The wrong way to sell. Please stop the "Dash-to-the-Demo!"

Friends & Colleagues:

If you are in a leadership role, you probably receive dozens of cold calls, email blasts, marketing campaigns, and contact attempts from the latest SaaS technology and solution providers that claim to have incredible new capabilities to: “create efficiencies”, “increase productivity”, “strengthen customer relationships”, “get more sales”, “close more deals”, “improve teamwork and collaboration”, “remove barriers between silos”, “drive accountability and transparency”, “improve the customer experience”, and on, and on, and on - BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I have no doubt some of these technologies are awesome and can truly deliver on their claims. But here’s my issue…

More than 90% of these 140-character, super-vague power-statements are followed-up with the ask: “I’d like to schedule 15 minutes on your calendar so we can give you a demo of our solution…” 

It is happening so frequently, that I thought I better give everyone an answer that might be planning to call me or send me an email with this approach.

The answer is, NO! 

This is just as ridiculous as asking me if I want a demo of the four-seat bicycle in the picture at the top of this article. I'm sure it's cool and useful to someone, but why would I need a four-seat bicycle? (Yep, count them. There are four seats on this SUV of a bicycle I saw in Amsterdam last year.)

Now, don’t take this the wrong way. I totally understand that these salespeople are just doing their job. I get it. I am a sales guy at heart, and I appreciate what they’re trying to accomplish. So, before anyone over-reacts, just hear me out for a minute or two.

I started my career selling in the B2B enterprise software space. I know how hard it is to convince a prospect that a “nice-to-have” piece of technology should really be considered a “must-have” for their business. It requires turning over a lot of rocks and finding real business problems worth solving. I can completely relate to the fact that it takes a bunch of calls and a lot of hard work to develop a good prospect. No question or debate from me.

Furthermore, every company in the world needs to prospect and hunt for new business. A good salesperson needs to keep feeding the pipeline with warm leads, prospects, and new qualified opportunities. These salespeople that are trying to contact me are just doing what they are paid to do – hunt for new business! I expect the same from our 1,000+ salespeople around the world so there is no argument here. 

So then why am I annoyed? What’s my beef (or plant-based alternative concern)? Why is this article titled “The wrong way to sell”? I’ll tell you, and I’m even going to give you a few things to consider for improving your effectiveness.

First, I think power-statements are getting way-too-vague and too-mashed-up. It is getting to the point of over-use and misuse. Sadly, it’s become a necessary evil in today’s 140-character-attention-span world. I understand that the modern “elevator-pitch” needs to try and hit a potential pain and benefit as fast as possible to get someone’s attention. But many are so vague now, that they are just terrible. They sound like a mash-up of B.S. Bingo.

“…we harness big-data and leverage artificial intelligence to capture real-time insights that increase the quality of information which ultimately improves the customer journey, drives revenue velocity, and creates shareholder value…”

Wow! I bet you do! But what the heck do you do? (Oh you are a reporting tool.) Why do you think I need that right now or even want to see a demo of it? (DELETE) 

Even though I made that one up, it isn’t too far off some of the stuff that comes across my inbox. (I bet there is an A.I. or B.I. company that is going to think it’s great and will want to use it. P.S. You can have it as long as you send me 1% of the commissions from the new sales it creates. I'll keep an eye out for the checks to roll in.)

RECOMMENDATION 1: Please be specific. I don’t have time to sift through all these phrases. Get rid of the B.S. Bingo, and just tell me what you do. Then, feel free to ask me IF (and how) that might be relevant to me based on my current needs and concerns. 

RECOMMENDATION 2: Better yet, why don’t you ask me what’s important to me BEFORE you make some claim that you can help me. Now there’s a novel idea! Let’s get back to basic sales fundamentals. Stop the “dash-to-the-demo" approach and get back to DISCOVERY! Detailed discovery comes BEFORE solutions and demos. Period. If you try and learn my problems first, before you pitch your solution and a demo, I will respect you a lot more, and I might even give you the 15 minutes you are requesting. You may not have a solution to my problems right now…and that’s OK.

Here’s my second issue. 

Many companies use an internal inside-sales team or an outside third party lead-gen firm to do their prospecting. This is an established approach and can work well for your business if it’s done right. I have no issue. The problem is when the messenger can’t answer some of the basic questions I might have. My issue is when his or her only mission is to secure an appointment for someone else that is going to want to try and give me a demo and sell me. Not the best idea.

Here’s a real-life example from just last week.

I surprised a polite young salesperson last Tuesday by actually answering my phone. He was so startled (and was gearing up to leave his standard voicemail) that he didn’t know what to say for the first few seconds. Once he regained composure, he started the call with the typical “I’d like to get 15 minutes on your calendar to show you how we blah, blah, blah…”. 

The power-statement was good enough (and specific enough) that it got my attention. But as soon as I asked a question…he couldn’t answer it. He was 100% focused on securing an appointment and a demo for someone else that would talk to me. I asked a second question, which I thought was even more basic than the first. Sadly, he gave me the same response: “…if we can just schedule 15 minutes with our client manager, Mike Know-it-all, he can give you a demo and answer that question for you…”. 

Nope. Time’s up. You had your chance and you blew it. 

I wish I could have shared this experience with his CSO and CEO. It was cringe worthy because he captured my attention for a moment, and then couldn’t capitalize on it. It was a missed opportunity for that company.

RECOMMENDATION 3: I recommend that you train your prospecting teams on how to ask initial, focused probing questions that will help both of us determine if there is a potential fit. Train them with an actual understanding of what you do and how you do it. Arm them with the answers to some frequently asked questions. Invest in QUALITY prospecting versus quantity. Either that or go back to the original concept of having outside field salespeople do their own prospecting (“GASP”). 

Bottom-line: Too many tech companies and their salespeople are slinging power-statements and demos around like beads during a Mardi Gras parade. It pains me to watch some of these prospecting and selling approaches. 

Please understand that most executives are not interested in trying to decode your vague power-statement, or watch a bunch of random demos. You’re not going to show me a demo of your technology and hear me say, “wow…where have you been all my life?” It doesn’t happen that way. Plus, where is the actual “selling” in that?

As executives, we all have 2 or 3 major priorities that are top of mind at all time. We rarely have enough time in the day to do what needs to be done. So, if you want to sell to me, let’s get back to basics. Learn what’s important to me first, and then determine if and how your solution might be able to help me achieve my goals. If you do your homework, maybe you’ll get the 15 minutes on my calendar you’re looking for. Until then, I am sorry, but the answer will be NO.

TAKE-AWAY:

1. Remember that DISCOVERY has been, and always will be, the most important part of the sales process. Sell by LISTENING...not show-and-tell.
2. Learn about my issues, pains, goals, and objectives before you try and sell me something. Understand my “WHY” & “SO WHAT?”.
3. CLARIFY your message. Get rid of the B.S. Bingo.
4. Be able to articulate how you connect your “WHAT” & “HOW”, to my “WHY”. How do you solve a real issue for me that I have right NOW? You can’t answer that unless you do your homework.
5. When we get on the phone, you better be PREPARED to answer some initial QUESTIONS that I might have.
6. Then and only then can we mutually agree IF a demo is an appropriate future step in the sales process.