Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:44:20 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:44:20] S0: Awesome. So there's two people that might be leading this. Might be the founder if you're still doing founder-led sales, could be the AE, maybe a VP of sales. [00:44:28] S1: VP of sales. Yup. [00:44:30] S0: Okay. Say you're not the founder and you're the VP of sales or an AE leading this. As a founder, what are some signs that your salesperson is not doing a great job up to this point? What are just smells of like, "Hmm, I should [inaudible 00:44:47] this person"? [00:44:48] S1: I would say, what is the timeline from intro called to demo? How many conversations have happened between those two buckets of when people advance stages in the sales pipeline? Can the salesperson articulate exactly what they are going to be demoing, why they're going to be demoing it and how they're going to open it? The demo looks different every single time. Every single time. I don't think I've ever run a demo and it looks the same. This is when everyone comes back to, "Okay, what's the scaled playbook? What's the scaled approach with this?" When you're selling $100,000 minimum, again, it's the same effort as selling a million dollars, so it could be selling a million-dollar deal, it's hard. You're cracking some of the largest logos that every single startup goes after. You've got to be different. You've got to take a different approach. It is not cram the pitch down their throat and hope that they want to buy something. [00:45:53] S0: Feels like a job AI will not replace anytime soon from what we're hearing here.
00:45:53 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:45:53] S0: Feels like a job AI will not replace anytime soon from what we're hearing here. [00:45:55] S1: No. Yeah, I'm not worried about AI replace ... Because there's so much about it that's just human, right? Like, "Do you vibe with this person?" I've definitely taken intro calls with a person probably did not appreciate with how I ran it and that's okay. It happens. [00:46:14] S0: It's such a point I've never heard before, this idea of when you're demoing, demo as narrow a slice of the product as you can that addresses their priorities and needs. Because to your point, they may feel like, "Why do we need all this stuff? We just want this one problem," and that's shooting yourself in the foot. [00:46:31] S1: Or let them guide you like, "Can it also do this?" and you'd be like, "Oh, it's so funny you say that, we just released this." And now all of a sudden, it feels like it's again built for them. They want to feel like it was built for them and that it's different. [00:46:44] S0: And then get alpha. [00:46:45] S1: And get alpha. [00:46:47] S0: Okay. So step six, you call the post-demo discussion. Also, something you say everyone ignores. Talk about that.
00:46:47 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:46:47] S0: Okay. So step six, you call the post-demo discussion. Also, something you say everyone ignores. Talk about that. [00:46:54] S1: Okay. So as soon as the demo closes, you are texting the woman or the gentleman or whomever that has helped guide you to this point, "How do you think that went? Can I call you in five minutes? I want a fresh debrief." They will give you and be like raw reaction, "I know you haven't spoken to anyone. What do you think? How do you think that went? Do you think we need to go deeper with anyone?" Before anyone solidifies everything that's said like, "Do you think we lost somebody? Where do you think we did well? Is there someone we need to spend more time with?" There's always someone in the organization that's going to kill a deal. There's always somebody. You need to protect that as much as possible and make sure everyone is aligned and excited by what this is and again the more intel you collect on these people. Because again, if for some reason someone goes quiet for two weeks or three weeks, you can now prompt with, "Hey, I know you guys are still in the process of thinking through if this makes sense. Do you think it's worthy if I found 15 or 20 minutes with said individual to just hear their thoughts and maybe we can approach this a little bit more closely with how they would want to see it?" [00:48:16] S0: So you're just always looking for ways this might explode and not work. And this person that you're working with, would you call them ... What was the term you used for them? [00:48:16] S1: A champion.
00:48:16 · Jen Abel, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:48:16] S1: A champion. [00:48:25] S0: A champion. [00:48:25] S1: The champion. Yeah, because a champion can also be an executive, right? [00:48:30] S0: Yeah. And they're excited at this point in theory, very excited for this to work out. They're on your side. They're not trying to ... Yeah. [00:48:38] S1: And I define champion as who's the individual that really wants this to come to life that was there from day one, not necessarily the person that ... The C-suite executive could be the one shepherding this well, but they need to make sure that the people below them are brought in. [00:48:53] S0: Okay. Anything else around the demo or the post-demo discussion before we move on to the next step? [00:48:57] S1: No, I think we're good. [00:48:59] S0: Okay. So the next step, you call identifying pilot, move-forward process.
00:48:59 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:48:59] S0: Okay. So the next step, you call identifying pilot, move-forward process. [00:49:05] S1: The best thing you can do, assuming that you've built an incredible solution, right? If you're now this far in, you usually have something that allow them ... Now you can control the timeline above, "Hey, I want you guys to go in for two to three days." These specific users. Do not put your C-level executive into the product. They're not the user, okay? "Who are the users of this? I want them to experience the magic and the power of what this is," okay? Don't charge. You could charge them for a pilot if it's an extended period of time, but I'd rather forego the money and do a two to three-day pilot so that at least I can control the sales cycle a bit more, okay? But again if they ask for a month and there's a good reason for it, do charge for that. But I'd rather go in for two to three days and let them see if they can get the value from it. If they can. Sometimes I understand that there needs to be some level of configuration and extensive onboarding that needs to happen, but is there a sandbox where they can assess the value even if it's not on their own data? [00:50:07] S0: So this isn't yet the pilot, this is just prepping for the actual pilot.
00:50:07 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:50:07] S0: So this isn't yet the pilot, this is just prepping for the actual pilot. [00:50:10] S1: Correct. So there's two different pilots you can run. A pilot that does not require their data to be in the product to get the value or a pilot that you want to charge for because they need to see some level of integration on their end for the whole product to actually work, right? I understand that those are two very technical things. Let's talk about something that they can get in two to three days and it's pretty much of a light lift. Time box it to two or three days. Don't make it two weeks, okay? I've done this enough times to say people will go in usually for half a day and get what they need out of it, okay? Shorten your sales cycle by two weeks by doing 48 or 72 hours. Now if you need something a bit more integrated and it's a far more technical solution, what I'd highly recommend is do it for a month or two months, charge them for it and then use that fee that you charge them for and credit it back to them if they move forward, okay? If they're willing to pay, that is a huge, huge signal, especially if you're about to put in all this work. They have no problem paying for it. It's usually probably going to come out as services anyway because they're not buying technology, they're buying the services to go through it. And also make it a credit on the backend. Start the relationship up shift. Start the relationship off on a good foot.