45
8 Comments

I close approximately 75% of my demos, here are three reasons I think contribute to that.

1 - I speak to prospects / leads in their language, as humans.

When I first started in SaaS sales, I read a lot of the standard books and common blog resources. One of the biggest problems I created for myself was using language from these resources when talking to prospects. Questions like 'What is the problem you are looking to solve?' and "What are your pain points?" are actually quite jarring, and 99% of time don't get you any insights.

"What led you to book this call today?" or "What's the reason for our call?" are much more natural and offer a much more fluid starting point for an exploratory call.

2 - I Don't feel pressured to get into a feature comparison, shoot out. SaaS is a pretty competitive space in general so there is usually an alternative to your platform. The most common question you usually get is 'How are you different to x?"

The most obvious thing would be to go back with your key difference or 'value proposition' as expensive consultants call it. However, it's sort of like Russian Roulette. At that point, you have no idea if the key difference is what they are after. One simple question you can ask to get to the bottom of why they are talking to you is "Can I ask why you are looking for an alternative to x?"

It will immediately get you to the right features to focus on (if you have them.) To be honest, most time it comes down to cost but at least you have the right starting point.

3 - I Follow up. Seriously don't feel bad about this, just be realistic. Someone's time looking for a new software tool may be like 5% of their day. The other 95% of the day is about running and making decisions about their own business. Things can get put on the back burner for completely valid reasons. So follow up...but always take new information to them.

"I just wanted to follow up" or "Just circling back on this..." are really pestering and offer no value. Compared to "I wanted to send through a case study" or "Here are some reviews of our product from G2 Crowd" These things offer value and are a nice set up to, "...and just wanted to see how your decision was coming along"

  1. 3

    Great read. Seems quite obvious when its all on paper, but def takes time to practice and get right.

    How is a demo booked? Is it using a tool like calendly? If so, I am curious how you qualify deals so you can provide a better demo? Do you ask any more info other than just their name and email?

    How do you decide between a discovery call on what the product is VS doing a full on demo?

  2. 1

    @RubyRuss 75% is impressive and I like what you said about followups. What's your company called?

    1. 1

      @RubyRuss I just wrote this up for Growth Bites and a few people are interested in an anonymized example of your follow-up emails. Any chance you could provide one?

  3. 1

    love it @RubyRuss thanks for sharing, great content

    Definitely agree, if you want to become great at sales, embrace the power of follow-ups and watch your numbers grow while you make new friends

  4. 1

    Fantastic read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, this has prompted a lot of self-reflection. Thumbs up!

  5. 1

    Nice! I’m usually on the other end of these conversations ... and then “just following up to see if we can schedule a quick call this week” emails go straight in the trash. I’ll almost always at least open the emails that you’re describing, if not click through or respond.

  6. 1

    Great, thanks for sharing our tips and tricks

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 47 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 27 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments How I Launched FrontendEase 13 comments