🚀 Newsletter #5: Winning With Sales Demos
If you can't do discovery, you can't do a proper sales demo!
Today's newsletter discusses sales demos and the importance of discovery. But before the main topic, a bit of housekeeping. Feel free to jump ahead for the sales demo stuff.
Hello to all new and old subscribers!
It was great to see that we have more than doubled the number of subscribers between today's newsletter and the one sent in May! Some I know personally, but there are a lot of new faces among you. Thank you all for subscribing!
With all the new people on board, maybe a short intro is in place.
I, Ilkka, write this newsletter - Hello đź‘‹! Through GTM Club, I seek to share my sales knowledge to enhance the sales skills of others. I have charted a trajectory through sales, advancing from individual contributor roles to leadership positions within the SaaS and broader tech industry. In addition to hands-on spearheading a CPaaS sales team, I advise B2B companies on increasing their sales.
The format GTM Club provides content is following:
- A new blog or article weekly, unless a newsletter is going out. The topics range from increasing sales to managing GTM teams and building go-to-market strategies. The general take is towards “how to”, and the context is sales-led GTM.
- A monthly newsletter, like the one you read now. If the blogs are more of “how-to,” these are geared more towards “stories from trenches” style and sometimes potential hot takes—or at least more opinion-oriented content.
- As this is Newsletter #5, we are just getting started. GTM Club is still looking for the best format, for many things will change, probably even between this and the following newsletter.
Let’s Discuss Sales Demos
In the previous newsletter (Newsletter #4, read it here), we discussed why free trials are often deficient in the sales-led GTM motion. Now, we go to the opposite end: Sales demos are critical to successfully selling SaaS products.
Let’s start with what is a sales demo:
The difference between sales and product demos lies in the audience and objective. A sales demo targets prospective customers, focusing on showcasing the product’s value to drive new sales. In contrast, a product demo is aimed at existing customers, spotlighting new features and updates to enhance their experience and promote continued usage. The difference sounds small on paper, but in actual customer interaction, the difference is like night and day.
Sales demos fit perfectly in the sales-led GTM, emphasising the sales team and the value they can create for potential customers. A great sales demo is built around each prospect's situation and pain so salespersons can craft narratives that speak directly to each listener.
To add value and tell a convincing story, sales must first make a good discovery. Without discovery, there is no pain to solve, and without the pain, there is no story to tell!
How do you then tell a good story? The boring answer is through repetition and practice, but let's try to highlight some points to speed up the learning.
