The Zero Discovery Demo
We’ve all been
in that situation when you walk into the conference room, or start-up your
webcast, and you have no idea what the sales call is about or what the customer
really needs. It’s known as the “spray
and pray”, the “dog and pony show”
or “the three hour tour”.
We also know
that although it is usually a complete waste of your time, these calls do
happen in real life and the professional SE needs to be prepared to deal with
them. So, two days from now you are visiting a customer (or maybe it is a virtual call) and the only
information you have is the name and address of the company and the guidance of
“they just want a general overview of our
products and what we do.” What happens next?
Before You Go
1.
Check Your Attitude!
You are probably ready to choke your salesperson, complain about a
non-communicative customer and moan about life in general. So go ahead and get
it out of your system, update your boss about the event, and then pick up your
attitude as if this was a critical multi-million dollar opportunity. Be
positive.
2.
Conduct The Research.
Ignorance is no excuse for poor preparation. Check out the customer’s website,
run a Google search, visit a financial site if they are publicly traded. This
data may be in your Sales Force Automation system, or the rep may provide it (at
least ask the rep to research if they own any of your solutions at other sites
or subsidiaries) – but if you do not have it, you should. At a minimum, you
should know what their major products are, where their major locations are,
basic finances (profit, revenue, and margin), who they compete with and who
they are most similar to within your current customer base. Between Google and LinkedIn,
you should be able to research the names of the customer contacts.
3.
Contact The Customer.
OK, maybe the rep said not to contact the customer – but you need to make a
decision about preparation. Ask for a technical contact to call so that you can
validate connectivity, environment, and wireless coverage. Make something up if
you need to – but try to call the customer, techie-to-techie, and while you
have them on the phone, drop in a few relevant discovery questions. “Hey, as I have you on the phone, can I just
ask you…” Do not make your salesperson look like a bumbling idiot, as you
are a sales team, but do play up the technical part of your title.
4.
Balance Education v Selling. Your goal is ensure the customer understands how they
could use your solution in their environment and the benefits they would gain
(and the pain they may avoid. The goal is not to educate them on every nuance
of how to use your product. If your demo is “click here, drag this” then it is
a navigational functional demo and you are really teaching them how to use your
solution as opposed to what it does. Clicks = Complexity
5.
Don’t Forget Do Nothing
Inc. 50% of deals are
lost because the customer does nothing. Make sure you have a list of compelling
reasons for them to act, because you will need them during the call. You do not
want to make that stuff up in the middle of the meeting.
6.
Prepare Handouts and a
Memorable Leave-Behind. Build
a simple summary handout of your presentation/demo. Focus on a couple of key
slides or screens, a customer success story and a memorable take-away. This
might be a Mnemonic, a Set of Power Numbers or a simple diagram such as a 3x3
grid. In effect, you are giving them a 60-second summary of your meeting based
on “if
they can’t repeat it, they don’t get it. And if they don’t get it, they won’t
buy it.”
Once The Meeting Starts
Do not start
presenting or giving a demo. You are now in the position of having to perform
some discovery on the fly. This is going to require some flexibility on your
part, so consider it as a challenge. Here are some techniques I have found
useful to ‘provoke’ the customer into disclosing useful information.
1.
Trade Your Story For Theirs. The rep probably has a strong desire to start with a
corporate overview. Although I am not a big fan of “broadcasting” who we are
and what we do, you can offer to exchange your corporate story for their
version of what brought them into the room today.
2.
3.
The “A Customer Like You” Story. Start with 2-3 stories about customers just like them. If
you are selling to a small-medium community bank, then make it another small
financial customer, another small-medium customer, and then another customer in
the same city/location as them. You are seeking either a “that sounds just like
us” or a “we don’t have that problem” style response.
4.
The Staff Meeting Conversation. When working with a manager and a
group of her direct reports, try the “last staff meeting” question. I draw a
picture of a table and a couple of stick figures and ask “when you talked about at your last staff meeting –
what were the items that came up for action?” This works particularly well
if you are selling “IT Plumbing” solutions or equipment varying from servers to
heat pumps to medical devices.
5.
The Demo/GPS Roadmap. When called in to perform a generic
(out-of-the-box) demo, give the customer some control over what you show. I’ve
written before about a Demo/GPSRoadmap – which graphically shows the customer, step-by-step, what
they are going to see. Hand this out to customer and ask for feedback in terms
of what would be important to them and what isn’t. Choose the one or two items
they say are important and ask “how do
you do that now?” with as many follow-up questions as you can before they
start to get impatient. Try to have them draw something for you to explain
their current state.
6.
Just Ask! Play the technical/doctor card. “Listen, I can talk for hours about this
subject and all the great things that my solution can do, but I’d like to
narrow it down so I can focus on those things that are important to you. Can I
ask you a couple of questions before I start?” If you get some resistance,
use the doctor analogy about understanding all the symptoms so you can get a
complete picture.
Summary
Just because you
have been committed to make the zero-discovery sales presentation does not mean
it really has to be zero-discovery. Do your research. Once you start the meeting,
position your questions as being of benefit to the customer so you do not waste
their time. Obviously this is not sales or customer behavior you want to encourage,
yet if the technical part of the call fails it is often the technical part of
the team that gets the blame, regardless of the circumstances. So be prepared.
“In Sales, just as in
Medicine, Prescription before Diagnosis is Malpractice.”
