The demo and a mutual plan to close

A full tour of every feature feels thorough, but it makes each person in the room sit through twenty things to find the one they care about, and the busiest of them may leave first. Stepan gave Veloria's demo an hour and decides in the first ten minutes.

A tailored demo is built on what you heard in discovery. At Veloria that was a border incident with a carrier, a couple of times a month, and dispatchers stretched across shifts. So the demo shows only what solves those, starting with the problem that matters most, in the buyer's own setting:

• open with a short lesson with a tutor on a carrier call like the border incident, scheduled in a gap between shifts;
• then the few things that answer each person's worry;
• end with an agreed next step.

Klasna's history, a feature tour or an early discount are about Klasna. The first ten minutes should be about Veloria.

In many B2B demos, the people who will actually use the product aren't there. At Veloria the dispatchers are on shift while their managers watch the demo. Yet their reaction matters: a program the learners avoid fails, whatever the contract says.

So let someone stand in for them. The best stand-in is a real user trying it: ask Pavlo to pick one dispatcher to join a short live sample lesson with a tutor on a carrier call. One nervous learner who relaxes after five minutes says more to Stepan and Pavlo than ten slides about "engaging lessons".

If no user can join, bring the next best thing: a recording of a real sample lesson (with the learner's consent), or a short trial the managers take themselves.

What doesn't work: describing the learner experience in adjectives, or assuming the managers will guess how their people will feel.

A committee demo works when each person gets a moment built for them, answering the worry they brought into the room.

At Veloria:

• Stepan, operations: the schedule, two short lessons a week in the gaps between shifts, and a tutor who can be replaced within a week.
• Pavlo, HR and learning: the attendance and progress report he can send to management.
• The IT security lead (last fifteen minutes): where employee data and recordings are stored, who can see them, and Klasna's answers to their questionnaire.
• A dispatcher, the user: a live sample lesson with a tutor on a carrier call.

Plan the order around the room: IT joins late, so their part goes at the end; Stepan decides early, so his moment comes right after the opening lesson. Write the plan as a list of people, not a list of features.

The person who approves the budget is often not at the demo. At Veloria, Yaryna, the finance director, approves, and she won't be there.

Don't demo at her; equip the champion. Leave Pavlo a one-page cost sheet built for her questions: 800 UAH a lesson, the paid pilot of 96 lessons, 76,800 UAH credited to the contract, and how success will be measured. Ask him how she prefers to see such decisions: a page, a short meeting, numbers first.

The tempting alternatives all cost something:

• writing to her directly from a contact found online goes around Pavlo and risks the champion;
• postponing the demo until she can come loses the budget window;
• "the price goes up after 15 December" is an invented threat on top of a real date.

The real date stays real: Veloria's budgets close on 15 December. Plan backwards from it together with Pavlo, and never use it as pressure.

After the demo, propose a mutual action plan: every step both sides must take before the first lesson, each with an owner and a date.

The common mistake is a plan that lists only the buyer's homework: "Veloria approves the budget, IT approves us, legal signs." That's a to-do list for them, not a shared plan. Where are the seller's steps?

At Veloria, Klasna's side includes: answer the security questionnaire, help Pavlo present the cost sheet, send the draft contract to legal early, propose the pilot's success measures, run the pilot lessons and bring the results to the review.

And the champion co-owns it. Pavlo can move any date that doesn't fit; it's his company's calendar. A plan the seller wrote alone and the buyer can't change is just a sales forecast with a nicer layout.

A good plan is built backwards from the dates the buyer can't move, then forwards in the order the steps depend on each other.

Veloria's draft:

• 9 December: Klasna answers the security questionnaire.
• 11 December: Pavlo presents the cost sheet to Yaryna.
• 15 December: 2027 budgets close; Yaryna decides. This date is fixed by Veloria.
• 18 December: the draft contract goes to legal.
• 8 January: success measures for the pilot are agreed.
• 11 January – 5 February: the paid pilot, 12 dispatchers, 2 lessons a week.
• 10 February: joint review of the results.
• 26 February: contract signed; 1 March: the program starts.

Two dependencies matter most. Success measures come before the pilot, so nobody redefines success afterwards. And the contract goes to legal early: last year legal got Veloria's safety-course contract last, and it cost three weeks.

Dates in a mutual action plan will slip sometimes: a questionnaire takes longer, Stepan's week is full, Yaryna asks a new question. How you react decides whether the plan stays a shared tool or becomes a pressure device.

The right move: ask what changed and replan together. "I see the review moved; what came up? Which date works now, and does the budget close still hold?" Then update the plan and send it back to Pavlo.

The wrong moves:

• inventing urgency ("the price goes up if we miss this");
• escalating over the champion's head to the CEO "so everyone follows it";
• ignoring the slip and hoping the next date holds.

A slip is also information. One slip with a clear reason is normal. Repeated slips without reasons may mean the deal has lost priority inside, which is worth asking Pavlo about directly.

Is a plan with dates just a polite way to push the buyer? It isn't, if three things are true:

1. The dates come from the buyer's own process, such as the 15 December budget close, not from the seller's quarter.
2. The seller's steps are on it, with owners and dates, so both sides can be checked.
3. The champion can change it, and slips are replanned together.

Then the plan turns "we'll get back to you" into a schedule both sides can see. Pavlo put it plainly: it helps him show Yaryna exactly what happens and when.

What turns it into pressure: a discount that expires if a date is missed, or sending the plan to the buyer's CEO to make sure everyone follows it. Both cost trust.

How it fits together: a demo built on discovery, one moment per role, the champion equipped for the absent approver, a mutual plan with real dates. Next lesson: honest answers when the buyer says "too expensive" or procurement asks for 20% off.