Part 2: The Perfect POC; The Kickoff

Now that you laid the foundation for the Perfect POC, see Discovery article here (first step), it’s time to schedule the kickoff, the configuration, and the communication plan. If your company can kickoff within 5 minutes and doesn’t need a specialist for configuration then skip towards the bottom for “Set.”

In the previous article you identified the success criteria of the POC, the timeline, who is involved, budget, process to decide and if the POC is successful “what’s next.” In this stage you’ll begin to do the following:

• Agree on the timeline of the POC
• Agree on resources involved
• Agree on scope and use cases that will be showcased
• Reconfirm the timeline and success criteria
• Set up check-in call schedule
• Set proper expectations for the customers role
• Set wrap-up call schedule and get the economic buyer to attend

Agree

• Agreeing on the timeline of the POC is crucial as you as a sales rep do not want your time wasted. Getting your prospect to agree on “2 weeks”  allows them to sharpen their focus, not waste your time, and set schedules appropriately.
• Resources are key for agreement, as your product may require multiple stakeholders and teams to be involved, time dedication into product, and who on your team needs to be involved. 
• Agreement on scope and use cases allows you to specifically focus on the success criteria as to not get bogged down in the mess of what the competition is trying to muddy the waters with.

Reconfirm

• Reconfirming the timeline and success criteria allows you to refocus on the foundations discussed in the previous article (relinked). Once you get that reconfirmation, you can share a pre-created document that “holds your prospects feet to the fire.”  I’ve had prospects that we check all the boxes for and still try to play games, remembering “buyers are liars.”

Set

• Setting up the check-in call schedule allows you to not have to chase your prospect (as much). I highly recommend doing this while on the call with your prospect and sending the invites while on the call with them. Make sure you get them to accept it so it “sticks to their calendar.” Leverage the data identified during your discovery stage as to who else will be involved so that you can get them on the check in calls.
• Proper expectations are vital to ensure your prospect knows what role they will play in the POC. Do they need to use the product everyday? Will they need to loop in a specific individual to take data from your POC mid way and apply to their other solution? 
• Setting up the wrap-up call schedule allows you to plan ahead, get your prospect to socialize the situation and the schedule with your true economic buyer ahead of time, and prepare your prospect for the next steps in the process.

TLDR

Although you may be a salesperson, the above steps seem more like project management. Think of your role as transitioning to a project management role once you’ve got agreement to conduct a POC and it switches back when we get down to price negotiation.