Shortening the Sales Process: How to Use Interactive Demos to Close Deals Faster

You know the golden rule, right? 

Treat others the way you want to be treated. 

Well, we wholeheartedly believe that this applies to the B2B SaaS sales world. 

Would you like it if you had to sit through rounds and rounds of discovery calls just to see the software you’re interested in? And once you finally got to see the product, if you then had to listen to an endless amount of feature dropping?

We’re gonna assume that’s a “no”. 

If we as sellers wouldn’t want to experience this ourselves, why would we put our buyers through long and complicated sales processes? Especially when you have the ability to offer interactive product demos, which can make a world of difference when it comes to reducing the length of the sales process. 

So, join us as we break down everything you need to know about using interactive demos to shorten your sales process. 

What’s a sales process?

But first, let’s take a sec to go over the basics. 

When we say sales process, we mean the series of steps that need to be taken in order to turn a lead into a paying customer. It includes everything from the initial contact the buyer has with your brand until the time that they sign on the dotted line. 

Typically, the standard sales process will include prospecting or lead generation, preparation, discovery, the demo phase, objection handling, follow-up, and closing the deal. 

Why is it important to shorten your sales process? 

AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR LONG SALES PROCESSES!

(Sorry for yelling, but we feel very strongly about this.)

Anybody from the B2B SaaS sales world will tell you that the typical sales process is way way way way (we’ll throw in another “way” here for good measure) too long. 

Don’t take our word for it. According to Hubspot, the average B2B SaaS sales cycle is 83 days long. 

Why does it take so damn long, you ask? Because buyers have to jump through tons of hoops, and by this we mean sit through a million and one discovery calls, just to get a glimpse of the product. And even when buyers finally get to see the product, it can take time for them to understand its value.    

Luckily, the tides are starting to turn in the B2B sales world. 

Customers have gotten used to a quick and straightforward B2C buying experience, and expect the same when it comes to B2B. With this in mind, more and more go-to-market teams are realizing that the B2B buying experience needs to be adapted to meet modern buyers’ needs. 

And this means finding ways to cut down the length of the average sales process. 

How interactive demos can be used to shorten the sales process

You may be saying to yourself, “Ok Walnut content writer, that all makes sense. But where do interactive demos come into play?”

To that, we (the Walnut content team) would respond, “Well, that just happens to be the exact topic we were planning to discuss at this point in the article.” 

The beauty of interactive product demos is that they give users the power to freely click through your demos and offer a real-to-life product experience. 

But the benefits of using these types of demos go beyond that, especially when it comes to shortening the sales cycle. 

Here are five ways that interactive demos can help you shorten your sales process:

1. Showcase your SaaS earlier in the process

With interactive demos, prospects don’t have to wait to see your product. 

When you use a demo platform (like Walnut), you can share your interactive product demos with your prospects by email or through links. 

Some demo platforms (*insert playful nod to Walnut*) even allow you to embed a demo directly on your website. 

This saves prospects from having to wait until the demo call to get an idea of what your product can do. And by letting your prospects try your product at any point during the sales cycle, it enables you to not only limit friction with buyers, but also cut down your sales process length. 

2. Speed up lead qualification

But wait, there’s another reason sharing interactive product demos early in the sales cycle can help you shorten your sales process. 

When you share interactive demos from the get go, prospects will already have an understanding of what your product can do before you meet with them. 

On top of this, if you use a demo platform (like Walnut), you can track how viewers engaged with your demo. 

And all of this can make your lead qualification much faster, which in turn, will make your overall sales process much shorter. 

3. Reduce time to value

The goal shouldn’t just be for prospects to eventually understand your product’s unique value proposition. 

Rather, you want them to quickly get why your product could be life-altering. 

By using interactive product demos, you give prospects the ability to consume your product content at their own pace. This means that they can spend more time on the aspects of your product that are the most relevant for their needs and skip whatever’s less interesting for them. 

And this helps speed up the time it takes for them to grasp what your product brings to the table. 

4. Focus on high-intent opportunities

We are going to assume that your team has limited time and resources. 

(If this is not the case for you, well then, we stand corrected.)

And this means that you need to save your team’s time for only the leads that have the highest intent and potential deal value. 

That’s where interactive demos can help you out. 

Because you can share them super easily via email, it gives you the best of both worlds. 

Your team (and especially your solution engineers) won’t miss out on any opportunities because they don’t have the time to schedule a demo with every single prospect (even the lower-intent ones). And this will free them up so they can focus on the bigger and higher-intent deals. 

5. Deliver demos quickly and easily

How else can interactive product demos help you shorten the sales process?

Glad you asked!

Old school demos used to not only be super time-consuming, but also expensive to create and maintain. 

This is because they used to require significant amounts of R&D resources to build out the sales demo environments as well as the demos themselves. It also took way too much time to really be able to personalize demos to individual prospects. 

But if you use an interactive demo platform (like Walnut) to create interactive demos, it’s easy to not only build flows for specific use cases or verticals, but also to duplicate and personalize them for every prospect you encounter.

And this can help you reduce your demo delivery time and in turn, your overall sales process. 

Using interactive demos to shorten the sales process

Sales processes are just like meetings: they’re better when they’re kept short and sweet. 

Not only does keeping sales processes short enable you to boost your sales team’s efficiency, but it also helps to make the buying experience better for your prospects. 

And one way to ensure you keep your sales process short and sweet is by using interactive product demos. 

If you use a demo platform (like Walnut), you can share your interactive product demos easily and quickly—at any point during the sales process.  

It’s a win-win. When you shorten the sales process, you give your buyers exactly what they want and give your team more time to close more deals. 

So what’s the hold up? Start streamlining your sales process by pushing the “Get Started” button.