You're starting at a new company in a SE/technical sales role. You have an entirely new product, pitch, POV, etc to learn and deliver to a customer soon. What tricks or best practices have helped you learn a product, pitch, POV, etc quickly, and well, to present it?
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For demo/pitch I'm a big fan of role plays with peers. It's a great way to practice and make mistakes in a risk-free environment.
We're currently working on revamping our demo framework/scripts - with screenshots + talk-track/click-path and a video recording of an experience SC doing the demo. I'd be curious if anyone else has found a better way to train new folks how to demo.
Are there better ways to do? Any tools that help?
For learning the product/platform, as part of new SC onboarding we have them handle technical support tickets from customers. They also actively monitor our SC slack channel from internal product questions. This helps them understand common product questions and work through problem solving in the platform.
What have you found helpful in ramping as a new SC/SE?
Role plays are a great idea Yuji. Some companies get new SEs started on answering RFPs as a way to learn the feature / function match to business requirements. Other companies 'grow their own' developing new talent from building demos, RFPs, handling support and recording videos to moving to a customer facing role. Some large Tech companies have a very defined 90 day 'route to value' plan, with checkpoints on product certifications, industry / solution fit knowledge, # of dry runs and even daily demos delivery internally.
High intensity and structured onboarding tends to require a large amount of support from an enablement function.
I always advocate getting in front of prospects (virtually, with the camera on these days) as soon as possible even if you're just doing vision demos. Gaining the confidence that you can establish credibility and focus on the insights and challenges to drive a high level demo is gold dust.
I was lucky when I first entered the SAP world. After the 5 week deep dive product academy I was able to join an implementation and learned first hand what actually happens in the field. That experience was dynamite in demos because I felt very comfortable talking about the journey from signing / subscribing to actually delivering value / outcomes.
One danger I've seen is someone coming from a competitor who thinks they can 'wing it' in front of a customer and, under the pressure and stress of a live demo, unknowingly promises functionality that is only available in the competitor's product. That always ends badly.
In addition to what's already been said (all of which I think are great ideas), is to set expectations of what level of demo each SC is able to do currently.
The ramp varies per product, but to be able to say they can do a level 1 overview demo, perhaps it's a 5 min elevator pitch is always useful.
Then you can work on level 2, perhaps a 20 min demo showing some more functionality.
Then level 3, where they can be asked to show any part of the system and know where it is, and mostly about how it works.
Level 4, they can tailor the system to show real benefits for the customer they're presenting to.
Set expectations with those that need SC help, about what levels Solution Consulting can do and which you may need outside assistance.
This way you're helping their requirement, setting reasonable expectations, and giving them clear instructions that some SCs are still in their learning phase.
We have the same peer demos, but perhaps the most important is to cultivate an environment of support, encouragement and positive growth. Make sure everyone gets the opportunity to give feedback, and they'll feel more ready to receive it when they do their demo. It's certainly helped us, but the constructive feedback is where we've grown the most.
When I was training to become a SC at my previous company, we were a very small team of two. I was the first SC they brought on outside of the leadership. Thus, onboarding and training left a lot to be desired.
To mitigate, I would literally listen to a recorded demo and type out my own talk tracks. I would do this for a more general demo in addition to new products that were being offered.
In my early days, I would put these talk tracks in the speaker notes section of Google slides and reference them when needed. The same would go for live platform URLs and documenting a click map for that use-case or feature. No doubt, super manual but it worked for me!
I'm actively doing the exact same process as I'm building our sales team and demo process here at Demoflow. We just use our own product as a training support as oppose to Google slides.
I followed a very similar path when I was learning how to demo a new product - record a demo, type it out word for word, modify it to make it my own, memorize it and then throw it away.
I found having a documented talk track that I pretty much memorized helped me internalize and become familiar with every aspect of the demo. Never read from a script of course, but having the script was very handy.
Curious to hear how others have thought of or approached demo certification? It can be time consuming but I have found that putting new SEs through a formal certification process not only documents their proficiency but forces them to go through a standard process. Worth it in my experience.
Cheers,
Mark
@Mark, I've personally went through certifications at my last two companies. One was great, the other not so great. The best part was making sure the certification was used to map each of the SE/SCs pitch to the business value and key differentiators for the product and to share it with the rest of the team. Everyone benefits and it tends to build camaraderie between the team. It also helped to see the more seasoned guys go first and to give the less tenured guys a chance to revise their approach based on what they've seen.
Where I've seen it go bad is in making the structure too rigid to where people aren't able to express themselves and not see how others approach the same demo with their own unique style. It may of course be a matter of preference and on the product, but definitely having some kind of formal structure is way better for new SEs.
Disclaimer: I work at Chorus.ai and we record, transcribe and analyze calls.
When I joined Chorus I was the first SE and my manager (VP Sales) had on-sites all week so I literally had 0 training. I did the following:
1) Reviewed discovery calls to see how reps present the product and who shows up to these calls.
2) Reviewed customer success calls to see how we train users and what questions come up
3) Scheduled multiple meetings with product/engineering/automation/research to understand as much as possible about the product and our integrations
4) Worked from the product pod 2 days a week so I can ask questions and get quick answers.
Wasn't easy for a few weeks, but it worked :)
Great advice so far! In addition to the demo ramp suggestions, read up on a few customer case studies. Especially ones that you think are relevant based on your discovery/research with the customer. Working backwards from a real life example of your product providing value in real life is a great way to familiarize yourself with a POV and naturally weave in a bit of storytelling into your conversations. I've found that starting here has helped me ramp quicker, so that I conceptually understand the "larger picture" as I pick up the important details along the way.