Demo movies are the way in which ahead for any Options Advisor or enterprise gross sales staff chief. Learn to effectively use demo movies to speed up your technical gross sales cycle and shut extra offers.
I do know from expertise that scaling Options Consultants (SCs) and gross sales groups as an entire could be a problem, as I’ve witnessed the way it can take as much as 24 months to completely mint a brand new Options Advisor. Demo movies are the answer for rising B2B software program corporations when scaling their enterprise gross sales groups and, specifically, their technical gross sales groups.
As a result of assorted function, Options Consultants should be capable of stroll a prospect by means of a product demo, focus on in-depth challenges and scope options to these challenges. With such an extended time-to-value, growing headcount isn’t the reply for high-growth corporations with out the usage of demo movies.
- Contents
- 1. Growing Options Consultants’ Effectivity By way of Demo Movies
- 2. Decreasing the Variety of ‘Wasted’ Demos with Demo Movies
- 3. Delivering Extra Shopper Worth with Demo Movies
- 4. Demo Movies Present Extra Time for Differentiation
- 5. Stakeholder Mapping By way of Demo Video Analytics
- 6. Demo Movies Add Worth
This can be a problem I used to be lately dealing with in my very own group. We wanted to scale quick in addition to improve our aggressive benefit and regain management of the gross sales cycle. It appeared like an not possible activity, however I seemed in direction of using demo movies within the gross sales cycle for the reply.
I, and plenty of others, consider this would be the way forward for B2B gross sales. Forrester lately predicted that B2B sellers will grow to be specialists at creating and fascinating with video. And, based on Vidyard, the change is already taking place. The usage of one-to-one video (most frequently utilized in gross sales conversations) exploded with a rise from 7% in 2019 to 40% in 2020, representing a 471% improve year-over-year.
On this article, I’ll take you thru my experiences in introducing demo movies to the technical gross sales cycle.
Growing Options Consultants’ Effectivity By way of Demo Movies
As a way to scale our firm quick, the primary level of focus was to extend the effectivity of our SCs. This may enable us to cowl extra alternatives out there with out growing headcount.
Many organizations will acknowledge this problem; you could have a short discovery (or wants evaluation) name with a prospect and this results in a reasonably normal demo video, displaying off all the most effective performance of your product. The demo goes properly, however the alternative in the end goes chilly.
Maybe the demo wasn’t correctly tailor-made to the prospect’s wants? Maybe you solely had contact with a single stakeholder? Both approach, the chance has exited the gross sales cycle and the trouble spent on the invention and demo has been wasted.
What quantity of demos are wasted like this? What number of alternatives exit the gross sales cycle after the demo stage? 30%? 40%? Extra?
That was after I started exploring the introduction of video into the demo course of. I made a decision that we may ship out high-level demo movies of our product earlier than the reside demonstration. After all, these movies needed to be tailor-made based mostly on the invention name, displaying the weather of the answer that can be most dear to the prospect.
Right here is an instance of a 3-minute demo video of the performance of reside streaming in Vidyard.
Gathering analytics on who has watched the demo movies, can act as a secondary stage of qualification. If a prospect can’t spare the time to observe a 15-minute video, then possibly you must change your messaging, ache level angle or video size.
Decreasing the Variety of ‘Wasted’ Demos with Demo Movies
The influence of this for us was tangible and actual. As I’m positive is the case in lots of organizations, SCs are a finite useful resource. Account Executives are vying for the most effective sources they consider are required for his or her alternatives. This could typically pose a problem the place we want to guarantee the correct sources are being assigned to the most important, most strategic offers.
By introducing demo movies into the enterprise gross sales cycle, we’re in a position to make use of them as a brand new stage of qualification. We now solely enable SCs to carry out reside demos after each a distant prospecting discovery name has taken place and all stakeholders have watched the 15-20-minute overview demo video of the answer.
By removing these non-opportunities, it permits SCs to take a extra invaluable function within the group. Somewhat than repeating overview demos for alternatives that will not be correctly certified, they will focus extra of their time on the bigger, or extra strategic offers.
The oldsters at PostBeyond created an ideal 2-minute product demo video to provide their prospects some context earlier than a gathering.
Delivering Extra Shopper Worth with Demo Movies
In addition to removing the non-opportunities, we discovered that sending demo movies of the answer earlier than the reside demo can lead to different advantages. Stakeholders come to the demo assembly with a base degree of training of what it’s your product does and the way it works. This implies you possibly can spend your invaluable face-time on an important areas in your prospect quite than giving a harbour tour of your resolution.
It hit house for me what a game-changer the usage of demo movies is within the following instance.
I had carried out a discovery (wants evaluation) name with a prospect and had despatched them the related demo movies based mostly on their necessities. Earlier than going into the reside demo, each single stakeholder had watched that tailor-made video. Once I started the demo, I requested in the event that they wish to see the primary a part of the answer once more. They might have already seen this within the overview demo, however this was the bread and butter of the product which we’d count on to cowl in virtually each demo.
Amazingly, they replied “No thanks”.
As a substitute, that they had a listing of questions based mostly on the demo movies. I demoed solely the areas that have been most necessary to them in a really agile atmosphere. Not solely did this end in a extremely tailor-made demo for the consumer, however it additionally created a much more conversational strategy, which ends up in constructing all-important rapport with stakeholders.
Matt Corridor from Woodway UK made an unboxing demo video to point out prospects the place they’re going flawed with packaging, and the way he may also help. To double down he additionally used the Vidyard bubble function over prime of his unboxing video in order that he may stroll the prospect by means of the pitch.
Demo Movies Present Extra Time for Differentiation
Most significantly, as a result of SCs are not inclined to carry out ‘harbour tour’ or ‘art-of-the-possible’ demos, they’ve extra time to deal with the consumer’s particular wants in addition to on the areas of the product which can assist it stand out from the competitors.
In the end, with stakeholders attending demo conferences having a base degree of training of the answer, extra time might be spent on overlaying the prospect’s questions, particular necessities and aggressive differentiators.
Stakeholder Mapping By way of Demo Video Analytics
Over time, I’ve witnessed first-hand the dangers of partaking with a single stakeholder. There’s a danger of the chance going chilly. They may cease replying to emails, they may change roles and even depart the group. If there isn’t a relationship with different stakeholders, this could jeopardize a possibility.
An enormous a part of the thought of introducing demo movies to the gross sales cycle was the power to regain management of a gross sales cycle by monitoring who had watched every demo video and particularly who it had been forwarded to. The expectation was that we’d be higher geared up to map out stakeholders within the gross sales cycle and mitigate the danger of a dependency on a single particular person.
By gathering analytics on who has considered demo movies (and for a way lengthy), we are able to construct an image of how engaged every stakeholder is. In the event that they don’t hassle to observe the demo video, maybe the chance isn’t as actual because it appears. The identical is true in the event that they merely skip by means of demo movies with out paying consideration. For that reason, we now require all stakeholders to have watched an outline demo video earlier than assigning an SC to a possibility to cut back the variety of wasted demos.
RouteThis used video to showcase their app and gauge the curiosity degree of the individual watching based mostly on their viewing conduct.
Conversely, if we are able to see good engagement in demo movies, we all know the chance has legs. What’s extra, if the demo will get shared across the stakeholder’s friends there’s clearly engagement in that group within the gross sales course of. Account Executives can see who a demo video has been forwarded to which helps construct a stakeholder map of that chance. Most of the time, these are stakeholders who wouldn’t have been found by means of a gross sales cycle that didn’t make the most of video.
Though this was an anticipated final result of the venture, what I didn’t anticipate was the dimensions of this could influence the gross sales cycle. We now have found (on common) greater than two new stakeholders on every alternative. That has taken an enormous quantity of danger out of the pipeline the place alternatives have been beforehand depending on a single stakeholder.
Demo Movies Add Worth
By using video within the gross sales cycle, we have now elevated the effectivity of SCs by lowering the variety of ‘wasted’ demos. This implies we’re in a position to cowl a higher variety of alternatives with out growing headcount. We now have a much better understanding of the extent of engagement of alternatives as we are able to see who has watched every video. This feeds into our stakeholder map for every account and helps cut back the danger of alternatives with a single stakeholder.
However most significantly, we are able to now add extra worth to shoppers and prospects. SCs are typically extremely expert people who’ve an unlimited in-depth understanding of the challenges solved by software program. As a substitute of losing their time with ‘art-of-the-possible’ demos, they will have deeper discovery conversations and assist problem their prospects’ mind-set. It will certainly result in happier clients in the long term.