A customer contacts a
vendor to schedule a demo saying, “We’d like to see a demo of your offering
right away – we have an active project and want to make a decision very soon…”
The salesperson schedules a
demo that same week, announcing to his presales colleague, “They are ready to
make a decision – let’s plan to give them the overview demo and do some
discovery on-the-fly…”
Sadly, this vendor is may
already be “Column Fodder”…!
So what are other, more
viable options? There are (at least) three:
One: Pull back; insist
on a substantive Discovery conversation. “We’d love to give you a demo
and we will, as soon as we can determine what to show you. Let’s mutually
invest 30 minutes on a phone call so that we can focus the demo on what is most
important to you. We don’t want to waste your time or ours…”
Two: Apply the
Menu Approach – a delightful self-rescue technique. You can find an
article on the Menu Approach here.
Three: Use a Vision
Generation Demo – an even more delightful self-rescue technique that both
satisfies the customer’s desire to see a demo and moves the conversation
gently (but firmly) into a real Discovery conversation. An article
on Vision Generation demos can be found here.
These options have frequently
proven to turn the process to your advantage, even when you may have
started as “Column Fodder”…!
