Paul M. Caffrey (00:01.014)
Hello and welcome along to the Work Before the Work podcast. I'm your host, Paul Caffrey. Today is Monday the 23rd of September, 2024. And we're gonna speak a lot about demos. Before I get into that, I am pretty excited for the week, I have to say. I am coaching Discovery in a session with ambitious account executives. So looking forward to that, talking about the scripts, the structure and how to deliver, how to prepare for a Discovery session.
so that you can make the most of it. Interestingly, if we look back over the first half of 2024, EBSDA did a report where they saw that 17 % of account executives closed, 81 % of the revenue when they analyzed $54 billion of pipeline. And what was happening? What's the key finding that's behind that metric? The top performers were getting 90 % of all the information they needed by the time they hit discovery.
and they were three times more likely to qualify deals out of pipeline as opposed to most who would work a lot of deals which are half baked where they've got half the information and they were just not getting those deals over the line. As a result, slips deals are also up 44 % this year and that is not good for you. That is not good for the business. It's not good for anybody. So if you're looking at becoming an elite performer, you really need to be on top of your discovery and excited to be doing that session a little bit later today.
Also going to be going to the local enterprise board. So we worked up there on Tuesday. So I'm pretty excited about that. Find out what's happening and also looking forward to meeting a lot of other entrepreneurs and a lot of other sellers as well.
Paul M. Caffrey (01:45.116)
Then going to be having a podcast with Ant Morse. Ant Morse is a very seasoned executive who I know from many, moons ago, and he has written the book, Future of Us, and his new consultant firm are focusing on helping companies prepare for the future so that they are able to take advantage of the trends and what's going to happen. Really interested to get his take on AI. He predicted a lot around AI just before even ChatGPT came out.
and really looking forward to finding out what the next insights he has for us. So that was definitely going to be a fun podcast. It will be recorded tomorrow and it's going to be released in a few weeks time.
Paul M. Caffrey (02:27.798)
Also going to be doing a podcast with Richard Vanderblom, the LinkedIn expert. He's got over 200 ,000 followers. And if you're looking to build B2B pipeline, he really is a go -to guy. If you want to do that using LinkedIn, he shares a lot of great information. I'm sure a lot of you listening have probably seen some of the stuff before, and I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into what his take is on what account executives, SDRs, BDRs should be doing.
to make the most of LinkedIn because it is a really, really important platform for us, particularly in the tech sector.
Paul M. Caffrey (03:05.438)
And I liked one of the pieces of content he released just this week where he shared that LinkedIn, it's not just.
Paul M. Caffrey (03:14.228)
A first impression. It's a digital handshake with the world. I think that's very true. We've definitely seen LinkedIn evolve. It used to be a case of you have to have a LinkedIn profile for you to meet with somebody so they could see, yeah, you're a real person and you're actually doing business. And we were using it as a resume. Now it is so much more. It's really been used as a way to judge you, your company and if in fact you're potentially are the right fit for the business or if you're not. So very, very excited to be chatting with Richard.
And really to get his take on what it takes for B2B companies to build pipeline using LinkedIn.
Paul M. Caffrey (03:55.83)
And Thursday, I'm going to be at Dogpatch Labs with NDRC. They have their demo day. And this is quite a little bit different to what it was before, because rather than it just being the new startups in the Dublin hub, the startups from the Belfast hub and Ormeo Labs are going to join as well. So promise this will be a big day. There's going to be over 350 people at it. If you are there, say hello. We'd love to chat with you.
Paul M. Caffrey (04:25.0)
I'm pretty excited to meet some of the companies there, for example, Revium. I they're doing a really interesting project around outbound selling and personalizing outbound. So intrigued to see how they're doing and what results they're getting.
Paul M. Caffrey (04:41.0)
Also, Aquarium Security, they're doing a lot of work around cyber security threats and preventing business assets, which are key to your company from being compromised.
Paul M. Caffrey (04:57.238)
So I promise this will be a fun day. There's gonna be lots of companies pitching. There's gonna be a lot going on. So if you're around and you're there, let me know.
Paul M. Caffrey (05:25.302)
If you ask somebody to do something and they don't do it, should you be mad at them? For example, if you are chatting with your friends and you say, we must meet for a coffee in the next couple of weeks and they don't follow up, or if you are chatting to somebody who's working for you and you say, look, I need you to sort out your pipeline, and then a couple of days pass, maybe a couple of weeks pass,
And maybe your friend comes back and goes, I've got to I've got two tickets to go to a concert. Do you want to come along? Or that person that you've asked to organize their pipeline comes back to you goes, I found this great opportunity in this company, but they haven't organized their pipeline or your friend hasn't actually met you for a coffee or hasn't planned anything. Should you be mad at them or should you be happy at the fact that, well, they've brought something else into my life, which could be interesting, could be exciting. And if it is an opportunity to work on and they're working for you.
Well, that's great. That could be good for business. That could be good for them.
is you definitely shouldn't be mad at them because you have not made a very clear ask. And this is very similar to what I see when people are doing demos, particularly in the tech sector.
Paul M. Caffrey (06:39.092)
what the demo is, it is really there to help somebody make a decision. Yet so often we don't clarify what the decision is that we're asking the other person to make. In some situations, it can be a purchasing decision. So I'm going to show you the demo and then at the end, you can let me know if you want to proceed or if you don't. Other cases, maybe we want to be chosen as vendor of choice and be the number one option that you're going with and then enter into a negotiation phase.
Paul M. Caffrey (07:11.438)
Or it could be for sponsorship to demo to an exec team or to somebody else in the business. And a lot of account executives don't clarify the decision that they are asking the other person to make. And then they feel frustrated because they've gone to a huge amount of effort. They've done the discovery. We've customized the demo. We've really shared something that's compelling. That's going to have a real impact on the business. But the decision that we were asking the other person to make wasn't clear.
Paul M. Caffrey (07:44.373)
So there are three slides which I think are really key for you to have in your demo. And this also helps you clarify what decision you're asking the other person to make. So before you do any demo prep, before you attend that meeting, you want to be thinking to yourself, what's the decision that I'm looking for this person to make? And you want to be communicating that pretty early on within the demo itself. So a really good way of doing that is to share a mutual success plan.
at the start of the demo and it can have the dates of all the meetings and everything that's happened up to this stage. You'll have the demo scheduled in today. And then the steps that are needed to take that person from the demo through to being a signed customer, really, really crucially through to the value exchange, the return that they're going to get. Because yes, for us in sales, it's really key to get the deal over the line. But if you put yourself in the other person's shoes, it's really key for them.
after they make the spend and the outlay is to get the return, is to get that value, is to have that really deliver for the organisation. And we want to work with somebody to get to that point, not just get the signature.
Paul M. Caffrey (08:55.264)
So sharing a slide which outlines the potential next steps at the beginning makes a lot of sense. It lets them know that we're at this stage here, which is demo, and we're looking to ask you to make a decision to move to the next step, whatever that actually is. And we also have a timeline for the rest of the relationship going from contracting right the way through to value.
you come back to that at the end. So simply state that we'll look at this at the end. We'll see what parts of the demo resonates, what parts of the solution works for you, what doesn't. And then we can see if this makes sense. So don't pay too much attention to it now, but we'll come back to it at the end. And this really plants the seed in the mind of your prospect that, I'm going to have a decision to make at the end. And it's probably going to be to go from where we are today to the next step, or we're going to spend more time getting this part right.
Paul M. Caffrey (09:48.948)
Now, if you've done your job, if you have run a really great discovery before we even jump into demoing, we definitely want to clarify that what we heard and the information that was shared with us is accurate, that we've picked it up correctly. And most importantly, we want to understand if anything has changed. Hopefully nothing has, but sometimes a few days, a few weeks, a lot can change. So what works really well is if you just share some
Paul M. Caffrey (10:24.906)
phrases or some notes for what people have said, then you've popped on a slide and it serves as a really, really great talking point. And we can focus on the key areas that we think we can deliver the most value to and get the discussion going there. So is this accurate? What's changed? What would you like to add? What have we missed? So we get that conversation going and you start to even hone in on what is really, really important for them.
And maybe some aspects of it which may be less relevant that you can realize, well, maybe I need to ease back on that when I get into the stage of actually demo in a few minutes time.
Paul M. Caffrey (11:12.608)
Then the third slide, really recommend people having and a lot of people miss out on this. It is a value map and the value map. What it does is it connects where they are at the moment, their current situation to the desired outcome that they're working towards. But it isn't as direct as one to the other. There are a few steps that we need to take them through. And this slide really encapsulates that beautifully. So if we do it right.
We will have the current situation listed. And this is essentially the key problems that we will see within an organization. We would have the outcome that they're going towards, which is typically a bigger goal. And then we would have some key metrics below that are measurable. Or it could be some objectives that we believe need to be hit to achieve that bigger goal. So if you want to efficiently increase revenue by 20 % by December 2025, you may want to have increased your needs by 10 or 20.
per month, you may want to shorten your sales cycle time. You may want to have a higher CSAT score in customer success, which makes things more likely for you to get upsells. These three or four, it will be very different for every solution that is sold, but we want to be looking at what are the underpinning measures that we can impact that is going to produce that outcome that they're going after. So when we're clear on the objectives and the outcomes that they're going after,
The current situation is really the list of problems which exist in the organization that are preventing them from getting there today. So we're looking at three to five problems. We just put them under the wrong column and list them out. Now, what's really, really crucial and a of people miss this is what's the root cause? What does your prospect believe is the cause of that problem? And we want to list those root causes right next to that. So we've got the current situation, which is a list of problems.
Then we've got the root cause, is then listed next to it. The next part of that then is what are the capabilities of your solution? What are the key features? Typically there's only three to five features that people are really buying because they will turn the needle on when somebody is working toward what are those key features? And that is really what we want to be demoing. But we get them onto this slide to show that when we, are going to show you this feature and what we connect to that then is the business impact. What is the impact that will have for the organization?
Paul M. Caffrey (13:32.348)
And what we're doing is we're taking them from their current situation and their problems through to their root cause, share, linking that to our, the capabilities of our platform, and then showing the business impact that we will help them achieve. If you can add a little bit of proof onto this, that really, really is really helpful. So it can be a case of it being a case study. It could be a quote. It could be a voice of a customer or some sort of survey conducted by an external party.
If your company is bigger, you may have that. What is important is if you are shown some proof that it is relevant, that it is from a similar company in a similar industry of similar size and from a similar geography. If it is too far removed, it does the opposite. actually hurts you.
So when you think through your demos, are you clear on the decision that you're asking people to make? Do you have mutual success plans that you discussed at the beginning that you come back to at the end? And importantly, do you build out business value maps that are connecting the current situation of your prospect to their desired outcome, which clearly shows what parts of your product are going to take them there?
A lot of people don't do this. They do a big long discovery. They barely customize the demo and then they leave a lot of things up in the air and they're not clear on the decision that they're asking people to make.
Paul M. Caffrey (15:10.39)
So have a think about any demos that you have coming up and have you prepared adequately for them? Have you got a structure? Have you got those slides? Are you able to answer those questions or are you struggling to do so? Also, if it is something where you think I like that structure and I'd like to get the proper structure I should be sharing with my customers, shoot me a message and I can share with you a couple of slides that you can use as a template or as a guide that you can follow.
Paul M. Caffrey (15:38.612)
And if you like the idea of having a structured template to go through, which has your slides to follow, which then has the talk tracks there, which has the questions, which has the conversation pieces, which clearly articulates what you need to do to get all the information to move things on.
that shoot me a message, because I build these frameworks out for account executives and I help them build more pipeline and get close to their quota day after day.
Paul M. Caffrey (16:13.842)
Equally, your team is you want to bring this to your team as well. I'm workshops on that all the time. But what's fundamental is your organization may not have a strict process. Someone have any process at all, but also sellers, we should have a process and we should be keeping ourselves to these higher standards so that we can make the most of the opportunities that we're working that come into our world. So I hope you guys have a great week and I look forward to chatting to you soon.
