No one has ever been congratulated on just buying software. Nice as it would be to pay the ticket and arrive at the destination, software purchases are designed to complement a range of changes in an organization. Working out what those changes are is vital.

Research

In this stage, Buyers learn from supplier(s)/vendor(s) how their vision could be implemented, define formal and informal decision criteria, and prepare a formal or informal RFP.

There's no better way to make sure you're picking the right changes than to understand the outcomes that people need. So, your job is to help these folks uncover benefits and outcomes they can change, especially with your help. 

Focus on who you're helping:

Whilst there's a whole personas course here in the Academy, here are some of the most important people to consider:

C-Level executives
Setting the mission and direction for the company, they often serve investors, public opinion and global strategy, as well as maintaining profit, cost reduction, and increasing revenue. Commonly, they focus on Vision, Strategy, Goals, and Metrics. If they're involved, you must align the wider outcomes of any transformation project to support them.

• Vision

• Strategy

• Goals

• Metrics

This is the primary mission of the company. It'll probably be part of their FY kickoff meetings, or perhaps it's listed on their intranet. Aligning the project to the mission is important because as the project grows and these folks hear what's going on, if it aligns with one, some, or all of their ideals, it'll go a long way in getting their support!

EVP/VP
These are the lenses through which any activity happens at your company. Aligning the project to these stakeholders is essential because any project outside this focus is likely to be deprioritized. The biggest risk is people not realizing you've aligned it, so ensure the project's intentions are clearly set out and communicated properly.

• Customers

• Colleagues

• Community

Presales Directors/Senior Leaders
Different sales and presales organizations run their revenue-generating activities in many different ways. If someone doesn't know what presales does they usually just talk about them 'doing demos'. But you know it's way more than that and can be broadly categorized into these main areas. Your champion can add more, of course, because at their company it could work differently. Either way, these things are not specific activities like doing a demo or writing a document. They're overall functions of their presales department. By clearly defining Direct and Indirect revenue influencers, they're able to measure their effectiveness.

• Buyer Enablement

• Solution Design

• Solution Config

• Solution Positioning

• Colleague training

• Competitive Analysis

• Pipeline Generation

• Customer Advocacy

• Value Attribution

Presales Managers/Team Leaders
When demo automation comes into play it's sometimes hard for non-presales folk to understand how recording a video instead of jumping on a live meeting is actively helping their opportunities.
Their team may do many activities, so calculating their impact is crucial. You're looking to help increase one-to-many activities like recording and then providing access to a demo, and decreasing activities like endless overview demos day after day. They can calculate their own measurement scores if they like - they can then tune it to the activities their teams do most often.

• Discovery

• Demos

• Planning

• Consulting calls

• Prospect support

• Partner support

• Internal training

• RFP/Tenders

• Site visits

• Events

• Marketing work

Examples

C-Level Example

Our mission focuses on Vision, Strategy, Goals, and Metrics. We’ve aligned the wider outcomes of this transformation project to support our executive leadership team by {explanation}

• Vision

  • Aligned with our vision of {vision}, the presales team endeavors to provide 

• Strategy

  • Our strategy for {FY25} is to {strategy}

• Goals

  • In support of our {goals} across the company for {FY25}, we understand that by transforming the way we support customers through their journey with us, our focus can remain on providing {great value and capability, reducing costs, and increasing ARR}.

• Metrics

  • Understanding why we’re successful is just as important as addressing any challenges, so the need for accurate metrics is key. By using Intelligent Demo Automation from Consensus, we’ll be better able to provide a deep insight into the way in which our customers buy from us, how they engage, why and when. ‘Demolytics’ is a concept tuned to provide valuable insights, and so we’ll be leveraging them to make sure this transformation project stays on track and has measurable outcomes.

Senior Leaders example

• Buyer Enablement

  • A renewed focus on Buyer Enablement in the industry means our prospects receive a higher quality of service from our competitors. We too must grow our capabilities in this area and renew our focus on supporting our buyer champions, enabling, equipping, and personalizing content for them and the other stakeholders across their businesses. 

  • Coaching our buyer champions is something we understand to have incredible value, as they’re the only ones who can actually sign a deal, but we don’t have systems in place to help them. Coaching champions to address different concerns from different stakeholders is important but difficult. By using Intelligent Demo Automation which customizes the experience for each stakeholder based on their role, title or desires, we know we can support these champions to get the signoff they need.

• Discovery and qualification

  • Presales collaborates with Sales teams to provide qualification and discovery for {MQLs/TQOs}. Still, we currently have a strain on presales scheduling to provide the discovery and qualification calls that the sales team needs.
    By automating some of the qualifications based on the activities undertaken by buyers using our Intelligent Demo Automation service from Consensus, we intend to cut unqualified demos by 30%. This is a conservative estimate based on a market average of 50% of demos that are unqualified and a demo request to delivery lag time of 2+ weeks.

• Solution design and positioning

  • While some of our products are low in complexity, some of our buyers are left to craft their own combination of functionality using our platform. To free up the presales team's time to help buyers better understand the possibilities, we must reduce the number of live overview demos offered by the sales team. We calculate that every overview demo we automate it frees up a presales rep to attend a solution design call at least once per day.

  • Some buyers request on-site meetings, and these currently increase our CAC significantly. By introducing buyers to our Intelligent Automated Demos through Consensus earlier on, we reduce unqualified demos and increase the value of the time spent face-to-face.

  • In addition to aligning presales resource demands, we will be able to address new capability by unlocking knowledge pockets across our business that were previously unavailable. We have many tenured experts working in our services team that rarely get time to attend demos about specific functionality. By recording this authentic, experienced knowledge and enabling our sales teams to send this out instantly using Intelligent Demo Automation, our buyers and customers are better equipped to create successful change.

• Solution configuration

  • With overview demos automated, we estimate this will free up at least 1 hour demo prep for live meetings enabling more customized demos at the correct stage in the buying journey, vastly reducing our CAC and increasing the close rate.

• Colleague Engagement

  • Presales currently provides colleague training on many areas of our solutions because they are best placed to understand the challenges our customers face and how the application of our product and services can solve these problems. We are well known within {our company} as the go-to-experts, but this currently harms our ability to provide revenue-generating services to our customers; the cost of presales reps doing internal training takes them away from directly attributable revenue-generating business is estimated at {10 days per month total across our presales team}, equating to a reduction in scheduling availability.

  • We propose to make the pre-recorded demos available to our staff across all geographies. Because the presales team will create updated content whenever our software or solutions are updated, the learning available for our colleagues will also always be up to date.

  • Whilst colleague engagement is important in growing relationships between departments, we believe the Sales Enablement team should address at least 50% of our current time spent without detriment to colleague relationships.

Comparison

In this stage, buyers establish their short list of potential solutions.

Buyers compare different solutions and eliminate obvious disqualifiers. Until recently, this was the only area presales would get involved. There just wasn't enough time to get involved anywhere else. Plus, presales folk always try to bring the most value, the best presentation, the most detailed advice and trusted experience. So, waiting till this stage in the buyer journey also fits the sales cycle stages.

But times have changed. Now, with presales able to record their authentic message and service buyers' needs at any other buying stage instantly, there's more time to spend here.

Each buyer will most likely have between 2 and 6 vendors they'll need to filter down to a final choice, so comparing between them becomes an important and sometimes lengthy task. If this is the first time they see your software, it's likely a competitor has been more helpful, and that buyer feels better served by them.

Often these demos are done real-time, by the presales reps who recorded the Intelligent Automated Demos. So the buyer already feels a good connection with them, and is pleased to continue the conversation, this time well informed about the basics of your solution.

Comparison isn't just about demos. It's about creating confidence that moving through to the next stage will be beneficial, and that the vendor's abilities match up with the requirements of the change project. Different buyers have different ways to do this, but often there will be an RFP (Request for Proposal) or other document-based assessment. Demos can help here too, buy highlighting your differentiators and serving them via pre recorded demos, like FAQ demos.

1. Intro
2. Need
3. Learn (You’re here)
4. Buy
5. Value