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The New Age of Presales
Copyright (c) 2022 Consensus, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2022 Sales Hero GmbH, Inc. All rights reserved.
]
*In the office*
It’s nearly the end of your day. You have plans to meet for dinner in thirty minutes with your spouse, kids, and another family.
You close the laptop and clean your office desk when suddenly your phone rings. You feel uneasy because it's your new Account Executive colleague Dana.
[[Do you answer the phone? →->2]]
[[Do you ignore the call and leave the office for dinner? →->6]]
*In the office*
You answer the phone.
"Hey, Dana. I'm literally on my way out the door. How can I help?"
Dana's voice was breaking up, and she spoke quickly as if out of breath. "Hey, I'm just off a call with a prospect. Really promising opp. Can you support me tomorrow? They want to understand how the analytics part of the solution works."
You get this uneasy feeling again as your stomach sinks to the floor. Dana just joined some weeks ago and is already on fire.
You always remember the term "happy ears" that your mentor taught you years ago. Account Executives interpret everything a client says as a buying signal.
[[Do you ask, "Why will we win the account?" →->3]]
[[Do you reject helping out? →->4]]
[[Do you agree to demo immediately? →->5]]
*In the restaurant*
You are having a great dinner with your family when your phone rings. You left it on top of the table after you and your wife shared the collection of photos you took from a recent trip.
Your wife answers the phone for you. The look on her face makes you feel uncomfortable immediately. With a serious expression, she hands you the phone.
"It’s your boss," she says.
You grimace and shake your head.
Ugh, speaking to Sandra was the last thing you wanted to do at 8:30 pm in a restaurant.
[[Do you answer the phone? →->7]]
[[Do you ignore the call? →->15]]
*In the office*
Lowering your voice and smiling, you say, "Nice that you thought of me for that. Just a quick question, why do you think we will win this account?"
Silence. You imagine Dana scratching her head.
"Yeah, sure," she says. "They’re interested, and there’s an architect who wants to understand our capabilities."
"Okay, and why does this customer need to change anything?" you ask.
"Well, the architect has this idea for a project."
"And how urgent is this idea?"
"Hmm, I don't know, really. I guess it is urgent; why else should the architect contact me?"
"Yes, cool. And why do you think they want our solution specifically?"
"That’s a weird question. You tell me."
"Well, I can't because I don't know how we are positioned to solve their pain areas. In fact, I don't even understand what their pain areas are."
"I told you, they wanted to see the Analytics part."
You sigh.
[[Do you agree to run a standard demo tomorrow? →->5]]
[[Do you tell Dana that you won't do it? →->4]]"Okay, I'll do it. No worries," you say without thinking too long about it. Just get out of this conversation and off to your dinner plans.
[[You join the client meeting the next day and run your standard demo. →->13]]
*In the office*
You don't feel comfortable with the information Dana provides. Also, it's a bit too late for you to make a decision.
Besides, family comes first. This opportunity won't run away, and Dana will survive, even if you don't help out.
"I'm sorry, Dana. I can't promise my support for tomorrow. I have to leave."
You heard her gulp before she said, "Wow, I was promised a different attitude when I joined this organization."
"It's not about you, but the opportunity. Additionally, it's 7 pm already, and I have a family to see. Let's speak tomorrow." Your throat is tight when you put down the phone.
[[You are driving to have dinner with your family. →->6]]*In the restaurant*
You answer the phone.
"Sorry to interrupt your family time," says Sandra, the VP of Sales.
You raise your eyebrows. If she were really sorry, she wouldn't have called.
"Don't worry," you say. "It must be important if you called me so late."
"It is. I want you to support Dana. She is our new superstar, and I need her to be happy. It’s tough enough to prospect those days, so she doesn't need internal pushback – especially when she’s just ramping up."
"Yes, I understand, and you’re right," you say. "Still, that doesn't justify that we Sales Engineers have to demo for unqualified accounts, right?"
"Honestly, I don't care how it happens, I want us to win deals. So, what's your proposed solution?"
You think for a moment.
[[Will you simply run a harbor tour demo tomorrow? →->5]]
[[Will you deploy bleeding edge digital presales technology? →->8]]
*In the office*
The next morning you call Dana back. You see her annoyed expression while she listens to you explain the new approach. She huffs a breath, clearly expressing the thought, 'Why is it so difficult to work with Sales Engineers?!'
You try to rescue the situation and relationship. "See Dana, the prospect works in two industries, requiring different approaches in our solution."
"Then prepare both," she said.
"I will. But in a different way than you may think. Let me record two Microdemos. Those get uploaded into our demo automation tool, and you send them out today."
"Why should they watch it?"
"Because it's short and sweet. They select what of the recorded information applies to them, and the demo only shows them the things they selected. We save them time by leaving out information they don’t care about, and we save our own time by learning what they are interested in."
"Okay, and you want me to send it?" Dana asks, seeming to understand your point of view.
"Yes, that way, you stay engaged, right?"
"And then?"
You pause to think over your answer.
[["Let me do some desk research to feed it into a discovery demo." →->9]]
[["That's it. I will shoot the Microdemos immediately." →->10]]
*Finale: The client call*
Your initial offerings were met with a tepid reception. Some routine verification questions seemed to annoy Dana as the customer was suffering from discovery fatigue. However, your efforts revealed that the intel you had initially received was flawed and you would need to pivot from a retail focus to a logistics focus on the fly, which you managed to positive effect.
Unfortunately, the delay resulted in insufficient time to present your full solution. As neither Dana nor the client could perceive or appreciate your acrobatic maneuvers, both left the meeting feeling unsatisfied with their demo experience.
[[Not the most ideal outcome. Maybe next time. →->14]]
*In the office*
Dana clears her throat before she says, "Discovery? Sounds like you want to torture the client with even more questions. You know, the SDR and I asked a lot already."
"Did any of your questions tell you why the prospect needs to change, why it's urgent and why there is no better fit than us?"
"Well, if I knew all that, I wouldn't need you," Dana said, annoyance in her voice.
"Exactly, that's why I like to run a Discovery Demo after they watch the automated demos."
"Okay, what’s this Discovery Demo thing?"
"Just a normal conversation with the client. I prepare the Big Three: Three industry trends the prospect is facing, three initiatives to mitigate or use them, and three solutions of how we can help."
"That sounds useful. Let me help you with that."
"Cool! Agreed."
"And then?" Dana asked.
"Then we will talk about their pains and how we might be able to help. Once we’ve covered the background and context, I’ll pull up our tool and concretely show them."
"Great, so you have a demo environment ready?"
"No, but I use a demo tool to customize it quickly. It's straightforward once I get the big three and know which industry we are talking about."
"Wow, sounds like you have a plan."
"No, *we* have a plan."
[[You do your Big Three desk research and continue to shoot the Microdemos →->10]]
*In the office*
Retail and logistics. Those are the industries Dana's prospect could possibly be interested in.
You load two of your industry-specific apps. Then you start screen recording and explain the essentials of your solution to the retail domain. You delete two from the five minutes of raw recording to reach the magic length of three minutes.
Then you repeat this process with the logistics side of things.
Once edited and uploaded into the demo automation platform, you create a small questionnaire to guide the prospect to the correct videos and cheekily get some more information on the cost of waiting. You love the question: "What would be the damage to you when your competitor solves the problem first?"
Now, you call Dana to send out the questionnaire, and then you wait.
The prospect seems serious about the problem because they watch the Microdemos and answer all the questions within an hour.
Dana is so impressed that she immediately comes to your desk. "What kind of sorcery is this?! I can see exactly what part of the video they watched and even re-watched. And look at that, they forwarded it to their VP! I’ve struggled to get in touch with her the whole of last week."
You smile. "Great, then let's have our discovery call with them. What do you think?"
"Big time! Thanks for pushing me along this way."
[[Jump into the "Discovery Demo." →->11]]
[[Continue to the demo call. →->12]]
*Finale: The client call*
The prospect call felt fabulous. Because they knew your voice and face from the Microdemo, the people in the room immediately opened up and were curious.
Before answering technical questions, you leverage your prepared questions that were informed by some industry research you did that exposed an unexpressed need of your client.
This insight spawned a whole new conversation purely based on business value. Dana excelled, and you could feel her enthusiasm.
The client proposed a set of next steps, one of them to meet the economic buyer and make a case with him.
After a bumpy start, your professional relationship with Dana is set up for massive success. A great team was born.
[[You struggle to fall asleep that night, still thinking about what happened.→ ->14]]*Finale: The client call*
The prospect call felt good. Because they knew your voice and face from the Microdemo, the people in the room immediately opened up and were curious.
You were called into technical discussions about the solution that led to a good business case. Dana was happy because it meant a solid start for her career.
The client proposed a set of next steps, one of them to run a PoC with your solution.
After a bumpy start, things are smoothing out with Dana. You convinced her that automated demos greatly added to her prospecting efforts.
[[In the evening you relax in your garden. With a smile, you reflect on what happened. →->14]]
Thanks for playing our first Sales Engineer Choose Your Own Adventure game presented to you by <a href="https://saleshero.training" target="_blank">Sales Hero</a> and <a href="https://goconsensus.com" target="_blank">Consensus</a>.
If you feel you could have reached a different result, why don't you run the game again? Maybe you will even discover a new path to solve it.
We, as the authors, would love to get your feedback. Was that story resourceful, inspiring, and was it fun?
Please let us know!
If you want more visceral stories about Sales Engineers, check out Patrick Pissang's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B09FGWX49S" target="_blank">The Social Sales Engineer</a>.
If you want to be informed about Demo Automation, watch the <a href="https://play.goconsensus.com/7768cfbf" target="_blank">Consensus introduction video over here</a>.
(link: "Restart")[(restart:)]
*In the restaurant*
You ignore the call.
You figure that this call with your boss can wait until tomorrow.
You go back to your previous conversation about your trip.
You enjoy your dinner but you can’t help but wonder why your manager was calling so late.
What surprises will you face tomorrow? Did you just risk losing your job?
[[Next →->14]]