Brian LaManna ran over 100 pilots with a 90% win rate by following four steps: get executive buy-in first, agree on measurable success metrics, schedule all sessions upfront, and use mutual success plans. He says it's easier to ask for 15 minutes at the start than $15,000 at the end.
I've now ran over 100 pilots or proof of concepts or trials, whatever verbiage you want to leverage at my time at gong. And I'm fortunate that my win rate has been over 90% in those pilots. And when identifying and going through the reasons why I've won and why I've lost, I've boiled it down to these four reasons on what has led me to have that high of a win rate. It comes down to executive alignment, success criteria, scheduling, all of these sessions, and mutual success plans as well throughout the process. So for the very first one, exec alignment is really critical because I want to make sure that before we invest in connecting the technology, letting them try it, giving them a flavor into it, that they have executive buy in that if this pilot goes well, they would proceed to purchase. One of my favorite lines if I get any pushback about getting their exact slooped in is I'll say hey, in my experience it's a lot easier to ask for 15 minutes up front than $15,000 at the end. Right? You can of course move those numbers around depending on your process. The second one is in terms of success criteria with that same exact I want to understand what success criteria can we align on so that if we do crush this pilot that they would actually move forward and proceed. It also helps set expectations with what's actually realistic to accomplish in the 7 or 10 or 14 day window, however long your pilots are versus them thinking that they're going to see the full ROI in that really short time frame. One of my other favorite ones, number three is actually scheduling all these sessions up front. So what that looks like is instead of just going one by one and constantly asking for the next meeting if they want a pilot, I'll say great and we'll actually walk through and schedule all of those lives. So I'll say hey, what time works for that rep training? What time works for a check in call? What time works for us to present the business case at the end, spend 10 minutes, get all of those calendars so you're locked into that schedule and you don't have to worry about the rest. The very last step here is the use of mutual success plans. And what I'm going to do is actually share this with the buyer. It's going to have some of those success criteria, it's going to have the different sessions that we're working through and it's going to have other resource along the way going to make sure we're tightly aligned throughout the entire process. The key to pilots is just having a process and walking through and holding some leverage through the process is one of the biggest gives that you can provide during a cycle. So then make sure you're holding on to what matters most to you all if you're going to put all that time and effort into running it up in the first place.
"We're happy with our current vendor" #saas #sales #techsales #objectionhandling
