Prioritize Discovery Over Demos with Tom Josephson, TCP Software

Is discovery or demos the secret weapon in sales?

In this episode of V5, host Jarod Greene chats with Tom Josephson, Director of Solution Consulting at TCP Software, about a controversial take: demos aren’t as crucial as everyone believes. Find out how mastering discovery can lead to deeper customer connections and more successful deals.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The Power of Discovery: Tom explains why understanding your buyer’s needs through effective discovery can give you an edge over competitors, even when pricing becomes a factor.
• Shifting the Focus: Setting clear expectations for demos ensures they are laser-focused on what matters most to the customer.
• Value-Based Selling: Tom shares insights on how to sell capabilities during discovery, getting buyers excited and showing alignment long before the demo.
  
  

Things to listen for:

(00:00) Demos don’t matter, discovery does

(00:45) Lessons Tom learned from the deals he lost and won

(02:07) Why strong discovery sets up the demo for success

(03:02) What to do when a prospective client requests early demos

(03:53) Steps to secure buy-in on the importance of discovery

What is The Unexpected Lever?

The secret sauce to your sales success? It’s what happens before the sale. It’s the planning, the strategy, the leadership. And it’s more than demo automation. It’s the thoughtful work that connects people, processes, and performance. If you want strong revenue, high retention, and shorter sales cycles, the pre-work—centered around the human—still makes the dream work. But you already know that.

The Unexpected Lever is your partner in growing revenue by doing what great sales leaders do best. Combining vision with execution. Brought to you by Vivun, this show highlights the people and peers behind the brands who understand what it takes to build and lead high-performing sales teams. You’re not just preparing for the sale—you’re unlocking potential.

Join us as we share stories of sales leaders who make a difference, their challenges, their wins, and the human connections that drive results, one solution at a time.

Jarod Greene [00:00:00]:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to V5, where we spend exactly five minutes getting on our soapbox on topics in B2B sales, specifically the sales engineer function. I have the pleasure of being joined today by Tom Josephson, who's the Director of Solution Consulting at TCP Software, and his hot take ready for this is demos don't matter. Discovery matters. So, Tom, I'm going to start the time for five minutes, and with that, get on your soapbox, take us away.

Tom Josephson [00:00:29]:
For me, value discovery above all else. And I've heard this said before, if you come out of discovery and you've been perceived as doing the better discovery compared to your competitors, you're at a competitive advantage. I always tell this story of the last deal that I ever lost, and I remember what they told me. They came out of this and they said, look, tom, you clearly understood our business better than any venue. You won the process, you took the time, you asked us questions, and you really got deep into it. But this other vendor really undercut you on price, and we had to go with it. That's not a great consolation prize. But I always think back to that, and I think back to the last deal I won before I got into management and leadership.

Tom Josephson [00:01:18]:
And I remember that one. It was a long enterprise deal, took a year and a half before we finally close it. This was during the pandemic. And what we would do is we were meeting with several different groups, several different divisions of their business. We developed a relationship where I would do discovery with their team and with the global CIO and say, okay, here are the things that I'm thinking to hit these specific needs. Does that align? And I consider that a part of discovery, because that wasn't the traditional demo. That was me learning about their business, how we can connect our solutions to them. The other thing that I always love to say about discovery, and I think this really proves out, is discovery is where you're really selling them on the capabilities.

Tom Josephson [00:02:07]:
And they say, hey, we need it to do x or our solution, or what we do today doesn't do y. I talk to scs. When you hear something like that, we can absolutely do that. I'll show you in the demo. And it does two things. A, it puts them at ease. They're like, oh, okay, they know what I'm talking about. And b, it gets them really excited for the demo.

Tom Josephson [00:02:30]:
And it gets to that point that I always tell them, which is discovery is where you win, and discovery is where you show the value. The demo is just the proof point. I've already set up in the discovery. Yeah, we can do that. What I also like to tell ses is if you have those points, they're so powerful when you get to that demo. Hey, you remember when we were talking last week and you said you really needed and wanted x, y, and z? I'm about to show you that right now. And it's a great trigger for people's brains to be like, oh, now I have to pay attention.

Jarod Greene [00:03:02]:
Tom, what would you say to folks who say, well, wait a minute, most buyers, and you do any kind of survey, say, I want to see a demo on the first date. I want to see the product. I've done my research. I'm 70% through the buyers journey. I just want to see what you can do. How do you kind of live in the world where you reconcile? What you want to see done requires discovery. How do you, how do you marry those two worlds of what the buyer needs and what you need to get done?

Tom Josephson [00:03:25]:
Yeah, you'll be shocked. They always ask that. What I tell the scs, and there's a couple of different ways to do this. If you think they're getting really excited about it, have that teed up. I even begin the conversation, discovery. There's a couple things I always like to say, yeah, I can show you a demo, but if I were to show you everything, because everybody wants to see everything, that'll take me four or 5 hours. Instead, there's a lot of cool things that we do. I want to hone in only on the things that actually matter to you.

Tom Josephson [00:03:53]:
And that's the purpose of this discovery. And it could very well be at the end of this discovery, we're not a good fit. I don't want to waste your time with another hour, hour and a half call. And people love that. It's consultative, it's listening, it's being really receptive to what their needs are going to be. And then the other thing is we have demo automation tools, but we also, if we're seeing an opportunity where they're getting really, really excited, we'll pop in and show that. In this case we use Storylane, we'll show them that. And like, hey, here's what that looks like at the end of the discovery.

Tom Josephson [00:04:24]:
They can play with it. And again, it's another tool to get them excited. But the most important thing, when I evaluate discoveries, when we certify people internally on discoveries, the first line it says is, did you sell the value of the discovery? Did you get their buy in that? Hey, this call is important for you. This is for us to learn about you. All the other calls we had before then were qualification calls. That's for us. Is this a good use of our time? Are they going to actually buy? The discovery is for them. And once you have that buy in, you lock them in.

Tom Josephson [00:05:01]:
You don't have to worry about, oh, I thought we're going to see a demo today. You're wasting my time without showing you the software. Love it.

Jarod Greene [00:05:07]:
Love it. That's been five minutes. That's been the soapbox. I know. We could talk about this for a long time and. And big shout out to Storylane. I think there's a ton of value in being able to continue the conversation when you're not around and actually see engagement with that as another signal. Thank you for sharing your soapbox with us.

Jarod Greene [00:05:24]:
Really appreciate it.

Tom Josephson [00:05:25]:
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Jarod Greene [00:05:27]:
Absolutely. So if you like watching and you like, listen, and this is a topic that resonated with you and you want to hear tom talk more about the power of discovery, dm me on LinkedIn. Let me know. We could extend this V5 to a V15, dare I say a V30 day. So let me know in the comments in the chat. Dm me to let me know and we will see you next time. Thanks again and we'll see you soon. You're listening to The Unexpected Lever.

Jarod Greene [00:05:51]:
For additional resources, check out vivun.com. got a soapbox you'd like us to talk about longer? Let us know by messaging me, Jarod Greene on LinkedIn.