centric approach. I encourage you to have ROI models worked up beforehand to present to the client. In the point above I mention gathering some key metrics during discovery to size out the deal. Well, that’s not all you should use those metrics for. Hopefully you as a seller are equipped with some sort of basic ROI analysis tool that enables you, in a broad sense, to plot out what the range of ROI for that specific client would be based off the data you got from them. If you don’t, then use Case Studies and extrapolate from there.

For instance: Case Study #1 states that ABC company used our platform and experienced X% uptick in Y metric within Z time frame. From there, plug in the data you collected from the prospect during discovery and you have an idea. This is the down & dirty way to do it but odds are if you don’t have a formal ROI model to work with down & dirty is par for the course…

The point is this: Having a dollars and cents conversation during the demo immediately elevates your company above the competition. The sooner you can inject value and ROI language into the conversation the quicker it ticks up in caliber.

Clients instinctively & sometimes even subconsciously begin to gravitate towards the provider that can arm them with dollars and cents. This is a sure fire way to get into column A if you’re not there already and to solidify your position if you are. Edward Deming ‘Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.’

Attainable

Must be driven by what the prospect will be able to attain. While this is similar to the previous point about ROI let me differentiate it here a bit. During the Discovery Meeting I recommend every rep ask the following two questions: What do you love about your job? & What would you outsource if you could? Now listen: If you didn’t like the phrasing on the above questions good for you, you get a cookie. You and everyone else. Switch up the phrasing to suit your style best.

The point here is not the words you use but the info you uncover and how you’ll be able to use it in the end. The first question is all about discovering their ‘Good’ and the second is all about discovering their ‘Bad’. The prospect’s good is what they LOVE about their job. The thing that gets them out of bed in the morning, the reason they started doing it in the first place. Figure this out, it’s going to be important in the demo. Conversely, the prospect’s bad is what they do not like. Things they would outsource if they could, make disappear if they could. Again, figure this out b/c it’s going to be important.

Bringing it back to the point (Attainable): Armed with the knowledge of what they love and what they loathe you can tailor your demo to showcase how your platform will empower them to do everything they love even more and how it will allow them to ‘wave that magic wand’ and make the things they loathe look like ants under their boot. The last thing you want to do is go into the demo talking aimlessly about how the platform will completely eliminate the need to do a certain thing they love doing.

Don’t step on yourself. Tell them what they’ll be able to attain in light of how their day/week/month will be impacted by the solution you’re showcasing.

Responsive

I mentioned earlier that demos are not to be show up & throw up sessions. In addition to this being a waste of time and degrading your solution to a set of features alone it carries with it another menacing threat: Monologues. No one likes to be talked at. Let your demos be a two-way conversation not a one-way presentation. Naturally, having a specific list of the parts of the solution you want to show entails that you have a list of things you want to talk about. However, to go into the demo focused only on what you want to say is selfish. I have a phrase I use when teaching Discovery 101 that seems apropos here:

Good Sales reps can talk about their product with fluency; Great Sales reps can get the prospect talking about pain. Being good might get you in the door, being great will get you to President’s Club.

Here’s a tip to instantly take all your demos from a 3.5 star review up to 5 star plus: Stop asking ‘So, do you have any questions about what I just showed you?’ Most Sales reps are taught to pause and ask questions periodically throughout the demo. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s good. The problem is they’re asking the wrong question. ‘Do you have any questions?’ is a useless throw away statement that 90% of the time will mislead you into thinking they have no questions b/c they say no. (Hint: It’s a close-ended question anyways. Useless. To ensure you always ask open ended questions be sure to start them with Who, What, Where, When, How… or my favorite: WHY.) Prospects don’t even know what to ask many times. Why turn over the mic to someone who’s just going to look at you and say nothing?

Up your demo by asking this: ‘How do you currently handle what I’ve just showed you today?’ This question forces an answer and begins to plumb deeper into their role and responsibilities than you probably have had the chance to do already. It gets them talking about their issues and as I’ve already stated: you want this. Pepper in some: ‘Gosh, I wonder how much that’s costing you?’ and you’re golden. Now, if you know how they handle what you’ve showed them then it’s time to bring out those ROI models. Here’s your big takeaway: Nothing kills a prospect’s interest like a canned demo. Practice those demos until you can’t get it wrong and pretty soon you’ll be dynamic enough in your flow to respond fluidly to whatever wild card the prospect pulls out of their sleeve.

Trust-Based

Every client asks the question: ‘Do you meet my criteria?’ As you’re doing discovery you’re finding out what those criteria are and as you’re doing the demo it shows. While they might have some technical requirements that still yet need to be seen, the next question they ask is: ‘Can you prove it?’ Case Studies answer this question.

Trust is paramount in B2B sales. Going back to my earlier statement concerning undertaking every client-facing interaction with the close in mind: Every call, every meeting, every demo, every ROI discussion, every Technical discussion need to all be undertaken with the goal of building trust. Zig Ziglar said it best: ‘If people like you, they’ll listen to you but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.’

Summary

No clapping seal demos. Be sure you take the time to perform discovery first so your demo can be SMART. If there has been no discovery you’re basically delivering a webinar. I’m providing some links here to one of my favorite Sales Training resources: Keenan.

Link #1 & Link #2. Have fun.

I’ll close with my opening statement: In B2B SaaS Sales the demo is huge. Be sure you get it right. Now go close some business!

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