What’s wrong with 90 day evaluations? Everything!
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Oct 27, 2008 @ 12:01 AM
I got a call from Eileen the other day, concerned because her month was ending and she hadn't yet met her sales quota. She wanted to know what I'd suggest to accelerate the sales process. It turned out she had several prospects on 90 day product evaluations and they weren't scheduled to be up for two more months. In fact, 90 days was her company's standard evaluation policy. And because of that policy, many sales were delayed two months beyond what they would be if the company instead only offered 30 day evals. Let's do a little probing into the issue, and come up with a better way to increase sales faster.
Whether you call them evaluations, pilots, or proofs of concept, the idea is to let the prospect "try and buy." It's a great closing technique, because sometimes prospects need to test user interface, ease of use, requirements compatibility, and other elements. We discuss closing by evaluation in our sales courses, too. But rarely does it take them more than 30 days to do it. In fact, they can usually do it in less than a week. Sure they'd love to take 90 days on an eval, because they get to use it free or can let it sit on the desk for a few weeks, no reason to buy!
There is no logical reason to offer a prospect a 90 day eval, even if your prospect needs to show it to others on the decision team. Instead, make it your (and your company's) policy to offer a 30 day eval as standard. If the prospect asks for more time after the 30 days is up, I usually will grant the prospect 48 more hours. I tell him or her that during that time, I can provide unlimited tech support and access to me (the same he or she gets in the 30 days, by the way). I also mention that evals are on allocation, and that since my company can realistically handle only a fixed number at a given time, extending my evals prevents other prospects from getting theirs in a timely fashion. This provides some urgency, and builds the value of my product in the mind of the prospect. If the prospect insists on more time beyond that, and I don't consider the additional time a valid request, I'll suggest stopping the eval and firing it up again at a future date closer to the time needed for implementation. This prevents the prospect from using my eval to finish a project then not buying it, even though it performed to spec.
I've already blogged on techniques to close an eval, and if you missed it, it's at www.alextrain.com/inside-sales-telesales-tips-blog/?Tag=Evaluations+%26+Demonstrations , and well worth visiting if you use evaluations as a closing strategy. Of course there are times when a prospect will need more than 30 days to see a product, but these should be the exception, not the rule. By shortening your eval time, you'll compress your sales cycle, add urgency to the sale, value to your product, and prevent prospects from using your product rent-free. Add the 30 day maximum evaluation period to your Best Practices playbook to reach your sales quota faster.