Here is a listing of presales tools that we\u2019ve explored, including a paragraph from the vendor and our comments for many of these offerings. This is not comprehensive! The market is developing rapidly, with new tools appearing every month (it seems) and existing tools evolving briskly.<\/p>\n
These mini-overviews are likely already out of date, but are designed to alert you to the range of possibilities available. I recommend contacting the vendors directly to get the latest information!<\/p>\n
Top-Level Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n (Listed in alphabetical order)<\/p>\n General Presales Management and Process Facilitation<\/u><\/p>\n Managing POCs and Related<\/u><\/p>\n Live Demo Presentation Platforms<\/u><\/p>\n Demo Automation\/Enablement<\/u><\/p>\n Demo and Call Recording Tools<\/u><\/p>\n General Presales Management and Process Facilitation<\/strong><\/p>\n Cuvama<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cIn the competitive world of B2B software, everyone wants to differentiate on value.\u00a0 Unfortunately, very few do a good job.\u00a0 Cuvama<\/a> is changing this.\u00a0 Cuvama is a tech platform that helps B2B Sales and Customer Success teams collaborate with customers to discover the real value of solving their unique challenges and then align on the outcomes they will achieve.\u00a0 \u2018As a pre-sales leader and value-selling evangelist for over 25 years \u2013 I see Cuvama as a breakthrough solution in scaling value selling efforts.\u2019\u00a0 \u2013 Kevin Male, Head of Pre-sales & Value Engineering, Zellis UK Ltd.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Cuvama focuses on uncovering and communicating value both in the sales process and post-sale \u2013\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0is a terrific platform that enables vendors to rather dramatically improve their discovery processes and associated skills.\u00a0 Sales leaders report that while 80% of their teams\u00a0think<\/em>\u00a0they do a good job with discovery and value exploration, sadly only 20% actually do!\u00a0 Given this low-mediocre level of discovery skills in the industry today, Cuvama provides an opportunity for vendors to significantly change the game in prospect and customer communications.\u00a0 Check it out!<\/p>\n Homerun<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cHomerun Presales<\/a> is unified presales platform to track and optimize presales performance, deploy a structured presales process, and efficiently scale your presales team. Presales teams using Homerun increase win rates (up to 15%), decrease sales cycles (up to 16%), and save time (2-4 hours per SE per week). Homerun modernizes presales and connects it to the organization to help presales team show their extended corporate value through more revenues, more competitive products, more data-driven marketing, and easier pre-sales to post-sales transitions.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges for presales managers and practitioners is assessing and communicating the \u201cfit\u201d of a sales opportunity prior to investing substantial presales resources in demos, POCs, and other activities. Sadly, these communications often take place well after that investment has been sunk. Homerun includes a rich range of capabilities to support, manage and track presales activities on a day-to-day basis, plus<\/em> the ability to enable presales input and comments regarding deal sentiment, including health, fit, and features, well before a QBR or similar deal review takes place. This is extremely useful and important, enabling presales teams to focus on the opportunities with the highest likelihood of success (for both vendor and<\/em> customer). Check it out<\/a>!<\/p>\n Hub<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cHub<\/a> is a technical sales productivity platform designed to help sales engineers, presales, solution architects and system engineers win more business. Hub is the only platform that addresses the day to day operational needs of both managers and individual contributors. Hub helps managers analyze daily activities, gather business insights, understand gaps blocking growth, contribute to forecasts, help define where to make investments and take corrective actions based on leading indicators. Hub also helps individual contributors improve their capabilities with\u00a0 technical discovery meetings, give presentations and demonstrations, develop solutions, scope out services and manage evaluations, also referred to as proofs-of-concept (POCs), proof-of-value (POV) and guided trials, without burdening them with mundane CRM data entry tasks. For more information visit www.hub.inc<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Whereas many tools are created to track, manage and report on activity, Hub is designed to be an environment that presales practitioners and managers live<\/em> in on a day-to-day basis (hence the name, \u201cHub\u201d).\u00a0 For practitioners, Hub looks to enable pre-call planning, executing Discovery, preparing and presenting demos and POCs, handling objections, as well as communicating with Product folks.\u00a0 Hub seeks to streamline processes and provide consistency within a presales team, without burdening folks with CRM data entry tasks.\u00a0 Hub supports playbooks for practitioners across a range of presales tasks \u2013 and provides rating capabilities to evolve and improve playbook efficacy.\u00a0 Hub automates activity data collection, enabling managers to analyze daily activities, surface business insights and gaps, as well as contribute to forecasts.\u00a0 Hub communicates with CRM systems and productivity applications to complement existing workflows.<\/p>\n Update:\u00a0 Hub now has embedded Great Demo! Situation Slides as well as our new Great Demo! 5 Imperatives<\/a> methodology as configurable playbooks, making it easy for presales and sales practitioners to complete Situation Slides during discovery calls, and for management to track and improve their team\u2019s processes.\u00a0 Implementing other Great Demo! constructs in Hub is also fast and easy, including Menus, Illustrations, Informal Success Stories, and playbooks for Vision Generation and Technical Proof Demos. \u00a0It\u2019s like getting a running start in a race \u2013 check it out<\/a>!<\/p>\n Prelio<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cPrelio<\/a> turns presales practitioners and leaders into strategic business partners.\u00a0 Prelio is a Presales Management and Productivity System designed specifically for Sales Engineers and their teams to be organized, understand their impact, and identify critical needs of their product. Presales practitioners use Prelio to be more efficient and Managers use Prelio to understand what their team is working on and the challenges they face.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Not yet explored\u2026<\/p>\n Vivun<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cVivun<\/a> is the world\u2019s first AI-powered platform for presales, unleashing their strategic potential and creating a seamless interlock between sales and product. \u00a0Vivun helps presales leaders achieve operational excellence by equipping them with the metrics they need as the result of individual contributors having a single place to manage their work. \u00a0Using Vivun, organizations increase forecast accuracy by leveraging the technical conscience of every deal, find revenue by reviving dormant opportunities, and deliver winning products by tapping into the collective insights from the field.\u00a0 Vivun works with startups like Harness, growth companies like Seismic, and global enterprises like Autodesk. Visit Vivun.com to learn more and request a demo.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n If you are a presales manager looking for ways to track, manage and improve activities and outcomes for your team this is a truly terrific tool.\u00a0 And if you are currently laboring using Excel to accomplish this, then you are the perfect candidate!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Managing POCs and Related<\/strong><\/p>\n Eval<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cEval<\/a> by Vivun\u00ae arms PreSales teams with a powerful solution for guiding buyers through evaluations while fostering transparency, alignment, and trust resulting in faster deals, higher win rates, and happier customers. \u00a0In a world where buyers demand a \u2018sure thing,\u2019 the pressure is on PreSales to deliver a hands-on, collaborative buying experience. \u00a0Enter Vivun. \u00a0Our first product, Hero, brings Product and Sales together with PreSales at the center of influence. \u00a0Now, we\u2019ve launched Eval to connect buyers and vendors by empowering PreSales with a shared digital workspace. \u00a0Eval is a single destination to set objectives, craft requirements, track progress, and give your buyers the confidence to solve their business problems with your solution. \u00a0PreSales can shape success criteria, set competitive traps, control scope creep, and win faster with mutual accountability. \u00a0This is far more than a shared task list. \u00a0Eval locks in requirements, enables two-party agreements, and creates immutable audit trails. Finally, a place for you and your buyer to call home.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Eval provides an environment to set-up and manage trials (including POCs, POVs, guided workshops, pilots, etc.) from two distinct perspectives:\u00a0 prospect and vendor.\u00a0 An emphasis on identifying evaluation success criteria for both parties makes this a compelling tool.\u00a0 For the vendor\u2019s presales and sales team, Eval can recommend specific requirements to include in trials based on competition and other parameters, drawing from a library based on a vendor\u2019s experiences and best practices \u2013 this is a terrific way to outflank competition and tune evaluations.\u00a0 Organizations that track \u201cwhy did we win?\u201d information will find this particularly valuable.\u00a0 Other capabilities include tracking trial progress, stakeholders\u2019 actions, and dedicated prospect\/vendor portals for discussions and document sharing.\u00a0 Check it out!<\/p>\n Hub<\/strong><\/p>\n See above, in General Presales Management and Process Facilitation<\/p>\n Homerun<\/strong><\/p>\n See above, in General Presales Management and Process Facilitation<\/p>\n Instruqt<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cInstruqt<\/a> helps presales spend more time selling, increase win rates, and shorten the onboarding of new hires. To make your demos and workshops compelling, you need context.\u00a0 That\u2019s where Instruqt comes in. Instruqt virtual IT labs platform lets you show a working version of your product in a pre-configured sandbox with scenarios and data. You can build environments that involve multi-cloud accounts, networking setups, and hardware\/software configurations.\u00a0 Validation and feedback capabilities in the sandbox keep people on track.\u00a0 Virtual selling has never been easier with browser-based and embeddable labs built on Instruqt.\u00a0 Presales can now offer live product demos, shareable for customers anywhere! In addition, webhook integrations provide real-time, event-based data that shines a light on how customers interact with your demo so that you can drive the right action at the right time without leaving your CRM.\u00a0 In addition, you can free up time for presales to explain the basics with self-paced demos so they can focus on high-quality leads.\u00a0 Best of all, this is achievable without consuming your engineering resources.\u00a0 Tech companies like Hashicorp, Puppet, Red Hat, Lacework, and others use Instruqt to generate millions of dollars in the pipeline and account expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Instruqt provides the ability to offer complete working versions of your software in \u201csandbox\u201d environments, enabling rapid deployment for demos and (especially) to support guided workshops and POCs.\u00a0 They also offer a level of gamification in the form of task-based \u201cchallenges\u201d to provide guardrails (and guidance), enabling a high level of self-service on the part of prospects.\u00a0 Analytics track prospects\u2019 activity and progress.\u00a0 This is pretty cool stuff \u2013 check it out.<\/p>\n Provarity<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor\u2019s Website<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cA Proof of Success Platform that closes the pre-sales process gaps and accelerates deal closing.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Not yet explored\u2026<\/p>\n Success<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cSuccess is the Proof of Concept (POC) management platform purpose built for Sales Engineering teams. It is the first Sales Engineering platform that is listed by Gartner as Cool Vendor in the CRM Sales category. Success provides Sales Engineering teams the much-needed visibility into POC activities, customer engagements and overall health of POCs. Here are some of the key features that Success offers:<\/p>\n \u2013 POC Dashboard with health and POC data<\/p>\n \u2013 POC Reports, Insights and Analytics<\/p>\n \u2013\u00a0Automated\u00a0workflows (Salesforce 2-way sync with Pudding)<\/p>\n \u2013 Customer engagement portal during active POCs<\/p>\n \u2013 Scope library and templates<\/p>\n \u2013 Task management and collaboration<\/p>\n \u2013 Documents management (with one click document sharing with customers)<\/p>\n \u2013 Notes for tracking POC activities (2-way synced with Salesforce)<\/p>\n \u2013 POC status and health checks<\/p>\n \u2013 Role based access control<\/p>\n \u2013 Inventory tracking module<\/p>\n Success is SOC2 certified and already used by many well-known companies. [Our] Customers love Success for its simple, intuitive user interface, and ease of use. Schedule a time with the Success team (https:\/\/Success.app<\/a>), experience the platform yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Wow.\u00a0\u00a0Wow!\u00a0\u00a0If you have been looking for something to help manage POC\u2019s (and POV\u2019s, etc.) you\u00a0need<\/em>\u00a0to check this out.\u00a0\u00a0This is not an \u201cemerging tool\u201d; it is surprisingly mature.\u00a0\u00a0It is intelligently designed and implemented, providing rich sets of capabilities for presales practitioners, presales managers \u2013 and for the customer, as well!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Live Demo Presentation Platforms<\/strong><\/p>\n Demodesk<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cDemodesk<\/a> redefines screen sharing for Sales and Success teams, by automating scheduling, preparation, and CRM logging time to help you sell more and increase customer retention. All while skipping downloads and compatible with any browser and device. Create a standardized, scalable process by setting up personalized talk tracks with every pre-loaded playbook to have the perfect structure readily available at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n While Demodesk has some similarities with Gondola (DemoFlow), they take a different approach, positioning their tool as an alternative to Zoom\/WebEx\/etc. \u2013 enabling interesting collaborative browsing and editing capabilities.\u00a0 Their playbooks offer a guided, structured approach to improving discovery conversations, in particular, battlecards support managing competition.<\/p>\n Gondola (formerly Demoflow<\/a><\/strong>)<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cAt Gondola<\/a>, we believe it’s now harder now than ever to run a great sales presentation and connect with your audience. Demoflow pieces together disjointed systems of record into a cohesive system of action to help sales reps show the most relevant sales content helping them connect with their audience remotely. Ensuring everyone tells a story about their product that sells… every single time.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Excellent for Vision Generation Demos, this tool enables consistent delivery of early-stage demos, in particular \u2013 and ensures that the full history of the interaction and follow-up steps are captured in your CRM.\u00a0 An enablement dream!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Demo Automation\/Enablement Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n Caply<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor\u2019s Website:<\/p>\n \u201cCaply<\/a> helps your prospects understand the value of your product with interactive tours that are customizable and easy to make.\u201d<\/p>\n Our comments:<\/p>\n Caply offers the ability to provide guided demos for use by marketing (via vendor websites) and sales (emailed to prospects).\u00a0 Caply demos enable prospects run the demos themselves, prompted with text instructions (and comments) with highlighted areas to click.<\/p>\n Consensus<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cConsensus<\/a> enables you to scale presales effortlessly.\u00a0 Demos are critical to the buying experience, but presales teams often struggle to cope with increasing demand for live demos and growing a team of expert solution consultants takes time.\u00a0 Learn how interactive video demos provide a personalized demo experience on-demand, branching, summarizing, and expounding according to the responses of each prospect.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Consensus provides intelligent automated demo capabilities, enabling prospects to self-qualify, self-discover and generate vision on their own \u2013 while you, the vendor, uncover the buying committee and their specific interests.\u00a0 Even better, this all done without a live human \u2013 releasing presales folks from hours of repetitive \u201coverview\u201d (harbor tour) demos.\u00a0 It\u2019s a \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d demo \u2013 truly a breakthrough technology!<\/p>\n DemoMonkey<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cDemoMonkey<\/a> allows you to turn your software demo in a fully tailored demo for your prospect in minutes.\u00a0 As Sales Engineers we want every demo to be a meaningful experience for our customers.\u00a0 Setting up a system for a demo that fits these needs can often cost hours \u2013 valuable time we should spend otherwise.\u00a0 DemoMonkey will give you back this time:\u00a0 You simply provide text and visual replacements for your application’s UI and DemoMonkey turns your “John Doe” demo into a personalized experience for your audience.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n DemoMonkey is an elegant Chrome extension that operates a bit like Google Translate \u2013 it finds and replaces text (and images).\u00a0 What does this mean?\u00a0 For web-based applications, you can swiftly change from a \u201cbanking\u201d demo to a \u201cmanufacturing\u201d demo without making changes in your software.\u00a0 It is all done dynamically in Chrome.\u00a0 What a delight!<\/p>\n Demostack<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor\u2019s Website:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Demostack<\/a> is our dream demo environment. Before customizing our dashboards and analytics to tell a story of WalkMe’s impact was impossible. With Demostack we can easily edit graphs and showcase data-driven product stories for any deal. It’s a total game changer for us.\u2019\u00a0 Matthew Bigelow, Director of Global Revenue Enablement at WalkMe.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Demostack<\/a> enables market, vertical, and persona-based \u201cpersonalization\u201d of web-based (SaaS) software \u2013 by providing capabilities to rapidly edit text and<\/em> graphics, without the need to make changes to the underlying demo database or environment.\u00a0 The ability to edit graphics is particularly compelling, as it offers presales teams opportunities to generate compelling visuals that show problems to be addressed, opportunities to exploit, and exceptions to be investigated \u2013 even when the underlying data would otherwise show a boring, flatline scenario.<\/p>\n demostory<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cNever again hear, \u201cWait, who are you logged in as?\u201d or \u201cYour product seems great, but I had a little trouble following what you were doing\u201d.\u00a0 Founded by former SEs to simplify live demos and setup, demostory allows you to spend more time focusing on what really matters; the story you are telling. Demostory is a standalone browser ideal for persona or role based-demos.\u00a0 The multi-session browser allows you to be logged in as multiple users in the same window, edit tab names to help your audience follow along, as well as save and share your demo setup so you’re able to launch in seconds.\u00a0 You can try demostory for free at\u00a0demostory.io<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n I just<\/em> saw a demo where the presenter had 14 (yes, fourteen<\/em>) tabs open\u2026!\u00a0 If you currently struggle to set up and work with multiple tabs to show multiple job titles using your system or have a similar challenge, check out demostory.\u00a0 This is a terrific tool to help make the complicated look simple!<\/p>\n Fake Names Generator<\/strong><\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n In my article on A Perfect Demo Environment<\/a> I note that one of our objectives in a demo is to \u201cSuspend Disbelief\u201d and the use of obviously fake names and data hurts our cause.\u00a0 Well, here\u2019s a tool that generates realistic name, address, and related information for use in demos, POCs, and other processes:\u00a0 www.fakenamegenerator.com<\/a>.\u00a0 This may be a terrific tool to support building your Perfect Demo Environment \u2013\u00a0check them out!<\/p>\n Navattic<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cNavattic\u2019s<\/a> demo platform is helping presales and marketing teams share interactive, guided product demos with prospects without involving engineering teams. \u00a0With Navattic, marketing teams can share an interactive and dynamic alternative to a static video walkthrough to embed directly on a website or in an email outreach campaign. \u00a0After the demo, presales teams can share a personalized leave-behind as an interactive alternative to slide decks and white papers. \u00a0All demo engagement can be tracked for additional intel on buyer personas and feature interest.\u201d<\/p>\n Our comments:<\/p>\n Navattic<\/a> provides a self-drive, multi-dimensional demo experience for prospects, delivered via email or accessed from a vendor\u2019s website.\u00a0 It enables a guided demo, with guidance including text, images and video, while also tracking what the prospect views.\u00a0 The demo looks and feels (largely) like the \u201creal\u201d SaaS or browser-based application, including the ability for prospects to explore multiple pathways, but without the need to manage delivery of the actual product.<\/p>\n Reprise<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor\u2019s Website:<\/p>\n \u201cWith Reprise<\/a>, you can capture and customize any screens in your browser-based software to link together in an interactive demo or product tour.\u201d<\/p>\n Our comments:<\/p>\n Focusing on Product-Led offerings, Reprise<\/a> provides both a vendor-driven demo environment and a self-drive demo experience for prospects, with the later delivered via email or accessed from a vendor\u2019s website.\u00a0 It also provides the ability to personalize demos based on markets, verticals, and personas.\u00a0 Prospects can explore products via guided \u201csandboxes\u201d by themselves, while vendors can \u201cdrive\u201d demos with or without \u201cguard rails\u201d, to map to reps\u2019 level of expertise with the software.\u00a0 At the same time, analytics track what capabilities prospects explore along with who does the exploration.<\/p>\n Snackwyze<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cAutomated ignition demos ring a bell? How about automated micro demos? \u00a0Snackwyze<\/a> is the easiest, fastest and the most affordable way to create, share and track interactive ignition and micro demos at scale. \u2018We love Snackwyze. It fills in the gap in TekStack’s content marketing strategy.\u00a0 The clickthroughs are extremely easy to create, manage, distribute and measure. \u00a0We embed them on our websites, blogs and or share them as links.\u2019 -Marc DiGiorgio, Founder, TekStack\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Occam\u2019s Razor suggests choosing the simplest route when offered options.\u00a0 Snackwyze offers a rapid way to generate simple automated clickthrough demos, providing text or video clips to guide viewers.\u00a0 This should be an excellent tool for product-led scenarios, in particular.\u00a0 Check it out!<\/p>\n Tolstoy<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cTolstoy<\/a> is an interactive video platform that lets you easily create “choose your own adventure” style product demos. \u00a0Using Tolstoy’s branching capabilities, you can break down complex lessons into key components and tie them together with personalized questions and paths. \u00a0These interactive videos can help you increase engagement rates by turning a demo from a monolog into a 2-way asynchronous conversation. \u00a0Viewers can even ask text or video questions with a screen share at any point throughout the demo.\u00a0 Try today for free!\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Video is hot \u2013 and here\u2019s a way to combine the impact of real humans communicating via video and demonstrations of your software.\u00a0 The \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d motif can start with a video intro or a list of topics or job titles (excellent for Vision Generation Demos) and branch as many times as you wish, at multiple levels.\u00a0 The ability to combine screen sharing with a presenter\u2019s speaking video helps to make the overall presentation feel authentic.\u00a0 And I really like the ability for prospects or customers to pose questions right from inside the platform.\u00a0 This could be a real game-changer for automated demos \u2013 check it out!<\/p>\n Walnut <\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cWalnut <\/a>is the world’s first Sales Experience that makes the B2B sales process personalized, consistent, and efficient for prospects. \u00a0The core promise of the codeless platform is to make the B2B sales process more customer-centric by letting prospects experience product demos at any stage of the process – via an embed demo on a website, a link in follow-up emails, or during live demos.\u00a0 Walnut\u2019s solution enables sales teams to create customized and interactive demos without coding and collect insights into their prospects\u2019 demo usage. The platform provides embed, sharing, and collaboration tools allowing prospects to interact with the demos as they land on a website, receive a custom link via email, and even collaborate with the sales team (or internally) on the demo creation to ensure the product addresses their unique needs – at any stage of the sales process. This customer-centric approach to the sales process is what makes the Walnut platform one-of-its-kind.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Walnut positions their offering as a \u201cSales Experience\u201d platform to differentiate from more general demo automation tools.\u00a0 They provide capabilities to capture, edit, and link together your product\u2019s screens into storylines for either generic or more custom automated demos, along with the ability to provide annotations and step-by-step guidance for viewers.\u00a0 Behind the scenes, Walnut is tracking who has watched, what screens, and for how long, along with other parameters.\u00a0 In addition to Vision Generation applications, Walnut may also be a candidate to provide direction to prospects for Guided Labs\/Workshops and POCs \u2013 an interesting application!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Demo and Call Recording Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n Balto<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cBalto<\/a> is the first real-time call guidance software.\u00a0 Powered by AI, Balto analyzes speech on both sides of the call and immediately delivers critical information to reps using Balto.\u00a0 For leaders, this means your entire team can respond to the most difficult questions in your own words, every time.\u00a0 For reps, this means you\u2019ll never have to worry about forgetting what you should say or how you should say it. \u00a0Never forget your training again.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Balto\u2019s intrigue is its real-time AI analysis and prompting, providing guidance and suggested scripts to reps during<\/em> calls.\u00a0 While it is designed more for call centers, it offers capabilities that could rather dramatically improve demo delivery.\u00a0 For example, it prompts<\/em> the rep when they are exceeding speaking 70% of the time \u2013 a common challenge for most demonstrators!<\/p>\n Chorus<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cChorus<\/a> provides a simple, scalable solution to capture and analyze all customer calls, meetings, and emails to create visibility, drive process and behavior changes, and deliver bottom line impact.\u00a0 Our proprietary AI helps Revenue teams capture, measure, and act upon every customer interaction to drive team performance, build stronger relationships, and gather unbiased market intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n While Gong, Chorus and ExecVision have many similarities (and some overlap with Refract as well), Chorus appears to have particular strengths for onboarding.\u00a0 An intriguing capability is a view of presentation and\/or demo activity as a \u201cvoice\u201d (in addition to \u201cvendor\u201d and \u201ccustomer\u201d).<\/p>\n ExecVision<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cExecVision<\/a> provides sales leaders and enablement teams with data mined from calls and web conference conversations with prospects, which helps them close the Insights-to-Performance Gap.\u00a0 Discover the key words, phrases, and behaviors that generate pipeline and drive deals so you can replicate best practices that increase results.\u00a0 Insights alone won\u2019t improve outcomes, which is why ExecVision is designed to facilitate human behavior change that improves performance and gives leaders the ability to make more informed decisions. \u00a0No more assumptions or guessing on activity metrics alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Like Gong and Chorus, ExecVision enables reps, managers, and enablement folks to surface key moments, words and word phrases.\u00a0 However, ExecVision offers additional focus on coaching, with capabilities to track and manage coaching effectiveness.\u00a0 Further, this tool\u2019s recommended implementation process includes training on how<\/em> to coach \u2013 that\u2019s a key differentiator.<\/p>\n Gong<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n \u201cTrying to figure out what happened on a sales call?\u00a0 Reading the summary in your CRM is useless.\u00a0 30 written words never truly recap 6,000 spoken words.\u00a0 Gong<\/a> captures and analyzes every word of every sales conversation (meetings, calls, and email) \u2013 so you have the unfiltered voice of the market.\u00a0 Gong then uses AI to help you win more deals, improve rep success and gain critical market intelligence.\u00a0 Gong helps you see what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not so you can respond in real-time.\u201d<\/p>\n Our Comments:<\/p>\n Gong is focusing less on individual coaching and more on uncovering what contributes to closed business \u2013 \u201cRevenue Intelligence\u201d.\u00a0 Gong also continues to publish enlightening studies \u2013 they authored the seminal study<\/a> on 67,149 demos that delightfully validated Great Demo! methodology.<\/p>\n Jiminny<\/strong><\/p>\n From the Vendor:<\/p>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n