This is the final part of a three-part series on what I learnt from introducing video to the sales cycle. In the first two parts, I discussed how the use of video can reduce the number of wasted demos as well as adding more value to clients. Next, I will explore how video can help provide more control of the sales cycle.
The Risks of a Single-Stakeholder Opportunity
Over the years, I have witnessed first-hand the risks of engaging with a single stakeholder. There is a risk of the opportunity going cold. They might stop replying to emails, they might change roles or even leave the organisation. If there isn’t a relationship with other stakeholders, this can jeopardise an opportunity.
A big part of the idea of introducing video to the sales cycle was the ability to regain control of a sales cycle by tracking who had watched each video and especially who it had been forwarded to. The expectation was that we would be better equipped to map out stakeholders in the sales cycle and mitigate the risk of a dependency on a single individual.
Building a Stakeholder Map
By gathering analytics on who has viewed a demo video (and for how long), we can build a picture of how engaged each stakeholder is. If they don’t bother to watch the video, perhaps the opportunity isn’t as real as it seems. The same is true if they merely skip through the video without paying attention. As I discussed in my previous post, that’s why we now require all stakeholders to have watched an overview demo video before assigning a Presales resource to an opportunity to reduce the number of wasted demos.
Conversely, if we can see good engagement in a video, we know the opportunity has legs. What’s more, if the demo gets shared around the stakeholder’s peers there is clearly engagement in that organisation in the sales process. Account Executives can see exactly to whom a video has been forward to help build a stakeholder map of that opportunity. More often than not, these are stakeholders who wouldn’t have been discovered under normal circumstances.
Although this was an expected outcome of the project, what I didn’t anticipate was the scale this would impact the sales cycle. We have discovered (on average) more than two new stakeholders on each opportunity. That has taken a huge amount of risk out of the pipeline where opportunities were previously dependent on a single stakeholder.
The Right Time to Reach Out
Another unexpected benefit was giving Account Executives the right opportunity to contact stakeholders. If you’ve ever been on the buying side for a piece of software, you’ll know there’s nothing worse than being called, emailed or chased when you are busy with other things. I have experienced this first hand. Even though I have full intention of acquiring the software, being badgered can be a real turn-off.
If you have real-time notifications of when a video has been viewed, you know when your prospect is in the right frame of mind to think about you and your solution. We have found that calling or sending an email within 10-15 minutes of someone watching a video has been highly successful in catching the prospect at the right time. Especially if the individual is busy and ordinarily difficult to tie down.
This concludes my three-part series on ‘What I Have Learned From Introducing Video to the Sales Cycle’. I hope you have enjoyed it and I’d love to hear your feedback and comments.
