5 strategies to master your demo discovery meeting

Published on: December 17th, 2021

SEs usually puts in a lot of effort in rehearsing the demo, edit and re-edit until satisfied. But when it comes to discovery calls/meetings, many plan to speak off the cuff.  However, it is best to plan it out before the meeting. The discovery call is significant to uncover critical information earlier in the sales cycle. SEs can understand the customer’s pain points and figure whether the product is a good fit for a customer or not.

The following are 5 important strategies to follow during a demo discovery call.

  1. Identify your customer’s pain points 

During the demo discovery meeting, enquire your customer about the challenges they are facing. Understand how the customer is  planning to address these pain points. Do they have any deadlines?  

Discussion on pain points is a great tool for Sales Engineers, as they can influence the customer by recommending them the solution and become a trusted partner during the presales engagement. 

The pain points usually fall into  5 major types:

Financial- Your customers may be looking to apply tools for revenue growth or/and save money in operational or capital expenses..

Productivity- The current process might be time-consuming which leads to low productivity.

Process- Your customers may be planning to improve their internal processescustomers may not get the support they need during the critical stages of their business process.

The customer’s pain points might be diverse. Even when two customers have exactly the same problem, the causes of that problem differ from one customer to another. Thus, qualitative research is needed to identify the customer pain points. You can customize your pitch based on this information and present the products as the right solution during the demo.

  1. Identify the use case 

A use case helps the SEs in finding out the project scope, their goal and the expectation of customers from the product. Ask the customer about their problems and figure out how best they can be solved using the product. This information helps in creating a compelling demo and scope for evaluation (proof of concepts or proof of value). It will assist you to explore 

  • The context of the  customer’s pain points
  • What objectives customer is looking to achieve
  • Any preconditions or gaps that might affect the evaluation
  • How the use case can be accomplished
  • What  challenges you can expect during the evaluation process

The use cases should be captured with as much detail as possible. It will help in mapping it to the functionality of the product. Getting detailed understanding of customer requirements also helps in providing proper feedback to product teams. This also ensures that the right features are developed for any future engagements.

  1. How customers plan to use your product

Discuss with your customers on how they are planning to use the solution/product. Define a product vision that tells 

  • How the product works
  • What problem it solves
  • Who specifically benefits from the product and 

During the presales engagement, it is important to identify and recognize the champion of your product. He or she can guide how they can utilize the product, show its value that justifies the purchase. When a customer buys new product, it always benefits one or more people in the company. That benefit could come in the form of increased productivity, cost savings, better collaboration, more business and recognition of solving a problem (possible promotion for someone).  

  1. Ask follow up questions

Follow up questions are important to understand customer’s problems in detail. Sometimes,  a customer may reply to your discovery questions either in a single word or short sentences. These initial answers often don’t give good information about the pain points. The follow-up questions help you to identify additional aspects that can help in showing a demo of your product. It allows clarification on a topic and details of what is important for the customer. 

Once completing the follow-up questions, assess what requirements the customers really want. You can map the customer’s needs with your product’s features. Present the same during the demo and bring it to their attention. Connect the dots during the demo, show them that you understand their problems, and how your product can solve them. This leaves a good impression of you and your product on the customer’s mind.

  1. Find your customer’s priority

It is crucial to find your customer’s priority before working on their use case. Customers might not have the same set of criteria for evaluating the priorities that you/your organization does. Let your customers tell their level of priority on each task. This creates trust between the customer and you. Once the use cases are prioritized by the customers, you can then proceed to prototype the use cases and scale them into execution.

The chances for deal closure increases when right questions are asked during the demo discovery meeting. Success helps you with templated discovery questions. You can further sync your salesforce with Success so everyone from the sales team can access the discovery notes. Additionally, success easily captures discovery discussions saving a great deal of time for the SEs.

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