Aaron Reeves’ Post

Struggling to start a software demo? Tips to make it easier: 😎 Be natural. The prospect booked a time with you. He knows exactly what's gonna happen. 20-minutes feature dump and his problem won't be solved. Another boring call ahead. Don't follow the meeting routines. Start with: 'I imagine you'd prefer to be on the beach now. Believe me, I'd too. But the reason why we meet today is {describe agenda briefly}. How does it sound to you?' 🔍 Do the research before. Get more information about the company and the prospect's role. Prepare a few topics for small talk. This will increase your courage during the demo. Remember, open questions are your allies and the goal is to build a friendly atmosphere. 😱 Don't panic. What can go wrong? Nothing. The prospect won't buy the software. There're plenty more fish in the sea. Take 10 deep breaths to prepare your brain & body and do your best. What did I miss? P.S. In the picture below you can spot how I start demo calls during summer. #sales #bdr #demo

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I've been evaluating our tech stack and taking demos over the last month and thought I'd share a few thoughts; 1. Most of the sales processes are terrible and not customer friendly. No I don't want to jump on 4 calls or waste 30-60 minutes on something easily done via email or jump through hoops to get your official proposal. 2 calls max your demo and if you're lucky enough a final call to close won the deal. Value people's time! 2. The first 5 minutes of a sales call are crucial for a rep. If you give a good first impression I'll be far more engaged in your demo. Reps, you can absolutely lose a deal in these 5 minutes if the first impression is poor. As Samantha McKenna preaches, show me you know me! 3. More reps than not don't do enough research. I don't expect you to know my business inside and out but also don't want to relay info that takes 5 minutes to find online. Landing the demo is the hardest part, prospecting out there is tough, why do all that hard work to land a call and then not take 10-15 minutes to research ahead 4. If you landed the meeting with me via PERSONALIZED cold outreach you are miles ahead of the competitors on my short list. Still shocked that only 1 out of like 15 emails I receive is personalized. If you take the time to do it, you're 100% getting a response from me good or bad because I appreciate the hustle :) 5. Lastly, know your competitors inside and out and be willing to point out their strengths and weaknesses and where you differ. If you can do this, it's not bashing competition it's establishing yourself as an expert in your space #b2bsales #sales

I booked a C-level meeting with a company that does over $10B annually. The first email got a response: “Sorry, we’re not interested right now.” What do you mean?! Based on the research I’ve done, it seemed impossible that it was NOT a good time. Back to the drawing board I went. Deep into Google, pages deep, thinking "there's gotta be something". There it was. A 22 page research paper written by the Executive. I read the entire report. 4 parts of it was relevant to what my company solves for. I sent a video that was 1 minute and 12 seconds going over those 4 things. Got a response the next day: “You mentioned X in the video and I didn’t know you played in that space. Let’s set up a time next week”. Moral of the story: your prospects don’t know what they don’t know. (This entire process took 4 months to get the first meeting). Your job as an AE: - Educate - Provide value - Illuminate pain - Do your research - Know their business - Present a solution ps - I run an invite-only sales slack community with 380+ sellers. It'll always be free. Submit a request here: https://lnkd.in/dmwt3BdR

Love this! I can relate. I’ve started to put this in practice. “Moral of the story: your prospects don’t know what they don’t know.” I’ve shared solutions on how #marketingops integrated with #BizOps can improve overall business performance, lowers costs and how this integration can provide marketing with data to build the marketing plan and strategies aligned with the business goals. 1 prospect was presented with a #Martech software tool to do this. The prospect found it too expensive and didn’t understand how would it help. So, months went by and they moved along. In a casual conversation I shared my thoughts on the same #MarTech with the prospect. The tool is user friendly for them and their team that are not tech knowledgeable, but solves most if not all, their ops silos and manual work. Plus marketing, a very important part of their business. But the manual stuff is insanely unnecessary in 2024! With this in mind, I walked them through it explaining how it will benefit their business, how they could scale with it, and most importantly, how marketing would work towards their business goals by using the tool. They will be able to access all their data to make better business decisions, but also become more efficient. Their response when I finished: “Wow! THIS IS a real explanation. We didnt get this before. Now it makes sense.” We’re currently consulting the implementation of phase I with their IT team. Same tool. Different approach. I was not there to sell them the tool. I sell marketing services. But I use the tool, I know the tool. We solved almost every pain point with ONE tool and it’ll allow me to serve them better, and in an efficient manner because we can run marketing strategies from it. Prospects don’t know what they don’t know. And sometimes they don’t know they need what they don’t know. 🤷🏻♀️😅 Tell them!

Stop putting your prospects to sleep when you demo. If what you're showing your prospect doesn't directly solve for the priorities they outlined for you, it's bad news bears. The worst thing you can do is be in the middle of demoing your product and have the prospect asking themselves "why are they showing me this?" Instant credibility killer. They're checking email and getting back to slack counting down the minutes until the appointment is done and praying if they don't say anything it will end quicker. "Any questions?" You ask. "No" they say. And you wonder why they need to "get back to you" before committing to a next step. Try ending each part of your demo with "the reason I'm showing you this is because it will directly contribute to your ability to accomplish X priority we discussed." It's a good template to make sure you didn't go off track and start feature dumping all over your poor prospect. #sales

⏰ Golden tip for those of you in outbound: Call after 5 pm - both East & West Coast. 🌅 Why? More numbers, more pickups - it works! Extend your outreach window an extra 2-3 hours and see what happens. 🏡 After 5-6 pm, many salespeople go home. Seize that opportunity to embrace the power of direct communication and reach decision-makers. Don't let LinkedIn myths hold you back - pick up that phone! #SalesGrowth #OutboundSales #CommunicationMatters

𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞: 𝐀 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 🚀 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂 𝒈𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒄-𝑨-𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒆! 🎯 ☕ 8:00 𝐀𝐌 - Coffee in hand, ready to conquer the world! 🌍 📞 9:00 𝐀𝐌 - First call of the day... straight to voicemail. 💪 10:00 𝐀𝐌 - Follow-up email #57 sent. Still optimistic! 🍔 12:00 𝐏𝐌 - Lunch break? More like "Lunch while strategizing my next pitch" break. 💻 2:00 𝐏𝐌 - Demo time! Computer decides it's a great moment to update. 🙌 4:00 𝐏𝐌 - Finally get a callback! They wanted to know if I can fix their Wi-Fi. 😅 🕔 5:00 𝐏𝐌 - Wrapping up the day with more voicemails than responses, but hey, that's sales life! 𝑹𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓: Every "𝐧𝐨" is one step closer to a "𝐲𝐞𝐬!" And if all else fails, there's always more coffee tomorrow. ☕💼 #pronixinc #salesquest #levelup #saleswarrior #linkedinadventures #saleslife #dailygrind #coffeepowered #saleshumor #gameon #salesgoals

Not long ago, I was at a trade show and stopped by a booth to talk to a couple of the sales reps. We made some introductions and I asked them what their company did. One rep said they sold EMR software, the other rep said they had a focus on public sector services. Two reps, same company, two totally different ideas about what products and services the company provided (they sold what they knew). I asked how their things where going and both agreed, sales where down, messaging was all over the board, and their was no singular focus, they where losing marketshare. After a 5 minute conversation, the reasons where obvious. It's critically important that sales and marketing are aligned. There are synergies gained when everyone is on the same page. Sales, Marketing, Bus Ops, the Project team... all need to be on point. This is where Sales Enablement comes in. Investing in these strategies pays off 110% according to according to CSO Insights. If you want to connect and discuss your Sales Enablement processes, click the link to schedule a introductory call. https://lnkd.in/gGJ6-byK