Finding your champion at the organizations you sell to is critical because they sell for you when you’re not around, which, let’s be honest, is most of the time.
So, let’s say you nailed the presentation to your champion. What’s next? Now, they have to take the pitch back to their team. You can end up playing a high-stakes game of “Telephone” based on what they remember from your presentation if you don’t prepare them properly.
Don’t throw your champion in the deep end. Using buyer enablement tools such as demo automation and interactive product tours can help because they give your champions all the information they need while providing you with insights into who they shared the demo with and what they watched.
1. Evangelize to Stakeholders With a Click
Buyers spend only about 17% of their time with vendors—and that’s all the vendors they’re considering. They’re on their own the rest of the time because that’s how they want it. This can leave sales reps in the dark. Champions help overcome this issue because they make the case for your solution when you’re not there.
They’re a great tool, but they’re human. Buying from you is only a tiny fraction of their day, and now they have to go back to their team and sell for you, relying on what they remember from your pitch. No matter how well they pay attention, there will be things they just forget.
This is where an automated demo helps you enable your champion. The champion can share the automated demo directly with the stakeholders, ensuring the messaging is exactly what you want it to be. Even better, each stakeholder will be able to personalize the demo to their unique interests, making it so they only see the content they want and nothing they don’t.
2. Avoid Asynchronous Issues
Getting the entire buying group in one meeting is a huge feat. Unless the planets align, you’ll most likely have a few members who aren’t there for every live meeting you have. Again, you’re forced to rely on your champion or the other stakeholders in attendance to share the meeting notes with those missing.
Instead, send an automated demo as a follow-up to your regular live meetings that missing stakeholders can watch on their schedule. We’ve found that 30% of the interactive demos we send out are viewed outside regular business hours. Meaning, you get to continue selling whether you’re actually on the clock or not.
Come see how easy buying can be.
3. Keeps Deal Momentum High
75% of B2B consumers say they prefer a rep-free sales experience, but 77% state their purchase decision is difficult, and 95% of buying groups end up revisiting decisions when new information is discovered. This means as much as they want to do it themselves, they really still need some help.
Instead of making them go back and forth as new information gets presented, send them demos aligned to their current buying stage. This will prevent them from being overwhelmed with unnecessary information and help them move from one stage to the next. Just make sure to provide clear next steps and what you need from them to move forward.
This transparency makes buying easier and keeps deal momentum high. The buying group will come to meetings prepared with specific questions, making your first call feel like a second or third one.
4. Address Buying Group Dysfunction
Buying groups keep getting larger, which is making selling more complicated. Just like scheduling, finding alignment in what everyone wants from a solution is a feat. Each stakeholder is going to view your solution from their unique perspective, departmental priorities, and personal agenda.
Champions can use their influence to get everyone on the same page if there’s dysfunction, but they’ll need help creating harmony. Equipping your champion with a sharable automated demo lets stakeholders choose the topics they want to see. This gives you insights into topics they care about as well as areas they might have skipped. Use these insights to further tailor your and your champion’s messaging as you work to bring the team together.
5. Aid Deeper Discovery
Another complication with large buying groups is knowing who needs to be included. Often, you don’t know who the whole buying group is until later in the selling process. Again, your champion might have insight into who will be involved in this process, but they might not be aware of every decision-maker.
Allowing your champion to share an automated demo can do more than keep them on message; it can uncover hidden stakeholders you didn’t know were there! Each demo shares information on every viewer, so you know who watched. It will also show what they watched and how long, giving clues into what matters most to each stakeholder.
Getting Started
To get started, coach the champion on the importance of engaging all the relevant stakeholders in the buying group with the automated demo. If the champion doesn’t have a direct relationship with the other stakeholders, encourage them to share digital demo content as a non-intrusive opener.
Consensus makes this process even easier by allowing the champion to add the new viewer to the demo and then forward the demo link directly to them. Our platform will capture the viewer’s information and give you the same detailed analytics you got from the initial viewer.
From one demo, you can independently research newly discovered stakeholders for the deal. Then, you can continue to follow up to reach those stakeholders directly. It can be tricky to know when to reach out to the champion or a stakeholder directly, so use your best judgment.
Let Champions Take the Lead
Champions want to sell your solution internally to their teams, so why not help them do it? Giving them an automated demo to share with the rest of the buying group helps maintain proper messaging, avoid scheduling conflicts, and increase deal momentum. For more ways demo automation can help you enable your buyers, check out our blog, research, or even your own custom demo.
