Rules for running a sales "proof of concept" - by Mike Marg

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1. Let’s start with the wrong way to run a proof of concept- the wrong way is simply saying “sure!” and deploying the product for your decision maker with maybe a quick walkthrough and demo, with a promise in place to reconnect in a month once the trial period ends. “You need to make sure a prospect is dead serious about buying before you even think about granting a proof of concept.” A proof of concept must be extremely intentional in order to yield fruit. A proof of concept is a privilege for your customer (free usage of the product and a ton of time without any commitment to purchase) so before you, as a seller, agree to that proof of concept, you must establish some key ground rules. Let’s explore what those ground rules look like.

   In Proof relevance and matching

2. You should never grant a POC to a champion without them having full decision maker buy in. Before giving a potential customer the “keys to the kingdom” you need some assurance that you’re working with the person who can sign the contract, or at the very least, this person is committing that the decision maker is ready to move forward if the POC is successful. “Sometimes, decision makers will want to prove impact in a proof of concept. Meaning, I want to PROVE that our team was more productive with your product, that your product drove a meaningful amount of new leads compared to the old way, etc.” You should never allow ROI to become part of your POC success criteria. First of all, a few weeks isn’t nearly enough time to predictably prove anything, so that means you’re just taking a massive coinflip risk on something that is unlikely to work out the way you want.

   In Quantified outcome proof

3. The bottom line is this: if we prove all the specific things you want to approve, I need to know that you’re planning to buy. The worst possible outcome would be proving all the success criteria, only to have the prospect back away from purchasing. That means you wasted your time. “If a prospect wants to tie the success of the POC to a certain level of ROI, a strong seller would push back and explain that it’s unrealistic to prove ROI after 3 weeks.” A lot of times in sales, you must be willing to go all in on a belief, and risk losing the deal as a result. This doesn’t mean you should be irresponsible- it just means that if you allow certain conditions, you’re so heavily handicapping yourself from ever making a good sale that it’s not worth it.

   In Trust and proof objections

4. “Would it be ok if we ran a proof of concept first?” “before your early customers feel comfortable buying, they may ask you for a proof of concept (we will also refer to this as a “POC” for short.)” It’s very easy (and may even feel natural) to excitedly agree to whatever your early customers ask for in order to sell your early key deals. Giving away a proof of concept too easily is one of the most time consuming (and thus, resource and money consuming) mistakes you can make as an early founder or sales leader.

   In Market-entry offer design

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