Win Big as an ISV: Getting from First Meeting to Closed Deal [Part 2]
In Part 1 of our blog series on strategies that drive success in the Salesforce partner ecosystem, we took a closer look at the value of alignment across teams, in terms of product-market fit and messaging, and within the context of building a go-to-market alliances team. Now, we’ll shift to another core piece of succeeding alongside Salesforce — designing buyers’ and sellers’ journeys.
These journeys represent two sides of the same coin: every step it takes to move a deal from first meeting to closed deal. Think trial experience, demo environments, and everything in between. Zeroing in on how your buyers purchase your products and how your sales team sells can help uncover opportunities for key wins.
Let’s continue along with lessons from our Acting Like a Top 25 ISV webinar series and dive into what it takes to get — and keep — your buyer and seller journeys on track.
The Buyer’s Journey — Trial Experience Is Everything
It’s easy to think that your product’s trial experience is as cut and dry as a prospective customer test driving your technology. But, as with many steps in the sales process, it’s not quite that simple. As CodeScience CRO Sean Hogan explains, “It is the experience you want a prospect to go through as they’re interacting with your company and your technology through the buying process.”
This means there’s a lot more riding on your trial experience than you may initially believe. The key to creating smooth, frictionless hands-on trials that close deals revolve around a common theme — alignment. The success or failure of a trial program requires your teams and your technology to be on the same page.
Mike Davis, Founder of GTM Guides, explains every good demo or trial starts with a good story. For ISVs, three core stories need to be told:
- Your value story for customers
- Your value story as it relates to the Salesforce internal teams
- Stories that align your internal stakeholders around value for external audiences
Each of these audiences has unique challenges, and ISVs must focus on achieving success. Prospective customers will always demand a hands-on experience because that’s mere table stakes in the Salesforce ecosystem. Taking that a step further, sales teams are responsible for interpreting customer challenges and delivering a trial experience that speaks to them.
As Mike explains, “When a contact requests a demo, salespeople often interpret challenges based on their experiences selling a product. But this can often be misaligned with what a customer actually needs to experience. Don’t let assumptions get in the way. Be genuinely curious when someone requests proof of concept. Ask some follow-up questions to understand what that actually means to them.”
Storytelling is just one piece of solving the trial experience puzzle. Your team’s technological framework also has significant implications on trial experience. And this is where your stories and technology must align. Don’t feel obligated to go all-in on every available trial option. Find out what works best for your target customers and focus there.
Trial experiences improve by looking for increment wins that can be repeated. To learn how to convert prospects to customers with a free trial of your AppExchange app, take this Trailhead module.
The Seller’s Journey — Designing for Success
Naturally, the bookend of the buyer’s journey is the experience of selling your product. So what is this seller’s journey? It’s every touchpoint that gets an opportunity from qualified to closed deal. And yes, your seller’s journey can absolutely be crafted and optimized for repeatable success. But it’s important to recognize that a seller’s journey impacts more than just your sales team.
As Sean explains in our webinar with cohost Craig Rosenbaum, Founder of TOPO (now Gartner), “Your seller’s journey is not just your sales team, it’s your sales engineers; it’s your demo environment; it’s your product marketing team building the buyer’s story; it’s your listing on the AppExchange; it’s your alliances team, and your executives. And do not forget about leveraging Salesforce!”
Just as we explained with the buyer’s journey, the logical starting point for designing your seller’s journey is to map out all the touchpoints it takes for your team to close a deal. According to Craig, clearly articulated maps from opportunity to close are a common characteristic of top-performing ISVs and SaaS companies.
“When we do data collection, typically we’ll see something qualitatively and then we’ll want to go and survey and get a closer look,” explains Craig. “One of the things that we noticed was that in high-performing SaaS organizations and software organizations, two-thirds of them have well-defined sales processes. And that’s a big deal.”
Articulating all the steps that comprise your sales process is only half the battle. It’s important to also be aware of the hidden traps and patterns that can potentially sabotage otherwise high-performing teams.
A staggering 51% of trials fail because sales reps haven’t adequately defined the success criteria, thus failing to manage buyer expectations.
“Trials are not ‘set it and forget it’,” Craig notes. It’s not enough to just have a great product and put it in the buyer’s hands. “I know your product’s amazing. But the key to the trial is setting up the buyer for success.”
Ready to set up free trials on AppExchange? Learn how to set up with Trialforce today.
That’s it for part two in our blog series. Check back for part three in a couple weeks.
To learn more about strategies of winning ISVs, visit the Salesforce Partner Community.
