Presales / Sales Discovery Partnering Pragmatics

Many sales and presales teams struggle to determine who should do what discovery with their prospects. Here’s a simple strategy: Use Great Demo! Situation Slides as the target for discovery (and a “Demo Qualified Lead”), and split the responsibility in accord with your strengths.

There are 6 elements to a Great Demo! Situation Slide, which can be divided as follows:

• Job Title / Industry: Sales should identify the target person or people.
• Critical Business Issue: Sales should determine the Critical Business Issue for the target individual(s).
• Problem / Reasons: This is where discovery collaboration between sales and presales should typically begin: Sales should be able to determine some of the pain points, generally more business oriented; presales may also contribute pain points, generally more technically oriented.
• Specific Capabilities: Presales should complete this section, which also provides presales practitioners the information they need to prepare a focused demo (a Great Demo!).
• Delta (the value): Again, sales should uncover business related value elements and presales can contribute technically related value components.
• Critical Date: Finally, uncovering a Critical Date should be sales’ responsibility (but presales may be able to assist).

Doing Discovery is a team sport!

Bonus! Completing these 6 Situation Slide elements will help you to avoid the dreaded No Decision outcomes as well!

Great Demo! 3rd Edition?

I’m contemplating drafting a 3rd Edition of Great Demo! and would love to include success stories from existing practitioners. I’ve also been thinking about a Foreword written by those of you who directly benefited from applying the methodology.

In addition, are there any topics you would like to see included?

Please let me know if you have a success story to share or other ideas!

PCohan@GreatDemo.com

DEMOFEST West Coast Live and Face-to-Face: “Overcoming Sales Objections” – March 29 San Francisco

I’ll be presenting “Overcoming Sales Objections – Why Many Sales Objections Shouldn't Need to Be Overcome” at this face-to-face presales conference:

• “Help me understand how to handle customer sales objections…”
• “My team needs to learn how to handle objections…”
• “We get lots of sales objections in our demos and need to manage them better…”

Sound familiar?

Many sales and presales training programs discuss ways to overcome objections, and managers frequently request skills training for their teams. There are numerous books, blog posts and articles on the subject, including the use of some rather intriguing acronyms (e.g., ARC, LAER, FFF, LAARC, and ECIRR).

But, why do prospects raise objections? Is it possible that vendors are working to address the wrong problem? Is it possible that objections are a symptom of deeper problems? Perhaps sales objections shouldn’t come up in the first place, in a well-executed sales process!

We’ll explore some typical objections, their causes and some solutions (plus any you’d like to add!).

Looking forward to seeing you in person! Register here for the event.

“In the Hotseat” Discovery Recording

The recording is now available from this intriguing 47-minute discussion of Doing Discovery. I joined co-hosts Michael Fauscette and Pete Smith as they put me “In the Hot Seat”! We explored:

• Enterprise sales productivity defined
• Declines in sales productivity
• Obsolete enterprise sales process thinking
• Only 13% of vendors understand their prospects’ needs
• Discovery and sales effectiveness
• Current state of discovery skills and know-how
• 4 out of 5 salespeople think they are skilled at doing discovery, but actually are not
• Why do objections occur?
• What is discovery? Destinations on the discovery journey
• Demo Qualified Lead definition
• Vision Generation Demos – the art of the possible
• Discovery space graphic
• Easy to ask, easy to answer
• The high-value quadrant
• Cultural questions
• “About You” example
• Conversation vs inquisition
• Buyer Enablement – anticipating needs
• Experienced vs inexperienced buyers
• Experienced vs inexperienced champions
• Will discovery slow the sales process down? (Nope)
• Discovery vs qualification
• Two doctors example – and trust
• Definition of enough discovery
• Will discovery slow the sales process down? (Reprised)
• Uncovering and selling value
• Buying tools vs complex solutions
• PLG – discovery and demos for transactional sales cycles
• What prospects don’t know…
• “Discovery” calls becoming discounting negotiations

Enjoy!

Critical Dates Have TWO Components – Plus a Subtlety…

 

Critical Dates have two components: The actual date and the driving force. 

In response to a discovery question from you, your prospect says, “We need a solution in place by July 15…”

Your next question should be, “I understand… Please tell me why July 15 is important? What is driving the need to have a solution in place by then?

“Oh!” replies your prospect, “Our contract with our current vendor expires on July 15 and we need to replace them…”

Now you have the date and the driving force. Next? A subtlety:

“I see,” you respond, “Do you want to run the two systems in parallel for a couple of weeks before switching over?”

“Yes – excellent point! Let’s plan to have your system ready to go by July 1…”

Congratulations: Now you have your prospect’s real Critical Date information.

And remember: A Critical Date is the prospect’s Critical Date, not your end of quarter!

You can learn more about Critical Dates and other intriguing discovery concepts and skills in Doing Discovery.

Consensus DEMOFEST Community Presales Book Club

 

I am thrilled to join the fine folks at Consensus in their new Presales Book Club, with my recent book Doing Discovery as their first selection! We’ll be using Consensus’ DEMOFEST Discord Community for communications and Q&A along the way, culminating in a live session with the author (me!) towards the end of the month.

You can find Doing Discovery on Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and Audiobook formats. If you already have the book, even better! Looking forward to your questions, observations, and hearing your experiences as you read/listen and apply the ideas.

You can join the DEMOFEST Discord Community here: https://discord.com/invite/epuK4tYame 

Now, here is an invitation from Manny Corlew, Consensus’ Community Manager and host of the Presales Book Club:

Welcome to the Presales Book Club! Whether you are an avid reader looking to fill the gaps between your next thriller, or a new reader trying to push yourself one step closer to your goal, the Presales Book Club can satisfy your needs! Each month we will feature literature from a presales trailblazer, and then at the end of the month host a live AMA (Ask Me Anything) session with the author.

Using the power of Discord, we will be generating a library for members to have the best content at their fingertips. We release the coming books a month prior to the event so that everyone can catch up on what the rest of the community is reading. Thank you for turning the page to the Presales Book Club!

This month we are going to take a crucial skill for presales professionals and place it under a microscope: Doing Discovery. While many people believe they have reasonable discovery skills, in fact most are operating at Level 1 or 2 of the 7 Levels possible! 

Join us this month and find out what level of discovery you truly possess and, most importantly, how you can gain surprisingly effective competitive advantages by improving your practices!

Happy Readings,

Manny

Manny Corlew

Community Manager

m:  615.596.2716

w:  www.goconsensus.com

e:  manny.corlew@goconsensus.com Watch an INTERACTIVE VIDEO demo!

24 Demo Nuggets: The Tony Moze Podcast – The Psychology of a Great Demo!

I joined Tony Moze for this 59-minute exploration of:

• The origin stories behind Great Demo! and “Do the Last Thing First”
• The value of “Get to the point…” and BLUF
• Scientific journal article writing and how it applies to Great Demo!
• Demos and theatre, trust and credibility
• Mapping your delivery to your prospect’s various players
• Demos with multiple personas or job titles
• The spaghetti demo
• Personalities and demos
• Interviewing for presales positions
• Victims of momentum
• Demo skills improvement: small increments vs major step-change
• Problem awareness vs willingness vs making actual change
• Presales breadth of roles vs specialization
• Highly effective and inspirational teachers
• Color blindness and software
• Presenting to non-native English speakers
• Who should read Great Demo!
• Go be a prospect
• Entertainment and demos
• Facts vs analogies and metaphors vs stories
• Elements of storytelling and demos
• Proof of the power of story telling
• Demos via a napkin
• Using customer success stories in demos

The introduction consumes the first 2.5 minutes of the podcast; the trouble begins at the 3-minute mark. 

You can find the podcast here. Enjoy!