Mark: Welcome back to the “Burning Presales Podcast,” where I’m very pleased to have on today Paul Harris. So Paul, I understand that overview demos, solving that problem, I think people are pretty much on board with, but the impact that one person can have suddenly is spread across other parts of the buying journey as well. What’s your experience with that?
Paul: So, yeah, I agree and I think the death of the overview demo is something that very few people will want. I think many would agree with that. But, if you think about, say you are going to go, and you are going to record a video, you’re going to record a three-minute snippet that really just talks about a feature that you know really, really well, and you are the expert, you are the best person to show that in your company.
If you record that, and you make that available, one person might pick it up and go, “Hey that went really down really well with my prospects.” They go and close a deal really quickly. Their colleagues are going to ask, “Oh, how did you do that? What was it? What was it that made a difference?” I go, “Oh, well, you know, Mark recorded this video, and I used that, and all of a sudden everything’s fallen into place.”
So, very organically, you are going to find that if you are creating great content, great material that people are getting success with, they will want to reuse it. And especially in sales, people are going to go, “Well, I want to look at what that guy’s doing over there that’s making him so, or making them so successful. How can I get a bite of that pie? How can I get some of that, and what can I do? What can I copy from them that’s going to make me successful?
And that is then going to allow you to spread. And you are not having to go out and deliver that multiple times because you’ve recorded it. You know, you’ve condensed it down, you’ve taken your time, you’ve trimmed it, you’ve primed it, you’ve gone, “This is the best possible version of this.” I think about it like a, when you bake a cake correctly, you do it over and again, you prepare, prepare and you prepare, and you fine tweak and you tune, and you take out these little variables to get it down to the best possible version. And you’ve done that, and you put that out to the world and people go, “Yes, we want that on repeat, please.”
Mark: I love that. I really do. And I love the cake analogy as well, but mainly because I can’t bake. So, I’m very bad at making cakes, but I’m quite good at doing savory dishes. So, if ever I was needing to present a meal, which included a cake, I would hope that I would be able to call on one of my friends or family or in a non-analogous sense, colleagues for their expertise.
And if they’ve done what I’ve done, and scaled my impact to other places, hopefully, they’ve done the same. And so, when I’m demoing a particular aspect or product or service, I can use their demos in my demo to service that need for my buyer as well. So, that’s great. Thanks, that’s a great point.
Paul: No, absolutely. And I think the only thing I’d add is that, and it’s fair, and sometimes people think, “Well, if I’m now recording all my demos, then what am I going to do? What am I going to be doing with my time?” And honestly, the answer to that is, “Well, right now what was your number one complaint?” You are probably saying, “I don’t have enough time to do anything.”
So, by taking that, by finding that and, you know, whether it’s recording that demo, whether it’s crafting a really great presentation that people can go and reuse, that frees up your time. That frees up time in your day to then go and leave [inaudible 00:03:45] things. And people aren’t going to want to let you go because you are the person who created that. If you go, then they can’t replicate that.
So, actually only again, maybe inversely of what some people might expect, it actually increases your value in your brand internally because people go, “Right, we want to hold onto them because they make really great content, and if we lose them, we lose the ability to create that.”
Mark: Amazing. Well, yes indeed, thank you. So, as a hiring manager, when I’m looking to hire somebody now, when you put the headcount together, you work out the requirement you have to service the business need, and how many people you think it would take to achieve that.
What I’m starting to see is a calculation in hiring managers’ minds that if someone has the ability to scale themselves, and be more than the hours that they have in the day, then their time is suddenly scaled, and their impact is scaled.
So, if someone is coming to me and on their CV is, that they have made a significant impact using demo automation, and they’ve successfully scaled themselves, then what I’m hiring is 1.5 people or two people, or whatever the multiplier is. But I’m only having to pay for one person, but the impact that they will have on the business need, I think is particularly larger. Have you found that, or what are your thoughts around that?
Paul: Yeah, so I think that’s actually really interesting, and I think you’ve hit on something that for me is kind of really key in this idea of leveraging things like demo automation, and auto-responses to RFX is all this kind of technology that anyone listening to this I’m sure is aware of, right?
These things which are designed to, in the best way possible, take away the lower, maybe not say lower skill, but kind of the more repetitive work that we find, we’ve found ourselves doing. And that is exactly true because what you can then do is, rather than someone doing the same task over and over again, you are actually saying, “Well, you can now do that automatically.” So, I am still getting the same, as a hire manager, you are getting that same result.
You are able to replicate that and to scale that. More importantly, any company is interested in growth, and you want to grow. And one way to grow is you go out and you hire more people, right? But that’s a cost. So, how can you actually make more of the people that you’ve got? You know, you’ve gone out, you’ve hired the best people, and we all know that hiring is really difficult right now.
So, going out, hiring those people, and enabling them to be really efficient and really effective in what they do, I’ve certainly found that because you are, again, you’re bringing people out of that sort of day-to-day whirlwind of, well, I’ve got five RFPs to answer this week, so I’m going to have to go and fill in the same answer over and over again.
Actually, now you know what, I’m going to be able to craft a really good response, fill that in, and hey, I’m off to the races, I can go, and I can now start to create some really great video demos, or I can go and help really close out a deal by delivering that sort of killer value.
So, I think it’s, it’s absolutely true, and it’s not even just, you know, getting sort of one and a half times the person, it’s actually increasing the value of that resource. The value of that person because they’re able to deliver more and more dive… They’re able to deliver more diversity in the work that they’re bringing to the company. They’re not just doing one thing. They’re maybe doing two, three, or four different things.
Mark: Really interesting. Thank you very much, Paul. I’m really looking forward to welcoming you back again to the “Burning Presales Podcast.” Great to see the content that you are putting out on LinkedIn. If you’re not following Paul, then you definitely should do, go and find Paul Harris, and have a look at some very funny yet very relevant videos, short form. So, obviously does very well with that. Thank you very much, Paul. We will see you again soon.
Paul: Thank you, Mark. It’s been a pleasure.
