Large orgs demo playbooks
So I recently provided consultancy to a renowned FTSE100 brand in the UK and they tendered for a new GRC tool. For obvious reasons the shortlisted orgs for the tenders were auditboard, metricstream and workiva. I was lucky to attend the demo's from all three and I noted almost the same pattern in their demos.
They did not list out the features, pricing or how they are different from others. Instead they studied the room first i.e. who is in the room and for what reasons. Intial discussions were just around understanding the 1st, 2nd and 3rd lines of defence and how controls, risks and internal audit currently work and how differently.
They then presented their thoughts on how the departments can work collaboratively. Still nothing around how they can help or what their tools can do.
And then they introduced their tool specifically where they noted the problem areas or where alot of manual activity was taking place.
These demos landed really well with the execs. I was with the CFO, CTO and the heads of risk and internal audit in the debrief session and they picked one GRC just because 1) they listened to the concerns and only spoke for about 30-35% of the time 2) they gave really great suggestions on how existing processes can be improved and 3) they were seen as the SMEs i.e. they knew what problem they were solving and the why, how and what.
So I think everyone in SAAS space should ensure they are seen as the SMEs in their area and try to solve the problem for the potential clients without the expectation that this will land them the client. Also none of the 3 companies above bargained on the pricing at all. If you cant pay then you are not our ICP (very clear message from the start)
Democritic (.co) is one of the platforms which can really help in ensuring you stick to your playbook. Its a tool where you can practice with an AI buyer (tailored to your ICP) before you actually go in the boardroom so do take a look at that if you want.