By focusing time and attention on the prospects who are most engaged, SDRs are converting more lead calls to opportunities. This Demo Qualified Lead (DQL) strategy ensures that sales reps spend the bulk of their time only on deals that have potential to turn into revenue and helps SCs focus their time on discovery and customization rather than introducing features to unqualified contacts
Digital demos help deals close faster
Implementation Timeline
One week
Full Demo Set Up Timeline
One month
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The results at a glance
Demo Views Per Quarter
0
Stakeholders Discovered Quarterly
0
deal closed in six weeks
$
0
+
Stakeholders Discovered on a single deal using Consensus
0
View time on single deal closed in six weeks
0
hrs
The Challenge
Accelerating Sales through Efficient Stakeholder Discovery
Aavenir wanted to leverage their pre-sales team’s abilities to deliver demos faster than competitors in new and inventive ways that would help them accelerate the buying process with procurement and other stakeholders. They wanted to shorten the sales cycle by making their demo process more efficient and more focused on how the buyers interact with their product. Because they routinely deal with Legal, Procurement, Sourcing and Finance leaders in their deals, they wanted to identify these stakeholders faster and build trust without subjecting their teams to repetitive demos.
The Aavenir team wanted to streamline how they performed discovery calls. John Hirsh, Vice President of Global Sales, noted that discovery sessions often felt like interrogations where buyers sat through up to 30 minutes of questions before they really got to the consultative part of the call. He wanted to find a way to give buyers a better experience that involved seeing the product earlier and giving the AEs and SCs the information they needed to have an effective discovery session with champions and other stakeholders from the buying group.
“We wanted to give our buyers a better experience and lead with product without adding extra burdens to our presales team. We looked for an asynchronous solution that prospects could view without us present and share with other decision makers. The ability for decision makers to view these demos ahead of a discovery call allowed us to have better conversations and set up for a good live demo. This has helped us to get through evaluation and into shortlist and negotiation faster.”
John Hirsh
Global Vice President of Sales | Aavenir
The Solution
The Consensus team worked with Aavenir to prioritize content creation to make the biggest impact on saving SEs’ time. John and his team are using Consensus in 2 major ways:
1. Creating 10-12 minute long intro demos AEs could send on demand after engaging with a prospect.
2. Uploading our full 60 – 90 minute custom demos for key customers and prospects to review and share within the decision-making team.
Aavenir is able to detect early engagement from buyers and can reach more members of the buying group as demos are shared throughout the organization. These demos are used to kickstart discovery and give both SCs and AEs vital information about what buyers wanted and also allow us to stay engaged further on in the sales cycle as new decision makers are uncovered.
Presales and sales collaborated closely to understand how demos were to be used and where in the sales cycle they should be shared. This led to testing with SDRs to see how demo engagement impacts the quality of conversations once a prospect has viewed part of a demo.
This began to form part of a qualifying process that included:
- SDRs or AEs sending demos as part of their initial outreach
- Use view (or no-view) notifications as part of the process to qualify for a live call
- Follow up with engaged prospects and set qualified appointments with AEs or SCs
- Use full customer demos in later sales stages to gauge involvement and uncover new decision makers
“Our thought process was to ask prospects to take a look at a 10 to 12 minute demo before we schedule the discovery calls. After we saw their engagement, we knew we could have deeper discussions and better discovery when we got to a live interaction.”
John Hirsh
Global Vice President of Sales | Aavenir
The Results
Shortening the Sales Cycle
Since implementing Consensus, Aavenir has seen deals close faster because buyers feel more empowered to make decisions. Instead of waiting for calendars to align for an intro demo, sales reps send an automated demo to introduce prospects to their solution. This allows prospects to watch demos asynchronously and frees up SC time to make an impact on revenue in other ways. After the demo has been viewed, live calls are set up and AEs and SCs use Consensus Demolytics to guide their questions to have more consultative discussions that move the needle and build momentum needed to help close deals faster.
John Hirsh reported his team was able to close a deal worth more than $120,000 ARR in less than six weeks, whereas a deal of this magnitude would have taken six to nine months to close before. Using Consensus allowed the buyer and seller to remain on the same page, distribute content among the buying group, and anticipate questions that came up in procurement and legal investigations.
“We could see momentum building in some deals because we kept discovering stakeholders. As a sales leader it gave me more confidence to forecast deals. Seeing multiple engaged stakeholders, and key areas of interest, helps guide us on where to put focus to get the deal closed in a more timely fashion.”
John Hirsh
Global Vice President of Sales | Aavenir
Improving the Qualification Process
Using Consensus’s Intelligent Demo Automation platform transformed the way Aavenir saw their lead qualification process. SDRs and AEs sending demos helps to evaluate buyer readiness based on engagement with demos before live calls. This has made calls much more effective and conversations more geared towards answering solution specific questions and overcoming objections rather than focusing on overviews and key value propositions.
“I’d rather my SDRs set up 10 great calls that move forward than 30 or more calls that have little potential to become opportunities. Using Consensus allows prospects to qualify themselves in or out based on whether or not they watch the demo. We’ve gotten to a point where sales reps will reach out and tell prospects that since they didn’t take the time to watch the demo beforehand, they might not be ready for our solution.”
John Hirsh
Global Vice President of Sales | Aavenir
A Better Buying & Selling Experience
The Aavenir team saw their discovery and live demo processes improve by automating the intro demos. Because prospects and champions are engaging with demos before meeting with an SC, both parties come to the table ready to talk specifics about Aavenir’s solution and make meaningful connections that build trust and help buyers feel better about moving forward.
"We’ve seen 30-minute discovery calls turn into 60 and even 90-minute conversations where our SCs get to go deeper with customers and talk about how our use of AI and Machine Learning can solve problems in their procurement, legal and sourcing processes. We get to know our customers better than our competitors do, and in an accelerated timeline.”
John Hirsh
Global Vice President of Sales | Aavenir
Intelligent Demo Automation improved the way AEs view their accounts by helping them focus on the buyer’s needs. Instead of trying to get every contact on an intro call, AEs now send a Consensus demo to their champion and encourage them to share it across their organization. They use Consensus Demolytics to map personas that make up their buying group, uncovering at times 14 or more individuals they need to include in their future conversations.
Looking Forward: Expanding the Role of Demo Automation
John’s team has seen additional uses for Consensus demo automation in their organization by focusing on how various demo types can play a role in enabling buyers before and after the initial purchase. The Aavenir team is investigating opportunities to create FAQ demos that help with account setup, troubleshooting, integrations, and other issues their buyers encounter upon implementation.
We definitely see the potential for helping our customers well after they purchase our software. Whether they want to reset their password or set up an integration, we can save both our team and their team time by giving them a series of 10-minute demos that explain what successful implementation looks like.”
John Hirsh
Global Vice President of Sales | Aavenir
