What are some best practices for managing customer expectations in presales?

It's important to know your customer's expectations and also to look beyond them. If you are knowledgeable in the space you're in, chances are you can guide your customer to what their decision criteria ought to be better than they can by themselves. Imagining yourself as one of them - as though you were just hired as a consultant whose employment was contingent on the success of implementing your company's products and services - can help you devise the right questions and the best approach to getting them answered.

Use open ended questions to try to get as close as possible to the customer's business drivers behind their engagement. Then document them as 'business requirements' (not a technical solution, yet) - that's the 'what'. Take it back home and work on mapping those business requirements with 'how' the solution addresses each of the asks. Do not present 'technical features' of your product/service at this stage. This is the 'how' and it should include some indicative 'investmemts' by the customer and a clear business analysis showing returns on those investments. Be ready to address the customer's questions on life cycle management and integrations at this stage as well!

Selon une étude réalisée auprès de 100 décideurs concernant les achats de prestations informatiques, 40 % des décideurs trouvent que les propositions des fournisseurs sont stéréotypées et 33 % considèrent qu’elles ne prennent pas en compte leurs spécificités. Ces chiffres soulignent l'importance cruciale de comprendre son client. J’aime beaucoup cette citation de Cicéron : « Si vous voulez me convaincre, vous devez penser comme moi, ressentir mes sentiments et parler avec mes mots. ». Pour réussir, il faut : - Comprendre son écosystème - Utiliser le jargon de son écosystème - Comprendre ses enjeux et ses douleurs Cette approche personnalisée est essentielle pour se différencier et gagner la confiance des décideurs.

Understand customer and customer business. Show that you are able to solve business and employees difficulties and problems. Present example or recent that you were involved in it and solved the problem. Better similar case to a similar organization. Summarize customer's problem presentation and solutions you suggest utilize hands on solutions

Work with your Sales Executive who should be the quarterback of your deal. From there, do your research on vertical, competitors and their business to supplement what you learned prior. Knowing the solution they have in place today and your competition matters for your part in the sale. One of the best ways to create a bridge building scenario, if you have a competitor of theirs who uses your solution, highlight what a company "very like" them is doing with the solution you're presenting or better yet, the business value they realize from it.

You can gain a ton of credibility by clarifying what a solution does and does not do for the Prospect. When companies come across as saying yes to almost every request, it can come across as less than credible. Customizations and partnerships are great ways to fill gaps when used appropriately.

In presales, it's important to be clear and honest with customers. Tell them honestly what your product can do. Understand their needs well to offer the right solutions. Explain things clearly so they understand. Set goals that are possible and keep them updated. Ask for feedback to get better.

Setting clear expectations on the ownership of the implementation is important. Well-defined timelines, success criteria, and feedback are important parts of setting up expectations. This helps a lot in building trust and credebility.

Be a trusted advisor. It's common to feel like the customer surely knows more than you do and doesn't need guidance on how to use your company's products and services. This is rarely the case. It is better to see the customer as not having the time to become an expert in what your company does and dependent on you to help them achieve maximum value from it. If you're not sure about how to do this, you can look to guidance from peers, do your research, and use a growth mindset to learn on the job.

Two possibilities for a solution is to either improve on a process they currently have or, bring a new piece of functionality into the conversation. Both have benefits that you can quantify whether it's cost savings, revenue growth or something else. Good Discovery upfront can help you tie back your solution to their strategic and tactical goals and you're able to be assumptive about the benefits of the proposed future state.

This is a great stage to be pragmatic with the Prospect especially when questions are asked about their ultimate business success. For my current Client with our Prospects, I ask a question at the end of my meetings "If I can get you 3, 5, or 10 million views on your social platform, can you convert a decent percentage of those to sales"? Our approach will have done its job, can you commit to your performance afterwards?

Good presales people are GREAT with the solution they are demonstrating and can make "game time" adjustments during a meeting. These shouldn't be scenarios that are totally unanticipated however, view them as opportunity where the audience may want to hear more about functionality they thought of while you were presenting. If it differentiates you more and, helps with closing the deal, this scenario can be a great asset. Pre sales doesn't win deals in your meeting but you certainly can set your team back or....lose the deal with a bad meeting!

Whenever I work with a customer or a prospect, I use a problem solving mentality to guide me. This means being superficially aware of things that a customer could be using my company for but haven't asked about yet. It also means prioritizing what I recommend into what a customer really needs to use as opposed to might see the benefit of. Combine this with always-be-discovering and always-be-confirming and you might not even notice how many times you changed direction during a sales cycle.

Be transparent. This is vitally important. If sales has done a good job at pitching the value proposition of the products or services being sold, then the customer should ultimately be aware that their expectations will be met, sometimes the when and how just changes. By forming a good relationship early on, any setbacks, delays, or other non-ideal circumstances, while always a bummer, will be managed much better by being open and honest with a customer that you've built a great relationship with rather than blindsiding them, especially if the relationship is just getting off the ground. Always start off on the right foot, always be open and honest.