Dealing with "Just Show Me a Demo?" Seven Methods to Move into Discovery

 

Far too often, prospects demand, “Just show me a demo…!” when we know the correct approach is to invest, mutually, in a discovery conversation. But how do we convince prospects to make this change? Here are seven ideas!

 

Prospect says, “Just show me a demo…”

 

1.     You respond, “Terrific! Let’s schedule eight hours for your demo, because that’s what it will take to go through our offering. Or we could invest thirty minutes to discuss your situation so that we can focus on what’s important for you. The resulting demo will likely last well under an hour.”

 

2.     You offer, “You are investing a great deal of time and energy in finding and implementing a new system. Let’s ensure that investment pays off for you by helping us understand your situation/goals/needs/etc. fully before we present a demo.”

 

3.     You say, “Oh! This is exactly like having a severe headache and going to the doctor and the doctor says, ‘You have a headache? Great! Go down to the pharmacy and try each of the one thousand drugs we offer and then let me know which one works best…!’ We can continue on that pathway or, if you allow me to be your ‘physician,’ I can discuss your situation to enable an accurate diagnosis and a focused demo prescription.”

 

4.     You respond, “I’m presuming you don’t want to pay for capabilities that you don’t need. So instead of guessing and likely wasting your time and mine let’s invest a few minutes to discuss your actual needs. The demo can then focus specifically on those capabilities.”

 

5.     You offer, “If I were a surgeon, would you want me to grab a scalpel and open you up or would you prefer that I ask a few questions first?”

 

6.     You counter, “Imagine you just sat down for a meal in a nice restaurant and I’m your waiter. Should I simply guess what you want to eat and start bringing out dishes or would you want me to offer you a menu?”

 

(“And while you’re waiting, we’ll play music and try to guess what music you like. Let’s start with heavy metal/baroque/pure percussion/Grateful Dead ‘space’ etc.”)

 

7.     (My favorite!) You say, “Fine…” and move (gently but firmly) into a Vision Generation Demo that satisfies your prospect’s desire to “see what’s possible” while moving delightfully into a discovery conversation.

 

And we can use The Menu Approach to focus on the topics of highest interest for your prospect!

 

Any other ideas to suggest?

 

Resources:

 

Doing Discovery

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

 

Avoiding Buying It Back

https://greatdemo.com/are-you-buying-it-back-2/ 

 

The Menu Approach

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

 

Vision Generation Demos

Great Demo! Third Edition page 258

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

 

Real Stories About Discovery:

-       “But You Already Know Their Workflow”

-       “You Know You Already Closed Me”

-       Who Is Mr. Big Ears?

-       “Let Me Close My Door”

-       The Million Dollar Demo and the Good Little Salesperson

-       A Prospect’s Tale

Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy 

 

Expansion Questions – An Essential Discovery Skill

 

Your prospect shares, “It’s a manual process.”

 

You reply, “Does it typically go smoothly? What happens when someone is on vacation?”

 

 “It’s a mess! We literally have tickets piling up on people’s desks…!” divulges your prospect.

 

Congratulations! You’ve just deepened and broadened your prospect’s pain using the essential discovery skill of Expansion Questions. So, what are they, how do you use them, and when?

Expansion Questions are a series of interrelated questions designed to span five of the seven discovery skills levels, from uncovering pain to reengineering vision. They are a simple, yet essential skill to master in doing discovery, enabling you to extend, deepen, and quantify your prospects’ pains and related impacted areas.

 

Expansion Questions leverage your experiences with other prospects and customers, providing you with lists of likely problem areas, impacts, and outcomes to explore with new prospects.

 

An Example

 

Let’s return to the conversation above. A skilled vendor and their prospect are talking about the prospect’s current workflow that handles customer requests and issues. Let’s listen:

 

Prospect comments, “It’s a manual process…”

 

Vendor responds, “Sorry to hear this – what takes place today?”

 

Prospect explains, “Well, each request is entered, reviewed, processed, escalated, and closed in a series of steps, with each step done manually by an individual, then passed to the next person in line.”

 

The vendor asks an Expansion Question, “Does it typically go smoothly? For example, what happens when someone is on vacation?”

 

The vendor knows, based on previous experience with similar prospects, that vacations often have serious negative impact on these workflows.

 

Prospect replies, “It’s a mess! We literally have tickets piling up on people’s desks…!”

 

Vendor responds, “What happens then?”

 

Prospect offers, “At minimum, it causes delays in response time which impacts customer satisfaction.”

 

Our vendor makes a note to come back to this impact statement later, but focuses on the current issue for now:

 

Vendor asks, “I see… How many folks are involved on your team?”

 

Prospect says, “We have a total of 12 people doing this, and it is far too many!”

 

Vendor pursues, “Understood. And what would you like to reduce this to?”

 

Prospect states, “I’d love to get this down to two people. There’s plenty on the team’s plate that needs to be done in addition to this process!”

 

Note that our vendor has quantified a desired outcome – a Delta – reducing the number of people in the workflow from twelve to two. Next, knowing that manual processes typically result in errors, our vendor introduces another Expansion Question…

 

You can enjoy the balance of this article here:

https://greatdemo.com/expansion-questions-an-essential-discovery-skill/ 

Suspending Disbelief: “Short Stories, Big Lessons”

You can learn the hard way or…

 

“I’ve been a longtime fan of Peter Cohan, and Suspending Disbelief did not disappoint. He’s one of the few authors who can genuinely plant me in a chair and keep me there cover to cover—and this book was no exception.

 

What makes this book stand out is how effectively it uses storytelling to teach. As Peter explains, stories are what make ideas stick, and he practices exactly what he preaches throughout. Each chapter delivers a short, engaging story with a clear takeaway!

 

I found many of the scenarios incredibly relatable (sometimes uncomfortably so!), and that’s what makes the lessons so valuable. Whether you’re early in your career or have years of experience, you’ll see yourself in these stories—and more importantly, you’ll walk away with practical insights you can apply immediately.

 

Entertaining, insightful, and highly actionable. Highly recommended.”

 

Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy 

Four Stages of Competence in Discovery

Where are you and your team?

 

For example, are you aware of and apply the following skills?

 

-       Ranging Probes

-       Expansion Questions

-       Biased Questions

-       Provocative Questions

-       Empathy and Quid Pro Quo

-       Vision Reengineering

-       The Curse of Knowledge

 

The classic Four Stages are particularly apropos for doing discovery:

 

Stage 1 – Unconsciously Incompetent:

 

They don’t know what they don’t know. Many (most?) sales, presales, and customer success folks are in this category but are unaware…!

 

 

Stage 2 – Consciously Incompetent:

 

They understand they need to do better or operate differently, but don’t know what or how to accomplish this.

 

 

Stage 3 – Consciously Competent:

 

They know what to do but have to consciously think to execute properly.

 

 

Stage 4 – Unconsciously Competent: 

 

They do the right things without extra thought.

 

 

Where are you and your team on this spectrum?

 

 

If you’d like to assess yourself and improve, here are resources to draw from:

 

-       Want some easy-to-consume nuggets? Browse the blog: https://greatdemo.com/blog/

 

-       Want to go a bit deeper? Here are a few good articles to explore:

 

Assess Your Discovery Skills Level

https://greatdemo.com/assessing-discovery-skill-levels-how-does-your-team-rate/

 

Uncovering Critical Business Issues – What, Why, and How

https://greatdemo.com/uncovering-critical-business-issues-what-why-and-how/

 

Let’s Talk About Value – Uncovering the Delta

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

 

Critical Dates – Prevent Prospect Procrastination: A Never Stop Learning! Article

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

 

Doing Discovery with Your Prospects’ Executives

https://greatdemo.com/doing-discovery-with-your-prospects-executives/

 

-       Want to dig into the full methodology at your own pace? Grab a copy of “Doing Discovery” here:

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

 

-       Prefer podcasts? Here you go!

 

“Doing Discovery” SE Book Club – What’s YOUR Discovery Skills Level?

https://greatdemo.com/doing-discovery-se-book-club-whats-your-discovery-skills-level/

 

Demologue Podcast – Discovery, Menus, Automated Demos and More!

https://greatdemo.com/demologue-podcast-discovery-menus-automated-demos-and-more/

 

In the Spotlight Podcast – Doing Discovery

https://greatdemo.com/in-the-spotlight-podcast-doing-discovery/

 

SaaS Backwards Episode 155 – You’re Probably Doing Discovery Wrong—And It’s Costing You Deals

https://greatdemo.com/saas-backwards-episode-155-youre-probably-doing-discovery-wrong-and-its-costing-you-deals/

 

-       Ready to invest in yourself or your team? Instructor-led training can be found here:

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/doing-discovery/

Presales: What’s Your Cultural Ecotone?

 

“An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities, where two communities meet and integrate.“

 

Picture this: A pelican crashes into the ocean just off the beach, drawn by an abundance of surf fish, while a pair of river otters forage on the shore just above the water. Plants seen nowhere else thrive in this unique salt-sweet environment.

 

Ecotones, such as coastal and transitional mountainous regions, are richly diverse, where plants and animals exploit the unique opportunities for food, shelter, and social engagement.

 

Presales, as a role, inhabits a similar richly diverse cultural ecotone at the confluence of prospects, customers, sales, products, and technology. Prospect and customer size, vendor size, market vertical, technology, change adoption, product complexity, use cases, and product life cycles are just a few of the dimensions that define a particular presales cultural ecotone. 

 

It is by doing discovery that you can characterize your own specific space.

 

While customer success folks, salespeople, and marketing teams may each enjoy a portion of this overall ecotone, it is presales that has the opportunity to live in and fully explore this unique niche!

 

How would you describe the characteristics and dimensions of your specific cultural ecotone?

Presales Rising Star?

Whether you are in your first month, first year, or first decade, 

if you are pursuing best practices or establishing new ones you are a Rising Star!

 

Presales managers: nominate your best performers!

Salespeople: nominate your best presales partners!

Presales individual contributors: nominate yourself or your colleagues!

 

And consider: everyone who is nominated is already a winner:

 

Being nominated is an honor; 

Applying is an act of personal growth

And an investment in your future!

 

https://demoboost.com/presales-rising-star 

How Discovery on the Fly Results in Buying It Back

 

“What do you think of this feature?” inquired the rep.

 

“Sorry, don’t need it…” replied the prospect.

 

“OK, let me show you another really cool function…” said the rep as they dove further into their software. “Can you see yourself using this?”

 

“No, we don’t have that use case…,” said the prospect.

 

As the “discovery on the fly” demo went on, this exchange occurred more and more. 

 

At the end of the meeting, the rep asked, “So, what do you think?”

 

The prospect replied, “It’s way more than we need. Do you have a scaled-back version?”

 

“No,” said the rep, “It’s all one package. You get everything…”

 

“Then it’s too much!” was the prospect’s response. 

 

This was part of the dialogue in a recorded call. The rep ended up offering a large discount to offset the prospect’s concerns: Yet another example of the woes of Buying It Back!

 

Many vendors who do “discovery on the fly” end up Buying It Back and it happens far too frequently.

 

The tendency of vendors to fall into this self-made trap is huge, partly because he temptation to dive into your software is extremely high once it has been launched. It takes enormous discipline to avoid showing capabilities that the prospect doesn’t need or want (or be willing to pay for!).

 

There are two solutions to avoid Buying It Back when doing Discovery on the Fly:

 

1.     Introduce your capabilities in the form of a question before showing them.

 

If your prospect responds positively, then you can say, “Well, we have that capability – would you like to see it?”  

 

On the other hand, if your prospect’s response is, “No, we don’t really want that….” or “We can’t see situations where that would be valuable,” then you simply move on. Don’t show that capability!

 

Note that if the negative response happens too frequently, you are still at risk of Buying It Back, since your prospect will begin to assume that all of these capabilities will be in the software they purchase from you, if they move forward.

 

2.     Use a Vision Generation Demonstration instead of trying to do traditional Discovery on the Fly. A Vision Generation Demo is designed to satisfy the prospect’s desire to “see what’s possible” while moving the prospect (gently, yet firmly!) into a discovery conversation. (See Chapter 11 in Great Demo! for details.)

 

The subsequent discovery dialog should yield the list of Specific Capabilities your prospect wants and needs, enabling you to present a Technical Proof Demo that is tailored precisely and avoid Buying It Back. (Chapters 5-9 in Great Demo!)

 

Solution Resources:

 

Do Discovery before the demo!

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

 

Apply the Menu Approach

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

 

Great Demo! Chapters 5-9 and 11

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