Proof of Concepts: Resolving Technical Stalls in Sales Cycles
Your deal has stalled. What once seemed like it might close quickly now looks to be bogged down in a process of verifying myriad technical use-cases before things can proceed. Sound familiar?
The customer’s ask to verify some workflows isn’t unreasonable. There’s often a lot of money involved, and a customer feeling confident before proceeding is good for both parties. At this juncture, many reach for the Proof of Concept (PoC) to allay concerns, and rightfully so. This is where major problems can strike, though. Is your PoC too large in scope? Do you know how much validation is truly necessary to close the deal? Are you validating the correct things?
All of that can be tricky! But not getting it right threatens to blow out the length of your sales cycle. The key is to understand how much validation is too much. In the worst-case scenario, a prolonged validation will draw out the process, blow out deadlines, and impede efficient delivery.
With a bit of broader knowledge we can decrease the chance of a deal stalling and accelerate license close. Let’s dig into how to think of a PoC!
Avoiding a Stall with a Proof of Concept
The Proof of Concept term is often casually tossed around. In the case of short sales cycles it’s critical to understand the tight scope they’re intended to have. Without this appreciation, you’re prone to getting stuck validating much more than necessary to close the deal.
So then, what is a PoC? Think of them as tightly focused demonstrations, like wind tunnel testing a new wing shape to demonstrate it can generate lift before designing other elements of the aircraft. If the wing doesn’t generate enough lift, why continue? In a similar vein, customers often have a few tricky parts in their implementation they’re unsure about - much like concern over whether a wing generates enough lift. Focusing on these areas helps us narrow down precisely what needs to be validated, tightly scope the work, and build individual PoCs to address each concern directly. The ideal outcome here is for the customer to understand that their use-case is solvable with the least amount of upfront work. It’s much easier to confirm the design of a wing than build even a fraction of an aircraft just to prove it can fly.
The subtext here is that while you may be using the term PoC, you may actually be committing to more than necessary! This understanding can help break out of the stalls you may be experiencing. So if you’re not building PoCs then what are you building? Let’s introduce prototypes and Minimal Viable Products (MVPs).
Building Too Much: Prototypes & Minimal Viable Products
In contrast to the tightly focused PoC, we have the more broad prototypes and MVPs. These approaches offer their own benefits, but also are more involved. Committing to these during your sales cycle increases the likelihood of a drawn out license close.
Let’s extend our aircraft analogy to prototypes and MVPs to illustrate the increase in technical lift (that was a pun!).
Prototypes
A prototype is most often built for internal stakeholders to help refine a concept. Refining a concept is key here. It isn’t testing it out to see if it works. Let’s go back to our aircraft analogy. Imagine a small, working aircraft model that can sit on your desk. Something like this allows the customer to see how it might fly while also allowing for improvements to be made before creating a final, full-sized version. This is a lot of work. Not only do you need to confirm the wings generate lift, but you need a reasonable design for the aircraft itself, with all of its pieces, as well as the time needed to craft it. Originally, though, we just wanted to confirm the new wing shape generates proper lift. Seems like extra work, doesn’t it?
Now, instead of a PoC to test wing dynamics, imagine what crafting an entire scale model of an aircraft just to sell a wing design does to your sales cycle.
Minimal Viable Products
Even worse news for the length of your sales cycle is a customer’s team wanting to build a Minimal Viable Product (MVP). By this point, you should be able to guess we’re well beyond what’s needed to close a deal. We don’t need an MVP to sell a platform like Auth0. For our case, an effective wing design, building an MVP is similar to building a basic, life-sized aircraft. That is, you’re going to build an aircraft with only the essentials, just to determine whether it can fly! And if it’ll fly, and if people like it, the customer’s team will then toss seats in the back and put a nice coat of paint on the fuselage. And we just wanted to be sure the wings will do their job! That’s a lot of effort. And you haven’t even closed the deal.
Does getting trapped in either of these more involved approaches sound familiar? They can sneak up on us; we just have to be vigilant to ensure the customer gets the reassurance they need without the sales cycle getting drawn out.
The Friendly Sales Skies
So think about the wing in the wind tunnel the next time you start a sales cycle. All your customer needs to know is whether what you’re selling will produce the required lift, not that an entire plane can coast through the sky in luxury. PoCs are important, they reassure customers, they put a bit of skin in the game, and when tightly focused they can keep your cycle nice and short. And then you’re off to the next customer who, of course, wants a slightly different wing!
If these drawn out cycles sound familiar, or you want to be sure to avoid them altogether, reach out! We’d love to hear from you and share our lessons learned.
