TennisandSales

Head Of Sales

Acclaimed Answer

Discovery and Demo should be separate calls

Ive talked with a handful of folks about this concept. Im a very big supporter of having discovery and demo be two separate calls for a few reasons:

You allow your self time to really understand what is going on. The first problem people bring up is not normally the true need so having time to have an actual conversation and figure out what they are REALLY looking for is a big deal.
This allows for a better demo experience. If you know what you are doing you should be able to take the info you get on the disco call and apply it to the demo. This will make a bigger impact for the prospect and give you a better shot at winning the deal.
If you run the discovery call well it shows the buyer that you know what you are doing and understand how to help them.

If you get push back from prospects, and they just want to see a demo I say something like:

"I am more than happy to show you the product, many groups I speak to find it helpful to have a 20 - 30 minute chat before hand to make sure you understand exactly what we offer and for my team to better understand you needs. This way you know you wont be wasting your time or your teams time when we set up a demo. Does that sound fair enough?"

If your product is a lower ACV and does not require much work then Maybe you can disco and demo in the same call but you should be able to do a DEEP dive of the product in 30 minutes or less for this to work IMO.

Has anyone made a switch from a 1 call process to splitting this up into two calls? What have been the results?

👑 Sales Strategy

☑️ Qualification Calls

22

44 comments

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Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

6

ERP Sales

100% agree with this post. After reading the title I was going to bring up on more transactional/less expensive smb deals I did in the past would demo in the disco. It was a simple product which I can show them the tool and a specific feature they didn’t understand.

But I would never demo in the disco for more complex products

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

3

SaaS Eater

My thoughts exactly, if its small, simple, or transactional (or all of the above) it should be on one call. Gotta strike while the iron is hot.

Anything else it should be separate.

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

yep i agree. I once went from a more complicated product to a very transactional product, and i actually shot my self in the foot a few times trying to make the process more complicated then it needed to be haha

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

1

SaaS Eater

Keep it simple stupid

CuriousFox

WR Officer

1

🦊

Yeah, stupid. 🦡🧿

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

yeah totally agree.
I think this could be a good thing to look out for as an AE.

if the company wants to you "one call close" or demo and disco on the same call, its probably a very simple product and not a huge need for an AE long term.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

6

War Room Community Manager

can't see how any other way can be successful.

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

🙌🙌🙌

jefe

Arsonist

3

🍁

ALWAYS

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

💯

Pachacuti

Politicker

3

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Always at least 2 separate calls, if not more. Discovery is a never ending process. I tell people “ my demo is 8 hours long because I cover everything we do. If we do some mutual Q&A first then it’s 1-2 hours.” They like that better.

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

haha! wow i love this im totally going to steal that.

boredAnti

Tycoon

2

That One Guy

I agree with this, however, for how my company and our product is set up, as we are in the hospitality vertical and meeting held ratio is lower than most places I have worked due to staffing issues, we don't get the opportunity to schedule different meetings. With that being said, our platform makes it easy to integrate it as part of the conversation and discovery to uncover their pain points.

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

hmm yeah that can be a struggle. I would push back and say that the customer doesnt see enough of a reason to have two calls. if its important enough, they will make it happen.

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

At LEAST two calls. Sometimes for us it's the qualification call/Discovery call (led by AE)/pre-demo call (including SC) and then the demo. If that's cumbersome, we have combined pre-demo with discovery, or eliminated the pre-demo call entirely.

The more you know that goes beyond "I want to learn about x solution you're selling", the better off you will be.

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

yes 100%!

I have many times run a process that is more like:
- disco call
-pre demo sync
- initial demo
- Demo debrief call
- 2nd demo (deep dive on one aspect)
- 3rd demo (deep dive on separate aspect)
- pricing call
- integration call
- pre implementation call
Sign contract
-hand off call

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I should also mention that these are for enterprise sales - when you are dealing with potentially large ARR in a complex environment. If I was to be dealing with a smaller company, I would try to collapse the steps a bit and not annoy the customer. Enterprise customers get it and the deals are complicated enough to require many meetings.

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

great point. that deal structure above has been for TCV of $500k and up.

The $6000 deal is NOT getting that many meetings haha

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Only if you want to make your SE and the rest of your team LOATHE you.

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

haha and my boss!

adrienmc

Good Citizen

2

Founder @LaGrowthMachine

As always, it really depends on what you’re selling and its level of complexity (which is usually translated into the ACV).

For context, our ACV is fairly small (8k€ / year for SMB & 20k€ for enterprise) as we sell a sales automation software.

We went from 1h discovery + demo call into the same call TO 1h grouped demos every Tuesday followed by a 45min discovery + deep-dive call if demo confirms interests.

Deep-dive is different to demo with the grouped tour, people have a strong understanding of what they can do, and we can focus on solving their objections and tailoring their experience to their current problems (saving time on generic stuff with the grouped session).

We did that move because we had too many inbound requests to handle (we’re a bootstrapped company so not a big subsidized sales team) and couldn’t keep up with demo requests.

Stats wise, we went from a 31% conversion rate to clients after a discovery + demo to 21% conversion rate to clients after the grouped tour.

Bare in mind that not all people from the product tour will be offered a discovery + deep-dive call afterwards : it’s reserved for high plans prospects.

Also, we now have virtually no limit to the number of people being onboarded now compared to the human ressources constrained approach of individual demos.

We documented everything for those that have a similar sales complexity/cycle and would be interested in knowing more https://help.lagrowthmachine.com/en/articles/5101209-mastering-webinar-the-full-guide-to-a-successful-webinar-strategy

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

very interesting process. thats drop in conversion rate is not surprising to me.

adrienmc

Good Citizen

1

Founder @LaGrowthMachine

We expected the drop. But I was surprised it was not any higher actually!

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

why not make the qualification form/demo form more restrictive and see if you got a better quality lead ?

adrienmc

Good Citizen

1

Founder @LaGrowthMachine

So the 21% conversion rate post grouped demo (hosted by the sales team obviously✊) accounts for everyone attending the product tour. So it does include SMBs for which we don’t provide a dedicated 1:1 discovery + deep-dive.

If we were to compare the conversion rate of individual meetings in both approach, grouped session followed by deep-dive has a higher closing rate though I haven’t done the math lately. But I’m probably missing out on leads that will not agree on joining a grouped session.

Though generally, when explained that it’s the only way to make sure not to wait for a long time before getting a meeting, people are really understanding. And anyway, these demanding leads are offset by the sheer number of people we care onboarded in one hour with a grouped session

So the conclusion of the experiment is mostly that it wasn’t as valuable as we thought to host individual demos, rather a product session for the generic stuff and a dedicated deep-dive for specific valuable accounts

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

ahhh I see. vey very interesting. ive neve seen a group demo approach before. glad its working for you!

SaaSguy

Tycoon

2

Account Executive

If they push back that they want a demo I just ask them which of our half dozen products/version of our product they want. They always shut up then and let me ask my questions and then I can help them get the right product.

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

hahaha another solid approach.

ChickenDinner

Politicker

2

Account Executive

2 calls for sure. I'm in the SMB and often have people saying "Oh I thought this was gonna be a demo" and they always tempt me to shorten it but I always try to stay strong. Prescribing before you properly diagnose is malpractice

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

why do they think its going to be a demo? because thats not a good thing that they get something different than they expect haha

roftheyear

Opinionated

0

Account Executive

i hate it when they do that. it's like you were told on the phone this was going be a call about you. why are you expecting a fucking demo and a quote?

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

2

Rolling 20's all day

I find it's extra important to be selective with how I phrase the fact that we are only having a discovery call first - so I completely agree.

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

YES! you have to be very specific with your words in out reach so you dont set the wrong expectation. I use to screw this up all the time in financial services people would think its a meet and greet and them im trying to do a full on discovery. never went well

butwhy

Politicker

1

Solutions Engineer

LOUDER FOR THE SALES REPS IN THE BACK!

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

📣📣📣📣📣📣

GDO

Politicker

1

BDM

Yes! You need time to prep a fitting demo

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

I use to NOT think this way...then I realized the product I was selling at the time was just super simple and no need for much thought haha

salezkween

Opinionated

1

Enterprise Account Executive

I give them a snack. Identify top priority, show them ideal state of that specific problem. Get feedback ask for deeper dive

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

haha start off with a snack before the main course!

payton_pritchard

Executive

1

RSM

100% agree that this is ideal, but more and more I'm struggling with this.

With the rise of PLG/freemium sales models and the increase in available information to buyers I'm starting to feel that gating demos with discover may be a disadvantage.

What's the real benefit to them -- yes if we're doing a good job as sales reps, we should be teaching them something in discovery, uncovering problems, and all of that -- but how often does that really happen?

There's a huge benefit for us as sellers to getting good discovery on a stand-alone call but is that really the way people want to buy, and if the alternative is a competitive solution with no sales gates does forcing discovery risk losing opps?

TennisandSales

Politicker

1

Head Of Sales

great great points. if you do not have anything to offer, then dont get in the way of the buyer. i 100% agree with this.

if your discovery is just another step that serves you more than the customer there is something wrong.

in my experience i havnt had to "gate demos" with a discovery call. its a needed step to make sure the prospect get the most out of the demo. especially when the demo involved 5+ leaders.

ChumpChange

Politicker

1

Channel Manager

Depends on the sales velocity. More transactional/less complex deals/products... you can pivot from disco to demo pretty seamlessly. Complex deals need to be segmented into two separate sales motions.

TennisandSales

Politicker

0

Head Of Sales

yes deal size and structure come into play for sure.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

0

Professional Day Ruiner

I agree when it comes to larger/more complex deals with longer sales cycles. I've worked at companies before with smaller deal sizes and much faster sales cycles where I would disagree though. My first SaaS sales job was almost entirely a 1 call close type of situation. SDR would set the meeting, then 70% of your deals were generally from that first call. Qualification and demo combined took about 30-45 minutes. Average ACV was about 3k billed monthly.

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