What’s in this article for you? Guidance for doing discovery and delivering demos for:
- Renewals – When Things Are Good
- Renewals – When There Was Low or No Usage
- Renewals – Positioning and Presenting Product Improvements
- Expansion – Same Department, Same Use Cases, More Users
- Expansion – Upselling and Cross-Selling within Existing Customers
- Expansion – Into Different Departments
- Bonuses for Doing Discovery and Great Demo! practitioners
“Land and Expand” is the major sales strategy for many software companies. Intriguingly, while great attention is focused on new customer acquisition and corresponding sales processes, less is typically applied to securing renewals and expanding your footprint.
Some sales organizations are structured as “hunter” and “farmer” teams (sometimes identified as “Account Executives” vs “Account Management” and other titles), while others split the responsibility between “sales” for customer acquisition and “customer success” for customer retention and growth. And while there is a great body of work designed to guide those who pursue new name accounts, fewer resources exist for those charged with securing renewals and account development.
This article addresses this gap with respect to doing discovery and presenting demos for the latter group. What strategies and positionings are appropriate? How do you execute discovery and frame your demos for the broad range of renewal and expansion situations?
Let’s explore each scenario:
- Renewals – When Things Are Good
- Renewals – When There Was Low or No Usage
- Renewals – Positioning and Presenting Product Improvements
- Expansion – Same Department, Same Use Cases, More Users
- Expansion – Upselling and Cross-Selling within Existing Customers
- Expansion – Into Different Departments
For Doing Discovery and Great Demo! practitioners I’ll call out specific Doing Discovery and Great Demo! tactics with the designation [DD&GD].
Renewals – When Things Are Good
Strategy: Reinforce Value and Status Quo
Your customers likely went through a difficult buying journey when they first purchased your software and, potentially, a challenging implementation process as well (see “The Advantages of Being the Incumbent Vendor” article for details). It was a lot of work!
Your strategy for securing a renewal is to celebrate their choice, emphasize the value already enjoyed, and remind your customers of the energy invested in purchasing and implementation. Reinforce that they don’t need to go through that again and that it was a substantial investment to attain production use status.
You may need to do discovery to uncover the value if it has not already been documented. See my article on this for details (you’ll be glad you did!).
If you’ve been working with your customer since their go live date and ensuring that they have been achieving their Value Realization Events (VREs), you should be well-positioned to secure the renewal, without the need for a demo. A discussion may be all that is required.
[DD&GD] Use a Great Demo! Situation Slide to refresh why your customer originally made their purchase. Recall (gently, but firmly!) the depth and breadth of the pain they previously suffered, then recap the capabilities they are currently using that form the solution.
[DD&GD] Next, review the VREs they’ve achieved and reinforce the ongoing value they are enjoying by using your offering. This is key!
[DD&GD] Use Illustrations, particularly “before and after” scenarios, to reinforce their wise choice of your solution and their move from their previous painful state to their current positive position (presented with the sound of angels singing!).
[DD&GD] Stay in “you” mode as you communicate all this information. Your customer is the hero in this story!