BEFORE WALNUT:
‘Only presales would attempt a demo’
For Odaseva, the complex nature of the product meant that their sales team relied on presales to give demos. But as they scaled, presales couldn’t keep up with the demand for use case-specific demos and maintain demo consistency.
“Only presales would attempt a demo, and even then, there were certain use cases that people resisted demonstrating. So, I think the demos we were giving made less of an impact on customers.”
AFTER WALNUT:
‘Walnut allows us to demo what was pretty much impossible to demo’
With Walnut, the team now had the confidence they needed to demo anything in their product. And because of how simple it was to use Walnut, the team was able to empower sales reps and BDRs to take full ownership of their demos, putting its dependence on presales (for demos) in the past.
“Essentially, Walnut allows us to demo what was pretty much impossible for us to demo. So, we’re able to make demos that reps and presales aren’t afraid to use.”
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:
‘Walnut gives us a competitive edge’
With Odaseva able to upgrade the customer experience, the sales team now had exactly what they needed to better showcase the product’s value and expand into new markets. And this gives them a significant competitive advantage.
“We operate in a very competitive landscape, but Walnut gives us an edge when it comes to readiness, response time, and overall customer experience.”
HERE’S THE FULL STORY:
Dave Horton, the VP of Solutions Engineering at Odaseva, understood better than anyone how much sales reps and BDRs struggled with live demos.
Because Odaseva’s product has many different use cases and cross-platform capabilities, customers needed to log in to multiple tools during a demo, including both Odaseva and Salesforce. This not only made it hard to showcase the product’s features, but also made their demos feel complex, overly technical, and too long.
So, the team wasn’t always confident their demos would go according to plan, with reps and BDRs ultimately relying on presales to give demos. And still, there were some features the presales team shied away from showcasing in a live demo.
For the 8 presales team members, the demand from the entire sales team, client account services, and CSMs was too much for them to handle, leading to a serious bottleneck.
And this created a bad demo experience for prospects and made the demo process super inefficient.
That’s when Dave realized things needed to change.
He wanted to find a solution that made it easy for anyone to show off their rather complex product.
Then he discovered Walnut.
‘We could get new reps up and running on the first day and not 2 weeks after they’ve joined’
In almost no time, Dave saw how easy it was for everyone, not just presales, to learn how to use Walnut. And this didn’t just apply to current team members.
When a new sales rep joined, Dave could just refer them to their already made Walnut demo library during onboarding and have them start demoing the product right away. Before Walnut, the ramp-up time was closer to two weeks because new reps needed to wait for access to Salesforce.
‘We actually receive compliments about the accountability of the team’
According to Dave, Walnut is a perfect fit for Odaseva because it can cater to all of the different types of demos the go-to-market team needs to give, exactly when they need it.
Walnut has given the team the ability to define unique flows, shorten demos, and showcase cross-platform capabilities—no actual access to Odaseva or Salesforce required.
Some of the ways Odaseva leveraged Walnut include:
- Scenario-specific demos—For every different persona, industry, integration, or use case that a demo could focus on, the team is able to show how their product adds value.
- Partner demos—When partners wanted to give demos, they used to need to have access to their own platform, Odaseva, and Salesforce. Now, the team can embed Walnut demos into a partner’s LMS, eliminating the need to log in to any of these platforms.
- New feature walkthroughs—When Odasevsa releases a new feature, Dave’s team uses Walnut to create a tutorial on how to use it.
- Product development—The innovation department at Odaseva uses Walnut as a rapid development tool when they are developing new products or features. By using Walnuts, they can gauge if there’s any interest from customers in the potential new product.
- Guided demos—The team creates how-to guides to walk customers through any steps they will need to complete on their own during the PoC process.
With reps and BDRs taking full ownership of their demos and the sales process, Dave noticed a serious improvement in the way they could utilize presales team members.
The real game changer, though, was the way the team could improve the customer experience during demos.
Because Odaseva has a library of Walnut demos for all of their use cases, they can hand pick the demos they’ll show based on the prospect’s specific needs. And if any concerns or questions come up during the demo, a rep can address it on the spot with another Walnut demo.
From the initial point of contact, everything is seamless and the team can cover lots of ground in a short amount of time. And this creates a better experience for a customer.
‘Walnut helped us go-to-market in new regions’
The moment Odaseva improved their demo delivery, Dave noticed tangible results.
When customers had a more engaging and personalized sales experience, they were better able to see the product’s value. And see it faster, for that matter.
On top of this, because anyone was able to give demos, sales reps and BDRs became more self-sufficient.
For example, the company now has an office in Australia, but none of the presales team is based there. While this used to be an obstacle, sales reps no longer need to wait for help from a presales team member to demo.
‘The implications of Walnut are powerful’
Odaseva set out to find a solution that would help them scale the activities of the sales team and create demos that better showcased all of their product’s use cases. What they got was so much more.
With Walnut, Odaseva empowered their sales reps and BDRs, giving them the confidence to demo anything and everything. And once the team improved the customer experience, it became easier for prospects to understand the value.
What really gets Dave, though, is how Walnut helped them break into a new market.
He believes that what happened with their Australia office speaks volumes about how Walnut can create value going forward.
