Customers often don't know or won't share their baseline metrics. Instead of getting stuck, offer to establish the baseline for them during the first week of the pilot. Then, demonstrate clear improvement against that newly established number, making the value tangible and immediate.
Treat a pilot like a campaign, not a passive trial. Before starting, map out a specific value delivery for each week. Week one might be establishing a baseline and showing initial improvement. Week two could introduce a new insight or feature. This creates momentum and reinforces your product's impact throughout the process.
In a short pilot, don't promise to increase overall revenue (a lagging metric). Instead, focus on a controllable upstream metric, like increasing the number of accounts touched. Demonstrate a clear win on this leading metric, then extrapolate its impact on the larger business goal.
To de-risk a pilot, you need two internal advocates. The Business Champion cares about the outcome (e.g., VP of IT), while the Technical Champion lives the daily reality and can derail the project (e.g., Director of IT Support). Win over both to prevent a 'we can build this ourselves' scenario.
Salespeople often fail to build rapport with technical stakeholders. Deploy your own engineers to work directly with the customer's technical team. This peer-to-peer interaction builds credibility and trust, as they speak the same language and can co-create value, making the 'build vs. buy' argument moot.
Unlike traditional SaaS, AI solutions often prompt a 'build vs. buy' debate. The winning sales strategy is to reframe the purchase as a co-building partnership. By embedding your engineers with the customer, they feel they are informing the build, satisfying their desire for customization without the associated risk.
Avoid pilots that go nowhere by building the conversion into the contract. Define the success metrics upfront and include language that if those metrics are achieved, the agreement automatically converts to a paid contract. This forces a serious conversation and filters out prospects who are not serious buyers.
The goal of a pilot has evolved from showing how technology works to tangibly improving a customer metric within the pilot's timeframe. Instead of just demonstrating possibilities, you must prove value by moving a number they care about in two to four weeks, making the business case a natural next step.
When a prospect says 'I don't know my numbers,' don't give up. Tell a story about a similar customer and define the metric for them. By sharing what other companies' baselines were, you give them a frame of reference and make it easier for them to provide an educated guess to start the pilot.