All the stars are aligning for the wrap-up of your POC to present the data, the story, tie back to the success criteria and gain confirmation of all the “yeses” you need.
For this scheduled meeting, ensure the decision maker is in attendance. This is essential as a test of your champion and to firmly confirm where you are in your process. Getting the decision maker on the call allows you to speak directly to them, explain the results and the value associated with the data found in the POC.
Get the Decision Maker on the Call
At this meeting is it imperative to bring a story with a business case and the metrics of the prospects pain and tied to the value identified in the POC as well as to how this is justified with the business case. For example if the prospect has shared that there is a struggle in reporting capabilities as that the data they require is currently found in over 8 dashboards which when manually aggregated could take hours as well as if data is missed that could lead to increased risk it is imperative for you to tie the business value of how your product/solution solves that and the metrics associated with that resolution.
The value and data identified during the POC must be tied to the success criteria. Continue to harp on the success criteria and how your solution and the data found is 1:1 if it is. In earlier stages, you should have be able to influence the success criteria and been able to hold the prospect to it during the scoping call that “if we are able to show ABC you will buy…”
Drive Urgency
You’ve gained the technical win and confirmation of such from your champion as well as having executive commitment to move forward by following the steps above and all others from previous articles. At this point your goal is to drive urgency. What can you do to drive the prospect to sign now? A question I typically ask my account executives during forecasting calls is “why can’t this deal close now vs later? What do we need to do to get this moving forward sooner rather than later?” I’m sure reading that as an AE you hate hearing that question. Flip it on your prospect. You’ve provided a POC timeline and scope the steps out to align to what they perceive as their close date. What you can do to push urgency is leverage real time events/news, push FUD, discounts, noteworthy comments within the 10k and annual reports, even their competition.
How to?
You may be asking yourself, “How can I use the competition to push urgency?” If your prospect is a startup and targeting larger opportunities that are requiring specific security in place, compliance certification, speed time to quote, or enhanced communication between departments, speaking to the urgency of completing your current opportunity with their potential lost opportunities and market share to competition is a motivator to all business owners.
TLDR:
Get the decision maker on the call, review the pain points and how your solution will solve those problems. Drive urgency by connecting the pain and problems to the business value of solving said issues.
