What’s the Value of Better Demos? Part 7: The Costs!

 

Consider, then do the math:

 

-       How may demos do you present per week or month?

-       How much time is consumed in demo preparation, delivery, and follow-up (and travel)?

-       What percent would you say are pure waste?

-       What percent were only partly successful?

-       What percent end up as No Decision outcomes?

 

Let’s run an example!

 

If you have 10 presales people, each doing 3 demos per week, that’s 30 demos per week or about 1500 demos per year.

 

If 33% of those demos are wasted with unqualified prospects or result in No Decision outcomes, that’s 500 wasted demos per year!

 

If it takes 2 hours to prepare each demo, plus 1 hour for delivery, then that’s 1500 wasted hours or over ¾ an FTE.

 

At 3 hours prep per demo, plus 1 hour for delivery, then that’s 2000 wasted hours, costing you over a full FTE. That’s expensive!

 

And at 6 hours prep per demo and 2 hours for delivery, that’s 4000 wasted hours, costing you over two full FTEs – that’s a fifth of your team. Ouch!

 

Do your own analysis then ask yourself, “Is this acceptable?” (The correct answer is “No!”)

 

If you feel you should make changes, note that the Great Demo! methodology, training courses, and coaching provide clear definitions of when to say “yes” to delivering a substantive demo and when and how to push back gently. 

 

They also include self-rescue techniques to successfully deal with challenging real-life situations, such as the delightfully effective Menu Approach and Vision Generation Demos (well-beloved by buyers!).

 

 

Resources:

 

The Menu Approach – A Truly Terrific Demo Self-Rescue Technique

https://greatdemo.com/the-menu-approach-a-truly-terrific-demo-self-rescue-technique-3/ 

 

Great Demo! Third Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Doing Discovery:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Training

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/great-demo/ 

 

More Supporting Articles

https://greatdemo.com/learn/articles/ 

 

What’s the Value of Better Demos? Part 6: Repeat Demos?

Too Many Repeated Demos?

 

Very frequently, vendors present multiple demos per opportunity and even per prospect stakeholder. This is commonly due to presenting overview demos followed by one or more deep dive demos for various players on the prospect team without sufficient discovery.

 

One needs to ask, “Was the overview demo necessary…?” and “Was this deep dive demo also necessary?” and “Why did we have to do two or more demos for each of these players?”

 

-       Or would your prospect have been satisfied by a Vision Generation Demo (since they were “Just Browsing” and not yet in an Active Buying Process)?

 

-       Or would your prospect have been willing to invest in a discovery conversation directly and avoid that overview demo? Many are willing and would prefer it!

 

-       Or would a Vision Generation Demo have compressed two calls into one, by replacing the overview-demo meeting and discovery call meeting with a Vision Generation Demo that included substantial discovery?

 

-       And would a few minutes of intelligent discovery rule the prospect out as a qualified lead, avoiding that overview demo and possibly many subsequent deep dive demos and POCs, potentially avoiding a painful No Decision outcome? Hmmm…

 

Next, we need to ask, “In addition to overview demos, why did we need to present deep dive demos twice (or more) to the same people? Could it have been that…

 

-       We didn’t do sufficient discovery and, in spite of delivering two hours of demos the prospect said, “I didn’t see what I was looking for…”?

 

-       The prospect said the first demo(s) looked too complicated and confusing?

 

-       We ran out of time in our first demos (by spending too much time in Setup Mode and workflow options before we got to the “best stuff”)?

 

Unnecessary repeat demos consume far too many presales resources!

 

 

Resources:

 

Stunningly Awful Demos – Two Words to Avoid

https://greatdemo.com/stunningly-awful-demos-two-words-to-avoid/ 

 

Stunningly Awful Demos – The Painful Irrelevance of Setup Mode

https://greatdemo.com/stunningly-awful-demos-the-painful-irrelevance-of-setup-mode/ 

 

Avoiding No Decision Outcomes

https://greatdemo.com/avoiding-no-decision-outcomes/ 

 

Let’s Talk About Value – Uncovering the Delta

https://greatdemo.com/lets-talk-about-value-uncovering-the-delta/ 

 

Critical Dates – Prevent Prospect Procrastination

https://greatdemo.com/critical-dates-prevent-prospect-procrastination/ 

 

Great Demo! Third Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Doing Discovery:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Training

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/great-demo/ 

 

More Supporting Articles

https://greatdemo.com/learn/articles/ 

What’s the Value of Better Demos? Part 5: No Decision?

 

Avoiding No Decision Outcomes

 

B2B software sales teams suffer from a surprisingly large number of No Decision results (where your prospect doesn’t purchase your offering, they don’t go with a competitor, they choose to do nothing and remain with status quo).  

 

How large? The best B2B software companies report ~20-25% of their forecasted opportunities ending as No Decision, the worst are around 75-85%, with most running around 45-50%.

 

This is frightening…! Why?

 

It means that about half the sales projects that you pursue end up going nowhere! (Would you like some of that time back in your life? Say, “Yes”, with passion…!)

 

There are typically three reasons why sales opportunities end as No Decision outcomes:

 

A.    Is there a Critical Business Issue or is it just a problem the prospect is willing to live with?  

B.    Is the value clear and sufficiently large to drive the purchase (The “Delta” in Doing Discovery and Great Demo! methodologies)?

C.     Is there a date by when the prospect needs a solution in place (A “Critical Date” in Doing Discovery and Great Demo! methodologies)?  

 

Doing Discovery and Great Demo! practices help qualify-in or qualify-out deals before investing time in any substantive demo. Far too many sales projects languish “Living in the Land of Hope.” 

 

How many of your organization’s opportunities suffer this fate?

 

 

Resources:

 

Avoiding No Decision Outcomes

https://greatdemo.com/avoiding-no-decision-outcomes/ 

 

Let’s Talk About Value – Uncovering the Delta

https://greatdemo.com/lets-talk-about-value-uncovering-the-delta/ 

 

Critical Dates – Prevent Prospect Procrastination

https://greatdemo.com/critical-dates-prevent-prospect-procrastination/ 

 

Great Demo! Third Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Doing Discovery:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Training

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/great-demo/ 

 

More Supporting Articles

https://greatdemo.com/learn/articles/ 

What’s the Value of Better Demos? Part 4: Overview Demos?

No stunningly awful Harbor Tour demos, please!

 

Far too many overview demos are delivered too early in a sales process, without sufficient discovery, resulting in wasted resources, losses to more competent competitors, and investing unwisely in No Decision outcomes.

 

Some vendors attempt to use an overview demo to start the dialog with a prospect and may try to use “disco-demos” to do discovery along the way. This is a difficult starting point because once you start to move your mouse, you typically stay in your offering, losing the opportunity to do true discovery.  

 

If you ask presales managers how many of these overview demos actually lead to productive sales projects, the answers can be painfully low: Wasted overview demos in many organizations range from 10-20% to as high as 75%. A survey revealed that on average, “Unqualified” (wasted) demos averaged 30% overall and many leaders say that more than 50% of demos are unqualified. Ick. That’s a lot of waste.

 

Traditional overview and disco-demos show way too much yet still miss the mark for prospects. 

 

Instead, consider crisp, extremely effective Vision Generation Demos (see Chapter 11 on page 258 of the Third Edition of Great Demo!) to satisfy prospects’ desires to “see what’s possible,” stimulate interest, and move the prospect gently (but firmly!) into a discovery conversation. 

 

That’s a huge improvement!

 

 

Resources:

 

The Gruesome Anatomy of a Typical One-Hour Web Overview Demonstration

https://greatdemo.com/the-anatomy-of-a-typical-web-overview-demonstration/ 

 

Discovery on the Fly? Some Plane Thinking

https://greatdemo.com/discovery-on-the-fly-some-plane-thinking/ 

 

Great Demo! Third Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Doing Discovery:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Training

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/great-demo/ 

 

Supporting Articles

https://greatdemo.com/learn/articles/ 

 

What’s the Value of Better Demos? Part 3: Waste Avoidance!

 

What constitutes a “wasted” demo? 

 

1.        Stunningly awful Harbor Tour demos

2.        "Overview” demos that go nowhere

3.        Demos that result in No Decision outcomes

4.        Unnecessary repeated demos

5.        Traditional demos delivered to large, unqualified audiences

6.        Any “deep dive” demo presented to an executive

7.        Demos that should have been sufficient to close the business that ended up in a POC or POV

8.        Nearly all “end-to-end”, “show-them-the-full-range-of-our-offerings” demos

 

It is interesting but not surprising to note that this list is largely comprised of demos delivered without sufficient discovery. This suggests that one practical solution is to invest in improving the team’s discovery skills. 

 

Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” This could be rephrased for sales as, “Give me superior discovery skills, and a few good leads, and I will move the SaaS world!”

 

If you can avoid wasted demos, you’ll enjoy some terrific gains.

 

 

Resources:

 

The Gruesome Anatomy of a Typical One-Hour Web Overview Demonstration

https://greatdemo.com/the-anatomy-of-a-typical-web-overview-demonstration/ 

 

Great Demo! Third Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Doing Discovery:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Training

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/great-demo/ 

 

Supporting Articles

https://greatdemo.com/learn/articles/ 

What’s the Value of Better Demos? Part 2: Opportunity Cost

 

A wise colleague commented, “Just because you could show a demo doesn’t mean that you should…!”

 

There are only 225-ish selling days per year (do the math for your situation). Clearly, any time consumed by demos that do not yield reasonable progress is wasted. That same time could have been invested in sales opportunities with better likelihoods of success, so the loss of that time is doubly hurtful!

 

Ask yourself, “What sales opportunities could I/we have pursued if I/we had not been consumed by demos that went nowhere?”

 

~30% of all demos delivered are considered wasted effort by presales teams. These are often “overview” demos presented with little or no discovery. 

 

How much of your team’s time is consumed annually by these fruitless pursuits?

 

Even worse, the average No Decision (or “Do Nothing”) outcomes for B2B software vendors is ~45%. That means that nearly half of the sales opportunities you chase go nowhere. These are the forecasted opportunities that never close, in spite of consuming an astounding amount of time in many cases. 

 

How many opportunities did you pursue during the last year that never closed, yet included one or more overview demos, qualification discussions, discovery conversations, deeper demos, POCs, POVs, proposals, etc.?

 

(Extra Credit: Count the number of No Decision outcomes from the past year. Estimate how many hours were consumed by the activities above. Cry.)

 

Time is the one resource that we cannot get any more of. (Sadly, there are only 28 hours in a day…!) 

 

What else could have been done with the resources squandered in wasted demos and No Decision projects?

 

Think of your use of time as either “investing” or “wasting.” Investing implies a positive outcome; wasting time is pointless!

 

Resources:

 

Avoiding No Decision Outcomes

https://greatdemo.com/avoiding-no-decision-outcomes/ 

 

Great Demo! Third Edition

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Doing Discovery:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Training

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/great-demo/ 

 

Supporting Articles

https://greatdemo.com/learn/articles/