HappyGilmore

Account Executive

Pure Discovery vs. Disco/Demo

I know there's been previous posts about why a first call for purely discovery is better, but wanted to get the WR's thoughts on that versus the first initial call being a mix of discovery & demo.

For some context, I'm used to the initial call being purely discovery without showing any of the platform. Now, I'm in a a situation/position where our SDR team asks a few qualifying questions for inbound prospects, then passes those leads over to us, and our process is to do some discovery and a high level demo in our initial 30 minute call with the prospect. It's used purely at an SMB level and doesn't apply to our mid-market and enterprise team.

For anyone who's done the latter motion of disco/demo in the first call, what are some pros and cons of that type of call?

What's a better initial call?

Attached poll

Pure discovery Half discovery/Half demo

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

👑 Sales Strategy

☑️ Qualification Calls

11

26 comments

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SaaSguy

Tycoon

8

Account Executive

Full discovery! In the end you will need multiple calls anyway - doing a short discovery means even if they love the half demo you show you probably need a full demo anyway and then another discovery call to understand their buying/procurement process.

You basically have incomplete discovery and incomplete demo, I don't think its a good thing to do. Maybe a quick glance into the UI at most.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

5

🦊

Nice to see you 🥂

HappyGilmore

Politicker

2

Account Executive

Agree with you on this. At this stage for the half demo/disco, they get a super high level look into the UX of it but nothing too deep. I personally do like those calls being separate.

Filth

Politicker

7

Live Filthy or Die Clean

PURE DISCO (bonus points for naming the classic):

Fenderbaum

Politicker

4

Retired Choirboy🪕

Is that @BmajoR on the right?

I want my bonus points... I watched Airplane! as a teenager.

Filth

Politicker

2

Live Filthy or Die Clean

bonus points to @Fenderbaum!

Fenderbaum

Politicker

2

Retired Choirboy🪕

Woohoo!

jefe

Arsonist

3

🍁

Beat me to it again, Filthy.

THIS

Filth

Politicker

2

Live Filthy or Die Clean

mwahaha gif fast and die young :D

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

5

Sales Rep

I started to do a quick teaser of the product, either a quick video or one feature. Sahil’s bad sales advice series had one of this that I thought made sense

.And if it’s the smb level, I feel like deals are super quick so ifs an inbound might as well make it a quicker process

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

I like that idea of a quick video, might have to use this from an outbound perspective.

Diablo

Politicker

4

Sr. AE

I am assuming it’s a high transactional business with small ticket size. Also prospects can sign up for a free trial?

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

typically its a 60 day deal cycle. no free trail but as things progress we can set a trial up for them. That being said, myself and others are not having success with trials vs. a workshop with both teams on a call.

Diablo

Politicker

1

Sr. AE

Damn, that could be a bit challenging. Is there any criteria where the leads are categorized into high and low. Two things I can think of - either BDR should deep dive into get more information than just asking a few basic ones or convince the management to pass those leads directly to the AEs lol

HVACexpert

Politicker

3

sales engineer

Maybe case by case? If the discovery drives you toward a quick demo then by all means, if not don’t push it on them

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

Totally, I've had a couple calls recently where the flow took us to full disco versus trying to get them in the platform.

oldcloser

Arsonist

3

💀

This does work with SMB. Shouldn't be a problem as long as the lead comes with detailed notes. Better yet, if you know what's in the BDR script, you'll know what exactly has been asked and answered.

It's a terrible CX when you ask the same qual questions as the BDRs.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

Most of the time there are pretty detailed notes as the BDR's have a set of questions they'll ask. Only time where it could hurt is when their responses to questions are short/not much substance around the answers.

oldcloser

Arsonist

1

💀

Normal battle there. Does the SMB offer allow a 1-call close?

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

It does not, typically right now there's 4 to 5 steps overall within the process since multiple stakeholders are involved/won't sell below a certain threshold of licenses.

oldcloser

Arsonist

0

💀

Was really just curious with this question. Got nostalgic...

Sunbunny31

Politicker

3

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Cycle time cycle time cycle time.

A disco/demo can make sense for a short sales cycle (eg SMB). MM might work too, depending. As an EAE, I'm not thrilled that some of our execs think that a disco/demo makes sense to shorten cycle times for Enterprise (it doesn't). The exception is for a very small deployment at a small department where they're legitimately not looking for full enterprise solution. HOWEVER, the sales cycle inevitably takes a super long time just because procurement processes will have their way with timing.

So yeah, as an EAE, not a fan of disco/demo but do like that if someone brings something up on an early call, I can slide into a trial environment and quickly show how it works. That said, I don't like having the rep-led demo mandated. As mentioned, it leads to incomplete discovery and incomplete demo.

Maximas

Tycoon

2

Senior Sales Executive

All The Way To Me!

Pachacuti

Politicker

2

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

hotly contested topic. I prefer to go full disco in the first call in order to best determine what exactly to present. But my company sells a large suite of solutions, so its necessary.

If you only sell 1 thing, then you can probably do the half/half.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

I agree with you on the preference for full disco call.

My org sells one main product and then there's some premium products within as well but typically at the SMB level those premium products are brought into the deal cycle far and few in between.

FinanceEngineer

Politicker

1

Sr Director, sales and partnerships

I hate jumping into the demo without the full product being understood. Otherwise, you might get called out on something minor without having a ready to go answer.

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