Demo-Driven Revenue Acceleration: 3 Ways to Use Product to Engage and Scale with Demostack

Great. So we're super excited to be here with you all this morning to talk about demo-driven revenue acceleration. But before we jump in, we're actually going to pass it over to Taylor to remind us all of some housekeeping items.

Hi everyone, thanks so much for joining Saastr and for joining this amazing session. I'm really excited to have you all here. Just a few reminders. Most of you are viewing this session from our event platform. We hope you're enjoying it. We're hoping you're taking full advantage of that and some of the great functions there. To submit a question to speakers, just drop it in the question feature on the right rail of your screen. If you'd like to directly engage with the speakers and be part of this meeting where you can turn your video off and ask them a question live, just click Join Us On Stage button just below the player. We'll take your questions at the end, and you'll be able to join us in this room. It's a 20-minute interactive session, so please make sure you ask your questions and keep your cameras on if you decide to join us on the stage. And then everything will be recorded, and we'll be sharing the slides post-event. So without further ado, Misha, I will pass it straight back to you guys.

Thank you, Taylor. So the art of the product demo is what we are here to, to talk about. And hopefully we're going to present some new ideas and concepts that you guys can take back with you. But traditionally, the product demo has really kind of, you know, followed a really specific formula. It's presented by someone in sales, maybe an account executive or a sales engineer, depending on the size of your organization, or, you know, the size of the deal. It's really presented as more of a product overview or a tour. So not a lot of two-way communication. And then lastly, presented in the middle or the end of a sales cycle. So I know from my past experience, this was absolutely the case. Presenting a demo too early in the deal before discovery and qualification was completed was really kind of discouraged, even though customers were asking for it and wanted it all the time. So would love to hear from the audience in chat if this is, you know, resonates with you, if it's true, either where you're at today, or maybe before, or in a previous job. So, so just to kind of summarize, demos are always presented generic and really used kind of at the end of the sales cycle to close the deal. But today, we're actually going to talk about some trends in the industry and new concepts that will challenge the status quo. So these two things that we're going to talk about are product-led growth and revenue operations. So product-led growth is probably something that you all have heard of, but it's a go-to-market strategy that relies on using your product as the main vehicle to acquire, activate, and retain customers. So this might take form in a free trial. So you can actually go right to the website sign up for a free trial, play around a little bit, and maybe even from there upgrade directly to a paid product without ever talking to someone in sales. The other theme that we're seeing all the time, and it's becoming more and more common, I think, in companies as a function, is revenue operations. And this revenue operations role really seeks to align, enable, and hold revenue teams accountable to accelerate growth across the full customer lifecycle. So teams like marketing, sales, customer success, and partnerships usually kind of roll up under this RevOps idea. So we believe that you can be product-led with, within every revenue team to facilitate conversations and move business forward. So that's why we think that these two concepts together are so powerful. And the combination of product-led plus revenue ops, where you're actually leveraging product throughout the customer lifecycle, we are calling demo demo-driven revenue acceleration. So what is that? That is driving discovery, building connection, and making value more tangible using product demos throughout the customer lifecycle. And I'm actually going to pass it over to Robert to talk about 3 ways maybe you can think about doing this.

Thanks, Misha. And one thing we'd love to learn in the chat is just tell us how you're demoing right now. Are you demoing very early? Are you demoing at the very end of your cycle? You know, throw a little bit of insight there for us. So one of the, the main ways that you can leverage demo-driven revenue acceleration is by showing products as early as possible. So now, that doesn't always make sense, maybe in your mind, if you have a very complicated product, you need to be able to tell a story, you need to be able to to guide them through it. You've definitely heard the phrase, "Never demo before discovery before," probably if you're in the business of demoing. And that isn't incorrect. We're not really refuting that phrase if what you're delivering is a full demo that's untailored. But your prospects, they're coming to you and they want to see your product. That's why they clicked on the, the Get a Demo button. Right? They want that value. They need to be able to see and understand a little bit of your product to make it tangible so that you can have a quality conversation right off the bat. So one of the ways that you can do that, even as early as the first call, is what we're calling a micro demo. And essentially what a micro demo is is a visual product story. So it's not a full demo. We're not just throwing them into a sandbox or, you know, giving a 30-minute tour right off the bat. But we are leveraging product on a first call to help facilitate the discussion. So again, I'm emphasizing the first call. In some companies, it may make sense to be product-led even sooner. Then the first call, you might have a free trial, you might have a public demo. That's not going to be, you know, the best fit for every single type of company that's out there, or product that's out there. You have to make that decision based on your product and your customer. But if you have a first type of introduction call in the sales process, what we're definitely saying is the best customer experience that you can provide on that call is to give them some value in the form of product. And then to leverage that to facilitate the discussion. So a few ways that you can do that with, with micro demos. So one is start off, create a visual that shows all the problems that you, your, your product solves. Create a visual for each one of them that shows your product solving it. Create this before and after situation. So when you're in the, the, that first call and you're talking through their problems and you hear them say a particular problem, know that in your back pocket, you have a visual that actually is the after of that problem, um, using your solution. And it can just simply be a screenshot, a video. If you have the ability to create tailored demos, uh, easily, uh, that would be even better. Um, but we recommend having those, uh, templates in your back pocket. And then if you have those, then you can facilitate the discussion, um, by also showing, uh, visually like a menu of your high-level problems and not necessarily reading through every single problem that you solve, but showing it, making very clear and allowing the prospect to identify a problem. And then you start talking deeper and deeper about it and whatever problem that they're it's really obvious that is painful for them, uh, you're diving in a little bit deeper with them on that menu, on that specific menu item, pull up that visual product story, um, give them some value with that screen of that product, and then leverage that visual, uh, to make discovery much more tangible for them. They understand your product a little bit better, they're happy that you showed them a little bit of product, there's some trust being built there, there's some authenticity going on, and utilize that visual to just move that conversation forward and try and get some insights as early as possible. So in short, give value in the form of product and get value in the form of insight. They're much more likely to give you insightful responses if they have some type of visual framing for them to work with. So micro demos, also what they do is they create excitement. If you tell them about— you're talking about this really big problem that they have, and then you show them your product solving that problem with a simple screen, they're going to want to know how that is done. So they're going to want to jump into that next deeper dive demo to see how that is accomplished. So make that the story of that first call. Find that one thing that's going to get them excited, and then hopefully get some, some decent insight, uh, through your discovery conversation that is going to fuel, um, down-funnel success.

The other thing I might add, Robert, is prospects these days are really well-informed, so there are a ton of resources at their fingertips. So, um, you know, demoing earlier is giving them something unique that maybe they can't, you know, just just find through a Google search or through a reference. So, um, just to kind of, to reiterate, it's, it's that building credibility and giving the prospect something that they couldn't get on their own while making sure that you're also getting, um, some, some insight out of the conversation.

The next big way that you can be, um, you know, taking advantage of demo-driven revenue acceleration and just leveraging product more in your customer lifecycle is to kill the presentation. Eliminate giving a presentation when you give your first full demo. And what I mean by that is you have, you have your best asset there in front of you. You have your products, you have your— it's all visual. Utilize that to facilitate the discussion. Have a discussion back and forth with the prospect. If you went through the exercise of the micro demo, then hopefully you're able to get a decent amount of discovery done even within a 30-minute introduction call. You've identified a core problem that they care about most. You probably identify what their persona is. So step one of a discovery demo is to try to make that as tailored right off the bat as you can. So you may not be able to do a full kind of custom POC-level demo, but when any way that you can tailor that, that first demo to what you've already known, know about that prospect, that's gonna help you have a more relevant conversation and connect with them deeper. And it's gonna help you facilitate that discussion. So the core tenet of what we're calling a discovery demo is not to do discovery and then do the demo. So you might have heard of a disco demo, and that's typically, okay, I'm gonna do discovery on the same call as I do the demo, but it's still two separate things. And what we're saying is no, combine those, make those happen at the same exact time, leverage your product and the visuals of your product to facilitate that discovery. So if you, within your first few minutes or first minute of giving that demo, you're at— you're asking them a question and you're, you're starting that engagement, that's going to feel, you know, very different for them compared to a lot of other demos that they've been on. In fact, probably what's happened most of the time is to say, okay, we're going to give you a 30-minute demo, and at best they have these milestone points where they say, um, oh, do you have any questions? Or does this make sense? And at worst, they give a full 30-minute demo and ask those questions. And now all these objections are building up, all these questions are building up, and it's all out of context. And the demo is off the rails by the time you get to the questions. So you want to guide that conversation based on what you already know about them. And if you do that right off the bat, you're saying this is a collaborative selling situation. You're showing the prospect that you care about solving problems for them, not just selling them, right? Because imagine you just jump into a room and it's like you're in a boardroom and someone's up there giving this, this presentation, and afterwards like, oh, do I have your business? The core purpose of that is just to pitch and to sell. So we want to partner with the prospect to really find what, what's the key value that we can get out of the product? What's the key problem we can solve for them? And to get them excited and help win the deal. And you should be doing this as many times as you need to get the deal done. Do as many discovery demos as you need, but keep doing it in that way. Don't present the demo until you have a final, you know, POC, proof of concept demo, where you know it's a— it's basically a done deal. You've done all of your discovery. So yeah, use discovery demos to uncover What is needed from your product to win the deal? And can't stress this enough, don't separate discovery from product. It's your best asset that you have to facilitate discovery because that is what they want. Don't, um, surprise them with that product at the end and try to tie the dots between your discovery and your product. You can do that as you go, and then there's no big surprises towards the end of the call, it's going to risk that deal. Basically, it shouldn't be a binary decision by the time you get to a proof of concept. You should know through your engagement with them and your collaboration with them that if you do this POC well and, and, and create that story based off all this discovery, you're going to get that deal done. The third way that you can leverage product throughout the customer lifecycle and live up to demo-driven revenue acceleration is to enable all revenue teams with tailored demos. This, this concept of the micro demo and the discovery demo, what they're basically doing— this isn't just a sales function activity. What they're helping you do is facilitate your discussions. And every revenue team, they have discussions with prospective customers, and current customers and prospective and current partners that lead to revenue, or that's, that's their goal, is for them to lead to revenue. So micro demos can be used on the first calls with them to talk through initial problem solution. Discovery demos can be used with them to do that deeper dive with additional stakeholders. So how you can really leverage tailored demos and enable these teams is create as many templates really as you can. So create micro demo templates for each use case and problem solution that you have, and create discovery demo templates by persona, by product line, making it very easy for all these different groups can just like pull into the, the toolbox and pull up the right demo whenever they need to help them facilitate their discussions and move business forward. So, Misha, you might want to touch on something a little bit about how you can do this in customer success.

Yeah, I think we've only got about 4 or 5 minutes left, so I'll make this, this part snappy. But I don't think that when people think of customer success, they think a lot about, like, you know, demoing the product. But in fact, in customer success, we spend majority of our time showing the product. So that might be via training, but the one that I think is really relevant relevant here and exciting is, you know, growth and upsell opportunities. So just like in sales, I can't tell you how many times I went to show features to a customer to outline, like, you know, what they have today versus what they can get in an upgraded product. And I've gotten that pit in my stomach because I have demo anxiety. So I mean, it's a really great opportunity in customer success to be able to use the micro demo or the discovery demo to facilitate the conversation, to make sure that there's really a product fit. So And just to reiterate what Rob's saying, this doesn't necessarily have to be just a sales or SE thing. It's really one that anyone that is responsible for generating revenue and customer-facing.

Yeah, I can tell you, I can speak to the business development side and the marketing side and partnerships. Obviously, you should, you know, we're recommending, we're seeing our customers really use these micro demos and tailored demos as early as that intro call with that SDR, BDR. Enabling them to do better discovery and qualification faster and provide value and kind of kick off an authentic relationship with our prospects. Marketing, you know, you, that you can do like a public demo, but really the idea here is how can we get more insight earlier on and feed that into, into the sales process. Marketing can help with that to pull up the right micro demo, if you can go into that first call already kind of knowing, having some insight to work with there. And then the partnerships, just being able to put demos in the hands of your partners so they can better, you know, talk to integrations, or they can, if they're a reseller, they can do their selling. There's not many partner reselling situations where they have much access to products, so that can be a real game changer for them. And then obviously use it for partnership development and helping them close those deals. As well. So in, in short here, what, what tailored demos help you do, uh, is focus the conversation and facilitate the conversation and move it forward, give them that visual and give them value to help move that forward, uh, to lead to revenue and accelerate revenue across the customer lifecycle across each team.

So I think we only have a minute or two left, but I'm going to stop sharing my screen and we'll see if there's any questions in the chat. So let's see here. And I guess I should just say that if we don't get to all the questions, please join us in our booth. We'd love to chat with you there.

I'm seeing a couple interesting questions here. Yeah, so basically it's the idea to go pane by pane, feature by feature within the demo. So that first discovery demo that you go into, there might be a bit of that, but hopefully you gathered some good insight from the micro demo process and you've identified a core pain and you can kind of start off your story in the, in the discovery demo at that juncture and dive in deeper there. And then If you're having a really engaging conversation back and forth about that pain point, then you're going to kind of naturally be able to take it to other places. They're going to talk about another pain, and then you can bring it over to that area and start telling that story. And that's a really different experience than just going straight into a product tour, because that's what you're doing in a normal demo. A first call demo is a product tour, like a harbor tour, like There's the Golden Gate Bridge, there's Coit Tower, etc. So we're saying definitely don't do that. Utilize micro demos, go into that with as much insight as you can, and have an engaging conversation around the story that you think that they're going to connect with.

I think we're, we're at time, but we saw a whole bunch of great responses to when are you demoing. It seems like it's all over the board. Some people are demoing early, some people are demoing late, but I think we'd love to chat with you all more at our booth and we can share a little bit more about ourselves maybe.

Yeah, thank you guys for coming. Big news announcement today, we just launched out of stealth at DemoStack and go check us out. We have launch coverage on TechCrunch, but go to our booth, ask us questions there. Happy to answer a little bit more about DemoStack and about demo-driven revenue acceleration and progressive demoing in general.

Thank you guys so much. Thanks everyone. Definitely check them out. Um, and I hope you enjoy the networking, other sessions and the platform. See you soon.

Hi everyone. Thank you.