Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:50:10 · Jen Abel, Lenny Rachitsky
[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. [00:51:32] S0: I'm definitely feeling the feeling I feel when we chat is like, "I just want to find something to sell." This is really- [00:51:38] S1: It's so fun. [00:51:38] S0: ... fun, yeah.
00:51:38 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:51:38] S0: ... fun, yeah. [00:51:40] S1: It's literally so fun. I think people read these sales books, go to these sales trainings and they try and take someone else's game and run with it and it never works that way. No one taught me this. I was just like, "Okay, if I collect more intel than the competitive set, that will be my special sauce." [00:52:00] S0: And it's more fun that way. You're building a relationship more. You're chatting more often. You're not trying to just- [00:52:06] S1: Yeah, speed bump. [00:52:07] S0: It feels more real. Yeah. Okay, a couple questions here. One is this idea of the two to three-day pilot. How do you convince them, "You only get two to three days," because that feels tough?
00:52:07 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:52:07] S0: It feels more real. Yeah. Okay, a couple questions here. One is this idea of the two to three-day pilot. How do you convince them, "You only get two to three days," because that feels tough? [00:52:16] S1: So I would say, "Here, this is what we typically do. Who are the three or four people we want to put in and assess the value from a user perspective?" Make sure it's your person, assuming that it's no ... or the person closest to the ... Don't put your C-suite executive in it. They're not going to go into the product and then two or three other people, okay? And I want you to say, "We're going to do two or three days. I'm going to onboard you each differently. We're going to do two or three different onboard sessions," before those two or three days. And I want you to go in and I want you to do these three specific tasks. Be very, very thoughtful and explicit and descriptive with what you want them to do, okay? "Here's how we're going to measure success." Define that with them. Co-author that. And that's no different than the thing that's a little bit longer where you require that integration and build out. Co-author it with them. What does success look like? What are the specific things they should be doing? They should not just be logging in and meandering. That puts the work back on them. Your job in sales is to take all the work off their plate, 99% of it. [00:53:27] S0: And help them discover the magic really easily.
00:53:27 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:53:27] S0: And help them discover the magic really easily. [00:53:29] S1: Help them discover the magic and also continue to ... You might have one of those users that's like, "Oh, I didn't like it." "Great. In that three-stage process, what didn't you like? What wasn't clear? What wasn't obvious? Where did you get lost?" The tighter it is, less people get lost, the more grounded it feels and the more consistent the experience is. You don't want people having different experiences. [00:53:53] S0: Okay. So just to make it clear the steps involved here because we've gone through, I think, three around the scene. [00:53:58] S1: So much, yeah. [00:54:00] S0: We've gone through so much. So we're on step nine. So there's step seven, which is identifying the pilot, move-forward process. A lot of people ignore just who that person is and what the steps are. Then there's prep for the pilot and then there's run the pilot. [00:54:12] S1: Run the pilot, exactly. [00:54:13] S0: We've talked through all these things. [00:54:14] S1: Now- [00:54:15] S0: Is there anything else ... Yeah. [00:54:16] S1: For prep for the pilot, the one thing I want to say is, "Okay, before we put everyone in," let's work backwards of, "If this is successful, how do we get this deal through?" Okay. [00:54:29] S0: Ahead of time. Before doing the pilot.
00:54:29 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:54:29] S0: Ahead of time. Before doing the pilot. [00:54:30] S1: Ahead of that. Yes, ahead of it. I should have clarified that. This is all before the people's pilots start. This is in the pre-pilot stage. Okay, assuming, fingers crossed, a successful pilot, which I feel confident is going to be, one is, "When do we want to get signatures on these papers?" Let's work backwards from there. "Do we think we can get this closed by the end of next month?" "Yes, I do." "Great. Who needs to be involved in that? Do you have a procurement lead that we should be educated in this process?" And they might say, "Let's wait until after the pilot." Totally," but push them a little bit. Again, you're project managing it. "Is there a security lead we should be working with to run due diligence on the product? Is there someone in legal or is there a way for me to draft the paper to make this make sense?" Now, the one thing I'm going to take a step back on is you would've already gone through pricing discussions with them post-demo, okay? Try to hold out on talking about pricing until post-demo because they might assume, "Oh, this is three times what I'm spending," and not know why it's three times. Because there's all these other people that might not have been involved in those initial discussions. Talk through pricing post-pilot once everyone's excited. [00:55:43] S0: Post-pilot or post-demo? [00:55:45] S1: Right, post-demo. I apologize. [00:55:46] S0: Okay, cool. So you basically just tell them, "We'll figure out pricing once we understand what you're looking for."
00:55:46 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jen Abel
[00:55:46] S0: Okay, cool. So you basically just tell them, "We'll figure out pricing once we understand what you're looking for." [00:55:52] S1: Yeah. This is in the pre-pilot stage, talk about pricing, okay? Now, if they're this far along, if they're really concerned about pricing, they would've brought it up by now. So these are the little cues like, "Okay, I think I could probably push them a little bit here or go a little bit further." Two is, if they ask and they push, give them a ballpark. Well, it depends, but let's say it's somewhere between 150 and 250 and there's a lot of dependence on that, right? So you can give them a ballpark. But work with your champion and say, "Listen, here's what the price is. I know you know why we price it this way. Before you put this in front of anybody, how are you going to make the case? Where are you going to cut? How are you going to defend it? How can I build out a slide to defend this for you and show you the ROI?" They will tell you. You don't have to go blind into it. And then say, "Okay." And if they push back and they're like, "Listen, I don't know if I can go to bat for this." Be like, "I hear you. Let's work on this together. What do you feel comfortable going to bat with? And can we do a step up for year two to get to the actual full value of what we know we charge?" [00:57:10] S0: And do you include this slide or the price in the demo or is that a post-demo conversation?