HappyGilmore

Account Executive

Sales Savages - Need Your Advice

Hey Sales Savages,

I was looking to get some advice on a deal that I'm currently working. Our partnerships team handed me an opportunity of an account looking to make a move to our software, however there's been some hurdles so far in the deal process.

The CEO is a pretty risk averse guy, and doesn't want to move over/sign a contract without going through a trial, something we don't offer under any circumstances, and he also asked for a back-out clause, which we don't do either. My next move is to get my original contact (their CTO) and the CEO on a call to discuss their concerns and discuss how we can move forward, while sharing that the longer they wait on making a decision to move forward, the longer they stay stuck in their current processes (which they aren't fond of).

What would you recommend doing in this situation moving forward? Any advice is much appreciated!

👑 Sales Strategy

10

25 comments

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UserNotFound

Politicker

6

Account Executive

I’ve never heard of a software company that won’t provide any POC period… what sort of software do you sell? Can you put CEO in touch with any current customers to talk through their experience?

braintank

Politicker

2

Enterprise Account Executive

Good move!

HappyGilmore

Politicker

2

Account Executive

I'm in MarTech sales. I think we've done a POC for a couple of larger customers, but not sure about SMB which is what I'm in (don't recall anyone doing it for SMB). I do like the approach when it comes to current customers, that's probably one of the best moves I can make at this stage. Thanks for the help!

CaneWolf

Politicker

0

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

Really? I can give you a massive list.

UserNotFound

Politicker

0

Account Executive

That provides absolutely no POC even via a 30day out clause? Legitimately have never run into this.

CaneWolf

Politicker

0

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

That is mind blowing to me. Pretty much any enterprise software platform would start this list..Oracle's ERP products, most SAP products, non-Shopify/BigCommerce ecommerce platforms, a bunch of the payments providers, etc.,

SmashAndGrab

Fire Starter

0

AE

Lots of enterprise software will take 3-6 months and lots of services $$$ to get implemented and 1-2 years to really get flying- think salesforce, oracle, big data etc

SmashAndGrab

Fire Starter

0

AE

And if it needs to be called a ‘POC’, it might be just a 12 month contract sized down for a specific department / use case , that if successful will roll out across the wider business

InQ5WeTrust

Arsonist

5

No marketing, mayo isn't an MQL

Do you view the CTO as your Champion? If so have you asked him on a call what the CEO's concerns are in advance of your joint call.

May enable you to put together a more targeted presentation/demo that addresses them, rather than addressing live.

Any way you can scope down v1 of deployment to ease the scaredy-cat into it?

Harder to go into more specifics without knowing deets.

MCP

Valued Contributor

1

Sales Director

If starting slow is an option, it’s a good one. Let’s just take this slow.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

I don't fully view him as my champion yet. He saw a demo of our platform with a member of our partnership team before the opp got passed off to me.

I have asked him this and he reiterated the CEO's overall risk averse concern. That being said, it wouldn't hurt for me to dig in harder to this, as I agree with you on the details part!

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

3

Sales

What can you trade internally for a POC? If the client agrees to support marketing, or a case study, or a video case study after purchase will that get the sign off? How big is your company and how big is the client? Would a quote from their CEO on your website help?

You’re gonna have to think outside of the box on this one.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

These are good ideas and great questions! It's a SMB account (segment I'm in currently), so I'd need to see if a POC is possible for this level of account as we've only done them for enterprise clients before.

I think some sort of customer testimonial could be a good tradeoff here if it means we can do a POC or something along those lines for them.

MCP

Valued Contributor

2

Sales Director

Gotta get the concerns out on the table, there’s a reason why the CEO is risk averse. Interestingly, you don’t get to be CEO without taking some risks.
Demo could help, but what would really help is similar references. What doesn’t help is pushing by reminding them of the cost of doing nothing. The risk aversion is a recoil, they don’t believe your solution will absolutely solve their problems.
Be empathetic, offer alternatives as I’ve outlined and by no means push harder at this point.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

This is sage advice thank you @chadilac , I think being empathetic with them and seeing if they're open to a customer call is a good play at this stage.

Diablo

Politicker

2

Sr. AE

You have some good comments here by others.

We had the same issues in one of my jobs. Though, we weren't giving trial, considering this company can generate bigger ARR, we gave a sandbox access (not fully functional) but that helped them do some work around and gave them confidence. Speak to your team to see if they can make this exception if you feel this conversion can reap some good $.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

2

Account Executive

We did give them a sandbox to play in, but they wanted to use us for 2 months to use our product before committing to a full year contract, which got shut down by my superiors real quick.

AlexGG

Opinionated

0

Senior Enterprise AE

Why specifically 2 months ?
In my business this screams « project based work » rather than ARR, which is a no go.
Might be worth making sure they are not just trying to address immediate needs instead of committing long term.

hh456

Celebrated Contributor

2

sales

I'd ask for approval for a trial period if they're willing to kill back out clauses. You could get them hooked during the trial period and they have to abandon all their efforts or take the deal. Most likely they'll move forward with the implementation.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

Result?

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

We ended up walking away from the deal as we we're unwilling to do a free month trial before onboarding them.

AlexGG

Opinionated

1

Senior Enterprise AE

Could you give them a 2+12 or 1+12 contract ? 1 or 2 month pilot that automatically converts into ARR.
Not a standalone pilot so you can sell it internally but the CEO would have to plan for a longer term budget and commitment.

HappyGilmore

Politicker

1

Account Executive

I don't think it hurts to ask my manager if it's something we can swing. It likely won't happen just since I know we haven't done anything like this previously, but worth asking.

CaneWolf

Politicker

1

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

I'm assuming there is a good amount of configuration/customization going on here due to the no trials piece. Do you have case studies, data, or anything along those lines?

SmashAndGrab

Fire Starter

0

AE

Im in the same boat, sell a product where we offer no POCs, no back out, and everyone else has made roughly the points that I hit when we get to this roadblock:
1) why is the CEO nervous. If they can state clear points, then you address them with points 2 or 3. If they can’t, this is usually when you can use a relationship you have elsewhere (sounds like the CTO) to kind of make the ceo feel a bit stupid for asking for the shorter contracts. CEOs are fundamentally rational, logical people and will not want to be a blocker to smart people who work for them
2) Customer references- the most common golden ticket in this scenario
3) a workshop- basically a long glorified demo, maybe starting some integrations etc with the CTOs support to show how easy/ automated/ complex, whatever your product is, that will eliminate risk for the client

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