Transform your presales demos into compelling stories that resonate. In this replay, Matthew Preven of Movable Ink and Jason Pierce of Saleo share proven demo storytelling frameworks, practical techniques, and common pitfalls to avoid, helping you connect technical depth with real business value and deliver demos your audience won’t forget.
Read the full transcript below:
I want to just thank everyone for joining us. We’re going to be talking about mastering the demo narrative, specifically for presales with our two presales masters who are joining us right now.
Matthew Preven, Associate Director of Solutions Consulting at Movable Ink, and our own Jason Pierce, Principal Solutions Engineer here at Saleo. Before we dive in, just two quick reminders.
There’ll be time for Q&A at the end. You can submit those questions at any point during the session through the Q&A window. Please do.
Also, this will be recorded and made available to everyone after the session.
And with that, I’m going to invite Matt and Jason to both introduce themselves and maybe share a fun fact. Matt, can you kick us off?
Hey, everybody. My name is Matt Preven. As Laura mentioned, I’m an Associate Director of Solutions Consulting at Movable Ink, and I’ve been in the presales world for nearly a decade, working in the ad tech spaces.
So you think about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, programmatic display, ad serving, as well as the martech space. So thinking about email marketing, rich push, mobile marketing, you name it.
And one of the things I love so much about presales is that left brain, right brain challenge that I think we all experience. How do we talk about technical feasibility while creating a wonderful story? So I’m excited to share what I’ve learned over the years and, of course, passing on to my friend Jason Pierce’s intro, but also learn a little bit from him as well.
So, Jason, I’ll kick off to you.
Thank you, Matt. I am Jason Pierce.
I am the Principal Sales Engineer at Saleo. And, I guess the fun fact about me is I love selling Saleo.
It’s selling to people who are doing demos. Demoing to people who do demos every day, it’s a bit meta, but it’s a fantastic opportunity, and it’s been a game changer for me personally.
I’ve been in the SaaS industry for about, I don’t know, fifteen years now and spent some time doing implementations and then shifted to the sales engineering role. And I got some folks I see in the audience from SalesLoft.
Spent some time there as well. So excited to dive in and talk through some of the challenges that we all face day to day and learn from each other.
Actually, it made me realize I forgot my fun fact. I was an extra on the last episode of The Sopranos.
So I also love demoing to people who love demoing, but that’s my little fun fact to have for you all.
That’s pretty cool. I don’t think we’re going to top that today.
But we are going to go ahead and jump in. And so what we’re going to start with is some of the more common demo problems and pitfalls.
So, Matt, do you mind starting us off here with some of the common pitfalls you see?
Yeah. Of course.
And I think the number one kind of pitfall that comes to my mind is being feature led versus kind of telling a story. Because, you know, inherently, what are our jobs? It’s to explain what our platform does, or at least that’s what we think.
But the reality is that we have to explain how we have a solution for our prospects and for our customers. And so it becomes really difficult as a solutions consultant, sales engineer, solutions engineer.
The nomenclature may vary on that one, but, becomes really difficult to get out of that mindset of telling you what the feature is versus saying what is how this specifically can help you. So that’s something that has taken me, honestly, years to kind of get out of that, but I would say that’s the most common one I see.
Yeah. I can certainly relate to that.
And shifting from the harbor tour, the feature showcase, basically. I think it’s where we all start, especially as a company and a product is getting up and running over the first couple of years, you kind of default to that flow before you really have established a mature and developed demo story. I would add to that to say that even when you have a good narrative, being able to put that in terms that it’s going to resonate with your audience and using their language, their terminology, and presenting not just your own narrative about how your software can be used and the value you can get from it, but doing that in a way that’s going to really hit home for the audience and help them understand how that will be able to change things for them going forward.
It’s an ongoing challenge because every audience is different, and learning enough to be able to do that effectively in the oftentimes compressed time frame we have prior to a demo can be a challenge. And so I find that I do a lot of discovery during a call, and I’ll ask questions when I realize I don’t know enough about this specific topic.
You know, let’s do some quick discovery even during the demo so you can start putting that into terminology that’ll really resonate with that audience.
Yeah. That’s great.
So another question for you, Jason, if you wouldn’t mind starting us off. What would you say ia an area of opportunity for your AEs to kind of step in to help improve or kind of build that space for doing that further discovery during those calls?
I mean, there are so many possibilities to this question. I’ll speak from my own personal experience, but, you know, part of it is just learning what that dynamic is like with each AE that you support.
You know, if you have a small group of AEs that is easier to do, I know in some situations, you’re supporting an entire team, so you don’t have as well developed dynamics with all of those individuals. So just figuring out how to team up and tell that story in an effective way.
But, more specifically, it’s figuring out where the AE can play a role as you’re giving the demo. Obviously, you’re the quarterback of that conversation in most cases, but the AE can still offer a lot of value, whether it is by interjecting into the conversation and then hopefully helping to put things into terms that will get that audience’s attention, but also things as general as just reading the room.
If I’m sharing my screen, I’m running a demo, I can’t really watch, if they have webcams on, body language and nonverbal communication cues. But that is key to making sure that you’re not just telling a story to a bunch of blank faces who couldn’t care less.
We’ve all been there at times. Curious, Matt, your thoughts on that?
No. I couldn’t agree more.
You know, sometimes in my career, I’ve been with AEs who basically said, here’s my two minute intro, and now you have fifty eight minutes to carry the torch. So that interactivity, it helps because you need fresh voices in the room.
So, of course, you as a solutions consultant are a subject matter expert, but it also helps for them to read the body language, whether it be in person or virtual, to kind of say, oh, hey. I’d like you to lean in or, you know, this AE is identifying the champion, calling out that person if we maybe missed the mark there.
So I think that balancing act is important. And I think another thing as well is really kind of diving in on that pre-demo prep session.
For me, no matter what I do, even if the time is limited, it could be a fifteen minute scrum or a thirty minute prep session. I always make sure to have that and have our AEs be able to answer a few questions.
Number one, what is the history of the account?
Number two, what are the pain points that our customers are looking to solve for?
And number three, what are the primary KPIs and measurements of success?
If you’re able to start on that ground, then you could do research into the company, into the industry because, of course, it would be varied for so many folks on the line here. But I think that initial prep, you know, it’s it’s sometimes taken for granted, and I think it’s just a big mistake not to have it.
So one common pitfall is if the aide wants to skip it, I would say for everybody on the line, insist that you keep it because that resource, that initial kind of information can only be helpful as we’re running through the demo itself.
Yeah.
That sounds right. And I think we can all relate to the concept of being a demo monkey.
You get on the call and the AE, whether or not you’ve been given much to go on, it just becomes alright. Take it away.
Best case scenario, you’ve got a good story prepared and you’ve done that prep work with your AE partner. But there are times where that’s not the case, and the only option is to go through a fairly generic feature showcase that we all know how to do and we all try to avoid.
But being able to get that insight from the AE who hopefully has spent more time with that prospect before, so you can not just figure out what that story is, what the value propositions are that you want to focus on, but figuring out that dynamic, the back and forth with the AE because they are a key part of the presentation, or they hopefully can be a key part of that presentation. And some of that onus is on us to make sure that we’re holding them accountable and that we don’t feel like we’re just thrown in the spotlight and someone says dance, monkey, dance, and we have to do it.
Some of this is probably a little bit personal to my experience.
If any of my AEs are listening, nothing offensive or personal intended here. But even having done this now for close to a decade, I think there is always room to improve on that dynamic, the preparation, and just how you follow through on it.
And, frankly, I’m excited to get feedback from the audience and hear how all you handle these challenges because I suspect they’re pretty universal for most of us.
Yeah. I completely agree.
And to turn that question on its head, flip it, the best AEs are participating so much. They’re asking those open ended questions.
And quite frankly, sometimes, they’re also deviating from the path of the demo to get to the place we need to be. Some of my best ones will kind of read the room and say, hey. I’m not sure if this is working, and you can use subtle tips and tricks, especially when you’re on Zoom. Like the mute/unmute or unmute using the Zoom chat to say, hey. You should move forward to this section. Sometimes deviating from the plan, sometimes that’s a good thing, especially to get to the result that we want.
So I say the best AEs are able to do that, manage that relationship with us, and manage the tempo and the flow.
And then, get those open ended questions at the end. Because at the end of day, if we run a demo to minute fifty nine and there’s no response, we don’t necessarily know how that resonated.
So being in quarterback of time as well is absolutely key and something that my best AEs do.
Getting deeper into how you guys plan and prepare for these demos and coordinating with your AEs, let’s jump into more of the storytelling framework.
Matt, how do you typically prepare to tell your story for a demo?
It’s a great question.
So I actually watched a seminar from Matthew Luna at Pixar who talked about the art of storytelling and talked about the emotional highs and lows of bringing customers on a journey. Because, for everyone on the line, we probably have amazing technology to deliver, but at the end of the day, we have to go back to the pain points.
Addressing the low, and going into the high to ultimately present the problem and identify the solution. So I’m always trying to think of that mindset.
It’s why one of those preliminary questions is what is a key pain point you specifically address. And that involves a lot of research.
I mentioned before, but our fifteen minute or thirty minute scrums, those are absolutely important to get the idea of who that customer is. And then, to even go further to what Jason said, using their language.
We may have demos to beauty retailers who call their customer she. Like, she is making a purchase or she wants to make a purchase.
So adapting that kind of language, even those small little cues go a really, really long way in telling that story. And so, ultimately, it’s about that emotional roller coaster taking them on a journey.
And then the last thing I’ll say before passing to Jason, is identifying who the main character of the story is because it’s not Jason. It’s not me. It’s not our AE.
It’s the person who is who we’re demoing to.
So understanding their motivations, understanding their pain, taking them through why our solution is the best, that is the key thing. But, Jason, I’m so curious to hear what you would say about that question.
This is actually fresh in my mind from a call I had yesterday, as a matter of fact. I think we can get a bit of tunnel vision on the solution. I mean, that’s what our job is. It’s proposing solutions. And I know there have been times where I’ve just been so eager I cut out that first part of the story, the pain.
The AE might present a slide that says, here’s what we’ve talked about so far. These are the pain points you surfaced to us. And there’s a tendency in some cases to just jump right into, and here’s how we can help you solve those problems.
But I presented a really quick demo yesterday, and I didn’t give him a good before view of exactly what the problem was. And I got called out for it, and it was totally valid.
Painting the picture of the story starts with – here’s where we are today and here’s why we’re having this conversation. You obviously acknowledge that you need to find a better way to do this.
So I can’t just show you what the answer is. I have to help you figure out that entire experience, that journey, end to end.
I think it’s also important to make sure that, as Matt said, you’re using the language, the terminology, the context that the customer is going to recognize or the prospect’s going to recognize, and that you’re factoring that into the story from the start. You’re not just pulling in keywords that you heard them use, but you’re baking that into the overall demo story so that you’re proposing the challenge.
You’re offering solutions that reference different people at their organization. Bring in your product team to talk about how this prospects needs these very specific functions, and if you can incorporate more of your audience into that talk track, if you can name drop people that will help get their attention, it is a good way to at least increase the odds.
They’re not going to just tune out and be doing something else during that demo. We’ve all been there.
Totally. I also want to add you mentioned name drop.
That is my number one tip for any new solutions consultant or sales engineers. You may have the good fortune of having companies work with a lot of different brands. People want to be a part of things they admire.
And so if you’re able to name drop those stories, those case studies, things of that nature to really reinforce that story, it can be helpful. Whether it’s a beauty retailer or maybe it’s a cruise line.
To know that there are other people in their shoes and they took that journey with your technology to get there, that just provides a lot of different resonance and even kind of internal name dropping as well. If I’m throwing a question about something crazy about InfoSec that I have no idea about, I will name drop my InfoSec team and say, hey. We can get you an answer, but the good news is that we have a team to support that or even a strategy team, a client experience team, an implementations team. Whatever your version of that is, that is a big part of the story.
Because you think about the main character, they’re on their journey. It’s not a solo journey.
They’re going on it with us. And to let them know that there’s a whole team wrapped up for them is a really great and comforting experience.
One last thing I’ll say too is, for all of us who are demoing SaaS, demoing a technology, even if our technology is the most simple and easiest thing to learn in the world, it’s also important to have empathy and understand that learning a new technology is not easy. So when you’re in that demo and you’re showing the functionality or you’re moving incredibly quickly, take a second to say, how does this resonate with you? And don’t make it a yes, no question.
I mean, we’ll get into that later in different types of questions. But, if you ask that question, it opens them up to say, hey. I’m not really vibing, or the inverse, which is I’m loving what you’re dealing with. Again, it could be the easiest technology in the world, but because it’s new, it’ll still take a bit to process that.
Yeah. And I’m going to do a thing that SEs often do.
I’m going to go rogue for a quick second. I see an audience question about how you change your approach if you’re speaking to someone who’s not the buyer, but an end user.
And knowing your audience, first and foremost, is key. Hopefully, going into the conversation, you at least have a pretty good idea who you’re going to be talking to.
But it’s not uncommon at all where we think we’re talking to one or two folks and they bring on their entire team. So you’ve got a group of end users that you really hadn’t been expecting to address, but it’s obviously key to do it at that opportunity because they’re going to be, in most cases, very influential in the deal as well.
First of all, identifying who it is you’re speaking to. Somebody’s going to be using it, that’s a great start.
But in what capacity? Are they the admin who will help the end users leverage the technology? Are they someone that’s in the trenches that will be logging in every morning and operating as the end user? And then once you know that, it’s safe to ask questions.
I would say, great. I would love to know more about your day to day. Where do you find inefficiencies with your current process, so that you can start figuring out how to pivot parts of the conversation to address those.
And I think it’s totally fair. If you really got surprised, you didn’t know who was going to be there, like, call it out – Hey, I want to make sure that we can make this relevant to the entire group. So I’m going to ask a couple of questions, in the moment discovery, that gives you the chance to tailor the rest of that conversation, because being able to improvise is absolutely critical. I think it’s a skill that develops over time, but you have to be open to it.
Don’t just get set in your ways, I’ve got my plan, here’s my demo narrative. Nothing that you do is going to pull me away from that.
That is a great way to lose the audience.
Being in the moment. And I wish I could see the audience in this conversation to see where people are nodding, where this is actually hitting home, because it’s a really, really key piece of the overall experience of my experience.
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more.
I guess the spoiler for anybody who is new to the industry, this will happen to you. It’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when, but that’s okay. And because of those new folks coming on in, it’s also a new opportunity for discovery as well.
So you can start your meeting with intros and maybe ask them why they’re here or ask them what they’re looking to see. I think the concept of change management is so critical and understanding who is a part of a decision, depending on the technology you’re selling.
So for us at Movable Ink, one of our biggest, new ventures with AI is actually impacting design teams, marketing teams, operation teams, technology teams. So understanding their motivations and understanding what is important to them is key, and you can ask that initially and then continue to follow-up as well.
Again, that’s going to change, and I think it’s a difficult balancing act to maintain, but there’s nothing wrong with asking questions. Furthermore, that just gives our sales teams more ammunition for them to build a business case.
So I would say definitely welcome it. Don’t panic when that happens.
You never know. Maybe the CEO comes on board and it makes the decision that much quicker.
So definitely welcome the challenge.
It would be hypocritical of me not to acknowledge the fact that our audience member sent in an update to the question, and I didn’t read the question properly the first time around. But the question is, what if the person you’re speaking to – the buyer – is not going to be a user, which is a valid point.
Thank you for clarifying. You know, in my experience, it’s important to know what sort of perspective that buyer has on the day to day operations.
I’ve been in so many conversations where we talk to the decision makers, we talk to the influencers who can help us move the deal forward, but they don’t have hands-on experience. So they’re just telling us, here are the pain points that I’ve gathered from what I hear from the managers, and that’s what they’ve heard from the users.
It’s a game of telephone. And, hopefully, you’ve got a pretty good idea from that.
I think what happens oftentimes is that when you do get to that next conversation with those users and you’re prepared to talk about these pain points that the executive shared with you, it turns out, you know what? That’s not what they’re struggling with in the trenches. Maybe there is a gap between the front end users and the people who are making those decisions.
So trying to draw those two sides together, is hard. I mean, there’s no question about it.
I think knowing who you’re talking to and knowing what their relationship is to the actual day to day use case that we’re trying to help them with is important. But it really just becomes more discovery, at least in my experience.
Ask questions. While we are here to present the value that we can provide, we can’t do that without really understanding where they’re coming from.
A lot of what I’m going to say here comes back to having an actual conversation, a dialogue during the demo, not just presenting and showing what we can do. But I’d be curious, Matt, if you have any perspective on that.
I do. And I want my AE’s, if you’re on the line, just cover your ears for just a moment on this one. I think what you can also do is invite future meetings, a part two or part three for specific teams as well.
Because sometimes, if you have a lot of different people from a lot of different disciplines, If you orient towards the most technical aspects, you might lose some of the creative folks or vice versa. So I think it’s important to navigate that, depending on your product, but also invite the opportunity to say, hey. You came on board, and that’s wonderful. We can go through the technical aspects in a future scoping meeting or something to affect.
I don’t want you to be afraid of that, and our AEs and trainers should not be afraid of that either because it’s a really great thing when you have more people in the room. That means that your customer or your prospect, is invested and potentially wants to learn more about your product.
But we also have to earn that time. So if we’re not able to fully deliver on the technical scoping or creative design or any of those components, I think it’s more than okay to say, we’re going to cover this pretty broadly.
We’re going to cover a lot of the details that you want to know. And then as Jason mentioned, continue to discover to see what pain points those are.
If, for some reason, it deviates way too far off the plan, that we were going way too technical, offer up that off ramp, that opportunity to have another call as well. It may add more time, more scheduling, but at the end of the day, those are the things that will allow you to win more enterprise deals, specifically addressing those needs of each team.
What you don’t want to do is look in your rear view mirror and say, we squandered that opportunity because we didn’t exactly address that pain. So don’t be afraid to do that either.
Actually, you know what? We have another audience question. Since what you asked is very much on the topic of being prepared for the demo and how to shift in the moment, an experience where I had a different audience than I was expecting, and you have to shift in the moment. The first thing I’ll say is identify that before it’s too late, because I have had the worst case scenario.
They didn’t speak up, and we just went through a demo that we had prepared for a different group of people, and we got through the end of a half hour presentation because they weren’t really engaged. It turns out, you know what? That’s not really what they were trying to solve for. So, they start asking different questions that you don’t have answers for.
So if you see people and you don’t know who they are on the call, identify who they are and what they care about. That’s the first thing I’d say. But then again, as I said before, go back to discovery, figure out what it is.
If you understand enough about that end user use-case, hopefully it’s something you can speak to. As Matt just brought up, if you need to go back and do some discovery and follow-up with a more refined targeted conversation, it’s worth it.
Don’t waste your time and their time by trying to wrangle your conversation into a different talk track. Acknowledge it. Hey. You know what? We were prepared for a different conversation. Happy to answer questions right now, but I’d like the chance to actually prepare for this discussion, ask some questions, then schedule some more time.
Again, that’s my approach.
If my AE will allow it, I think it’s the safest bet in many cases.
I’ll just add to asking open ended questions throughout the demo, the technical conversation, it is so critical. I have tried for years, and I’m better every day and not perfect, to abandon yes or no questions.
That dreaded – does this make sense question – it’s really easy for someone in Jason’s situation where maybe you don’t have the right contact, but they kind of understand what you’re getting. Yes.
They understand, but are we actually getting to their problem? So, one of the tricks I have is – does this make sense. I actually say, tell me how this makes you feel, or can you or tell me how you would envision this in your program.
Those open-ended questions allow our customers and our prospects to tell us if they understand by virtue of what they’re going to say next. And the other thing I’ll offer in those moments is allowing for a moment of pause.
This is also an incredibly difficult thing to do. I’m a person who feels like I need to fill the silence, it took me a while to really think about the perspective of the person who’s listening to the demo.
It might just be something where you’re introducing a complex product and they just need to time to think about it or think about how it works in their workflow as well. So, when you’re asking that open ended question for that new person who’s come on board, it’s a really great way to check off, do they understand this? Yes. No.
And from there, quite frankly, are we even asking the right questions or showing the right content? Again, this will be a theme because it’s funny with storytelling where in theory, the novelist, he’s writing this book, he’s planning it for years.
But for us, it’s very different. Sometimes we need to just throw that away and pivot to the next thing.
Those open ended questions are helpful navigation and guidelines to do just that. And even for you to offer that as well, say, hey. You know what? I’m showing data and our technical implementation, but would it be helpful if I could do analytics? That’s a great little thing that can get you to that next step or at least get that customer you don’t know about, what exactly their challenges are.
I see the audience question out there. I’m going to stop going rogue though.
Laura, should we go to the next item on the agenda? We can come back to this, I promise.
You’re good.
I think we’ve already answered a couple of the questions that we have here. I think the next one I’m going to jump to is what specific storytelling elements do you make a point to regularly incorporate in your demos? And, Jason, I’m going to kick that to you first.
Storytelling elements. Oh, that’s a good one.
I did not prepare for this one. So it’s a good example of how on the fly you have to buy some time and figure out what is the appropriate response to the question.
I can help on that one. I think so much of what we do and what we’re trained for is to prepare for the middle of a story.
To prepare for what we’re actually selling or what conversations we’re having. But, the intro and the conclusion are massively important.
Introduction, just to kind of state it is establishing credibility. I mean, Jason and I were doing that hopefully well, but as presales experts in this conversation here, if we did not have that, we’d just be two Joe Schmoes talking about presales, and you wouldn’t know that we have a decade plus experience.
So I think that introduction to establish credibility. It’s really important. It’s a great storytelling element.
Again, think about the main character. Who’s your supporting cast? Who is the Samwise to Frodo.
We’re Sam. So what does Sam bring to the table?
And, we’re going to avoid being Gollum in this situation, too.
But then thinking about the conclusion, the other element I mentioned this before, but I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been at minute fifty eight at the hour mark and just not gotten the actual answers we need. And, I’ll quote one of our sales directors at Google Inc, Nick DeFeo. He always talks about how the elevator conversation becomes really important when you’re in an in-person meeting, as in the demo went great, but tell me the real deal. So it really emphasized the importance of giving that open time for feedback.
Don’t finish at minute fifty eight, maybe finish at fifty two or whatever it might be. I think what’s really important about that is that it allows us to say, alright. Did we get to the next chapter in this story? What actually resonated, or is this book done and not going to be published? I promise I’m going to run out of publishing analogies after this one. But I think, in terms of storytelling elements, sometimes it’s really lost how important that intro and that conclusion are and to make space for it.
But, Jason, I’m curious what your thoughts are on that.
Yeah. You bought me some time. Thank you.
That was great. I would say, tacking on to what you said, hopefully you do a great job at explaining the current state, the pain point, the why we’re having this conversation as you intro the entire presentation.
Combination of you and the AE setting that, here’s what we’re trying to solve for. And that’s great. You’ve got to do that well. But don’t forget to resolve that tension at the end.
You can tell that story and talk about all the great things that you’ll be able to do, but what is the result of that? You’re closing more deals. You’re doing things faster. You’re getting better collaboration.
Bring it home. Close the circle.
I think we often wind up short on time, and the AE hops in to start trying to schedule the next meeting, talk about next steps. But your narrative needs to have a plot and a resolution. Don’t overlook that.
We’d like to think that the story we tell is clear enough. The audience can infer and understand where it’s going and that the technology I’m providing is the answer to these problems, but spell it out for them.
Because in some cases, either they lack imagination or they’re not paying close enough attention. So I need to help you understand how you’re going to sell this internally to your bosses.
Because unless you are the absolute end decision maker, you probably have to do part of that for us. Hopefully, you can get that decision maker onto a call and you can do some of that selling too, but equip your champion with what they need to keep that moving forward internally.
I think on that topic, understand what that is. Don’t be afraid to ask who is going to be involved in deciding this and what will they need to see? If we can schedule time with them, what would they benefit from seeing? What are the value that we’ve talked about that you think will resonate a level up so we can make this easier for you?
I think in many of my conversations, it’s clear the person I’m talking to who is doing this and struggling with these challenges every day, they understand that your technology is the answer. But it’s not cheap, and I have to go convince people with a budget to unlock that budget for me.
So I need to be on their side, their ally in that effort, because it’s in everyone’s best interest to do it.
Totally agree. You have to introduce the stakes in those conversations.
And, we weren’t going to share this video clip because the movie has too much cursing, but a scene I always think about from the Wolf of Wall Street is sell me this pen.
I love it so much because what happens is, Leo, Jon Burnthal, the whole group, they’re in a restaurant, and they’re talking about the art of selling and what goes into it. And, Leo says to Jon Burnthal’s character, okay. I need you to sell me this pen.
What Jon Burnthal does is he says, hey. Do me a favor. Write your name on a napkin.
And Leo says, well, I don’t have a pen.
And Jon Burnthal says, supply and demand and more curse words.
I think what was really important about this was that he introduced the stakes. He basically said, you have a problem. You need to write your name on this napkin. And what utensil do you have? You don’t have one, I have that for you, and that’s the problem I’m introducing.
He doesn’t talk about how amazing the ink is, how it’s the best ink in the world, how 20,000 other customers have used this ink, how this pen has three different colors or acrylic or anything like that.
He talks about the problem.
He talks about the pain.
And I’ll also quote another sales manager on our team, because whenever he thinks about any enterprise deals, this is Jack Matsen, he talks about three problems.
Why change? Why now? And why your company? And, in my respect, Moveable Ink?
If we don’t have the answers to those questions, which goes back to what Jason said, which is really identifying the pain and why they’re there. They can hear about the greatest features in the world, but then all of a sudden the price point is way too big. Whereas if we identify the problem and have an answer to those questions, then we’re able to say, great. This is how we actually fit into the solution.
I agree. I’m not sure I have much to add to that. That was great.
I was going to do my best Jon Burnthal New York accent. I just decided to ditch it last night.
So I think we’ve spoken really well to building an effective demo. The next question is what typically comes after the demo for you?
Matt, do you want to take this one first?
Yeah. I think it’s also the post scrum as well.
Again, not all of us have the time for that. For me, currently working with anywhere from three to eight AEs at once, it can be difficult but it’s important to make that time because, number one, the information is fresh in your head, especially getting those next steps on board.
Number two, it really comes back to change management. It comes down to, did we address our economic buyer’s concerns? Did we address a VP’s concerns? Did we address the person who set up the call? I think it’s so important to have that post meeting because it’s not only important for us to learn what worked and what didn’t, but effectively, how do we carry this deal through to the next page.
I’ve seen deals lost in that cycle when you don’t do those things. So after the call, I would say that is massively important.
Other things as well, it depends on bandwidth, but I love recording a demo video, three to five minutes of a high level recap of what you saw. That personalized touch makes you stand out so much.
We were actually kind of chatting about this concept of reviewing our own videos and collateral. That’s a tricky thing when you’re seeing a video of yourself.
You’re like, oh, it’s weird. But, ultimately, it’s setting up your prospect to say we’re thinking about those extra little steps to go over the top.
But, Jason, what do you think about that question?
You know, it’s an interesting situation to be in where it doesn’t always happen, but in many cases, following the demo while the call is wrapping up, my AE will ask, did that land? What are your thoughts? Was there a wow moment there for you?
And it can be awkward, but it’s also really valuable. You can get a sense for if there are key pieces that you didn’t address that they’re going to need to know to justify moving this forward.
So if you can get that immediate feedback, that can be really valuable because it can help you identify what is left to be done. What other arguments do you need to make, to Matt’s point, if you follow-up with a condensed version of that demo? We use Loom, and I will often send a three minute, concise version of what I just showed so they can publicize that internally. Getting that immediate feedback helps me understand what to show.
Because that first presentation of the demo, hopefully, it was all on point and the whole thing resonates, but they’re going to be areas that just aren’t going to be as important. So double down on what they have told you really communicates the value.
Don’t let them forget that part. And whenever possible, get that detail in front of more people at the organization if it truly is a pain point that they need to solve.
The follow-up is key, and it should definitely be in conjunction with the AE. In most cases, I assume there are going to be more conversations.
We almost always have at least a second demo, if not more. So, evolving what you’re showing and evolving the pitch, the value that you’re offering.
You can’t show the same demo three times because people are going to tune it out. So, be open to that feedback.
Acknowledge, you know what? This part, I didn’t explain that very well. I think they missed some of these key insights that we can offer and, hopefully, you can follow-up with the video that emphasizes those or another conversation. But don’t just say, alright. Demo done. I’m good. On to the next one.
There’s a lot to learn, and there’s a lot to hopefully leverage to continue that conversation.
It needs to be very much in coordination with the AE, the overall project plan. And, hopefully, you’ve got a road map to the deal at the outset so you have an idea of what is next.
But explain that. Discuss that.
Call that out to your prospect so that you know how it’s going to follow-up and they can’t just ghost you and the deal is done forever.
I agree. And that’s where, again, that elevator chat comes in. What did we miss? And that’s actually one of my favorite questions. I heard an executive at my company say – what would stop you from making a deal? And maybe because I’m not a chief marketing officer, maybe I don’t get to ask that question, but I think it’s a really important one because then that’s what the follow-up materials are.
Okay, what’s the planning documents might you need? Or, how do we get to that next level? And I think something to be cognisant of, too, is that in this crazy world we live in with SaaS and especially in the market world, there’s, like, 14,000 different vendors who are trying to buy for your prospects’ attention.
So it’s those little things that go a really long way. So don’t skip on the little details there.
And to expand on that great point, I hadn’t even considered if you know it’s a competitive deal and the folks you’re talking to are evaluating your competitors. Again, it can be somewhat awkward, but so many times our AEs have said, so how does that stack up to what you’ve seen? Where do we stand in your overall evaluation?
Which can be insightful in many ways but, obviously, learning what their perceived strengths and weaknesses are of your product so that you can address those.
You’re making sure that the next conversation is going to clarify that and you’re not going to be rehashing the same stuff. If it’s a competitive deal and you know who you’re up against, identify those key differences.
Differentiation is always important. And, in my experience, that has made the difference in many deals.
It all comes down to price at the end. But if you can explain why this approach is better, you will see optimal results. And if you go this route, here’s what’s going to happen.
It’s a bit of FOMO, it’s FUD, I guess.
And that’s a fair selling tactic. Make them a little uncomfortable.
Make them scared. Like, if I make the wrong decision, that’s going to hurt.
100% agree. Again, that roller coaster analogy, just always think about that.
Introduce the stakes, introduce the solution. And when talking about competition, if someone specifically name checks that, I think it’s perfectly fine to say, this is where we stack up, against specific competitors or this is how we can suit a need.
So don’t be afraid to dive into that either. I typically don’t name names, but, I’ll let our customers do that.
Nevertheless, it’s always good to have that initial research of understanding who the key players are, who we’re up against if we have that information to then specifically tailor the narrative for that.
And one more thing I’ll note is if it feels like it went well, maybe float the idea of a conversation with the implementation team or what would happen beyond this deal. If you think things are likely moving forward, that’s a great way to get their the temperature.
If they say, oh, yeah. I’d love to talk to your onboarding team and get a sense for what that’s going to take, that is often a strong buying signal.
If they say, yeah. You know what? We’ll schedule that later.
Might not be quite so encouraging. So try and keep the conversation moving.
We are running up to the end of our time. I wanted to go ahead and get one more audience question.
How do you adjust your approach when supporting upgrades or expansions versus totally new deals?
I can see Matt’s thinking, so I can start?
First, understand where the account is currently. Talk to the CS team, the folks who are managing that relationship, and get a sense for what’s going well, what’s not going well.
Where can we improve? If we’re trying to drive for expansion, what is going to unlock that growth? If it’s just fighting for renewal because they’re a churn risk, why? Where have things not delivered the way that we had promised so that we can address that head on? Don’t just go in there assuming things are hunky dory. Understand what the current state is.
Alright, Matt.
No. That’s almost exactly what I was thinking of saying as well.
You have to understand the relationship. And quite frankly too, I’ve been in those conversations where it’s not that we weren’t welcome, but that just it was a churn risk, and they need a different set of hands to save the relationship versus hearing about what’s new.
So I think it’s very important to understand those terms, and then just really understand some of their critical win stories and how you can expand that success. Right? For me, it’s a little bit of an easy story to say, hey. We primarily sell email marketing, and we’re going to push our mobile or SMS and understand those use cases.
So, of course, that’ll be different for your business. However, the upsell opportunity is laid out for you. But I think understanding that success and even repeating that back to them and seeing how they currently measure success from partners is absolutely critical, of course, in a net new business scenario, but even for upselling different products too.
And I mentioned the relationship with email and mobile. Not to get specific, but, there’s different criteria for success for getting someone to a mobile app versus getting them on a website versus making a purchase or having them go in store.
So understanding that new medium, if that’s a part of the upsell process, and understanding that those goals are vastly different from what you’re doing currently. But that’s a really great question, and it definitely comes up a lot for us, especially in the world of AI as we’re expanding to new products, new suites, new sets.
You know, usually the question is what do you do for AI? So you have to understand why would AI be impactful for you. It’s a great question to answer.
Yeah, I’d love to discuss that one in more detail.
We don’t have much time, but it’s valid. I had thought about this as new deal stories for the most part.
And I think it also depends on what you’re selling because how it’s being used by what teams will often impact the way you’re going to present that. But there’s a ton more to talk about than we have time left.
So good question.
Alright. And on that note, we are actually out of time.
Thank you again everyone for joining us today. And, Matt and Jason, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your expertise.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you all so much. We really appreciate your time too for listening in.
Yeah. Likewise.
Hopefully, we can do this again in the future.
