Welcome!
We're overjoyed to see the wonderful ways you're using Demo Automation in the wild, so to help you all out if you've not adopted some of the great advantages that automating your demos can bring, we've listed a whole bunch here.
If you're not doing some of these, you should be because:
- You already have the tools
- You've not taken advantage of the all massive benefits available - YET!
We've used the fictitious company 'Metacorp' in our examples - imagine your company name there.
Enable channel partners
Consensus allows you to use your Demos to enable your Resellers while helping give you deep insights into their activity. The Consensus Channel Accelerator makes it simple to set up your Resellers, assign them specific demos and track each Resellers’ activity to easily understand their performance.
Track reseller funnel
Tracking the reseller funnel is important, and especially when those channel partners are asking for presales resources to help move those deals along. When presales has to deliver value not just to direct deals but also to channel partners, the strain on presales resources becomes a challenge.
Most forecasting is affected by reseller pipeline generation and it’s often a last minute thing - when deals appear far too late to accurately forecast and unnecessary burden has been placed on presales to close deals for the end of period.
Consensus helps uniquely here because we provide a benefit to the early stage learning of buyers, which solves a problem for resellers who would rather spend time on selling their consultative services, and provides deep insights into which customers the resellers are working with.
Track reseller buyer engagement
With Metacorp wanting to enable partners, it’s important to track the activities of those partners to ensure the efforts aren’t going to waste.
So Consensus provides deep insights not just into the deals and demos that resellers are giving, but also what their buyers are watching too. The partners get Demolytics but Metacorp would see if the buyers are engaging with the content in the way they should, or if some parts are being missed.
We’ve seen effective use of the Demo Qualified Lead here, where companies will allow presales to assist partners, but only if the buyer stakeholders have watched the automated demo first.
Demo software and up/cross sell benefits
Resellers often show what they know. They’re confident in providing thought leadership and best practice around the topics they’ve done for years, but it’s hard to get them to adopt other software that Metacorp sells, which would be great for the buyer but it’s never included because the reseller isn’t confident or prepared to show it.
By having the Demo Library (which can be restricted to make available only certain appropriate demos) available to the partners, and branching demos showing other available up/cross sell opportunities the deal size expands with no increased effort.
Demo service benefits
Often, the value that partners bring is based around the service they provide, not just the software they sell. It’s this area that represents the most value in their offering and certainly the greatest opportunity for profit. So helping partners get overview demos out the way means they are able to concentrate on those value added services, but the buyers get the best of both worlds with clear, vendor created demos and live, personalized change management services by resellers.
Instantly update all partners
How many updates does Metacorp release each quarter? Times that by the number of products and it’s a full time job for resellers just trying to keep up. Training is required on new functionality and not just how the software works but the Metacorp messaging, value and benefits too.
This is why with Consensus automated demos being recorded by the authentic presales pros and being made available to partners, you can be sure of a channel partner community who remains up to date with the latest changes, and the buyers get the best possible results.
Customer example - Autodesk
Neal Niemiec, Sr Solutions Engineering Manager was both the project owner and the source for this case study. Neal first utilized Consensus with great success in Channel enablement before transitioning to a Presales leadership position and implementing Consensus in their Technical Sales teams.
“Niemiec: I think many businesses know the difficulty of having a distribution channel where they never really know what's happening in that other business. I've noticed that some partners really don't have a sales process or a sales methodology.
Consensus was put on the table as a way that we could automate solution demos at scale and we could localize it across languages. We could enable our Inside Sales teams and also do the same for our Channel Partners.
A marketer might look at Consensus and think this is video prospecting. It's not. I'm not putting the same video in front of a bunch of customers. I'm creating a customized experience that allows us to then curate and customize that follow up with the customer.
Now I'm not waiting on the Technical Specialist’ availability and the customer's availability. I can put Consensus in the hands of my Sales team; the Sales team can put that in the hands of the customer and at their leisure, their availability, they can self-educate, they can share it and accelerate the sales progression.
Consensus has given us a window into how our partners are performing, but it's also given us a new tool to start to coach them on the sales process. Now they bring Consensus into their sales process and they get quick results so that's been exciting. It's a new window into the Channel part of our business that we just didn't have before.”