mistamor

VP of Sales

Challenges as a new AE doing demos

anyone here is a new AE? what are some challenges that you're experiencing with your demos and closing ?

I know it's a bit of a broad question but I guess if we were to get specific, challenges that's holding you back from being able to have a high demo win rate.

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18 comments

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Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

What can be a challenge for me is honing in on the value for the customer during the course of a demo. It is very easy to get off track and get too much into the weeds on things that might be commodities or will turn out to be not important. Editing so that the demo is impactful and not too overwhelming is also a personal challenge for me. I find it hard to leave things out, but have to remember to focus on what's important for the customer.

mistamor

Opinionated

VP of Sales

That's awesome self-awareness. Curious, why do you feel that it's hard to leave things out?

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Because everything is important...to somebody.

So I have to edit out what isn't important to that customer, no matter how much I know it's something I'd like to let them know.

mistamor

Opinionated

VP of Sales

do you ever just ask the prospect, "out of those [goals] you mentioned, what's the top 3 that's a must have?" this way you just focus on those 3?

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Before a demo, ideally I've had some good discovery before even progressing to a demo, so I'll do my own work up front to make sure that the presentation and demo are relevant. The goal is to have everything we show and discuss be important to the customer. Yes, I'll be up front all along the way to find out what's important - and there are many other factors, too. My Enterprise process can be complex. What is important to one LOB may not be to another, so I have to keep asking and probing.

saashunter2.0

Executive

Mid-Market Account Executive

Our biggest demo challenge has been for our product SME to show too much and be specific enough the prospect’s use case/pain area. We spend too much time showing off the power of our platform and not enough time nailing down BANT

mistamor

Opinionated

VP of Sales

I've been hearing that from a few other folks (offline). I wonder why that is?
Some ideas that I was thinking that causes that:

1. excitement over the software
2. eager to show value beyond 1 or 2 features
3. not enough discovery so causes folks to show more vs less

why do you think?

saashunter2.0

Executive

Mid-Market Account Executive

One reason is that the SME is the product expert and gets too excited and we (sales) get caught up in ourselves too much. We have prep well for each call with questions we will ask

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

I found it difficult to time manage and do all different stuff togheter.

Clashingsoulsspell

Politicker

ISR

Our biggest demo challenge has been for our product SME to show too much and be specific enough the prospect’s use case/pain area.

GDO

Politicker

BDM

I found it difficult to time manage and do all different stuff togheter. I was a full cycle AE with bi weekly meetings with current clients.

mistamor

Opinionated

VP of Sales

In terms of demos or the overall role?

GDO

Politicker

BDM

The overal roll. Prospecting up until closing while managing clients was quite a lot for somebody who had basically no background.

tbh I never did any SDR work and just became an AE out of the blue.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

There could be multiple challenges - demo, product, discovery and objection handling, time management etc. Best is to sit with your team members, understand how they do things, what's are the top challenges they have and how they solve. Ask if they have any roadmap for you to get started.

mistamor

Opinionated

VP of Sales

out of those top level ones you mentioned, is there one that you in particular are dealing with?

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Yes time management.. especially with high level demo that becomes impossible when you end up spending more time discovering. I ask my prospects before hand what they want to discuss, when I don't get a reply I face this. Not always though

aiko

Politicker

Sr. Account Executive

If you can spend the first full 30 minutes on Discovery, then you will be in a solid place. I know that as a new rep, you may not be able to find enough questions to fill 30 minutes, but you can also treat it as a discussion and ask questions out of general curiosity.

MR.StretchISR

Politicker

ISR