The Free Trial Trap

Product people think you should offer free trials at the beginning of a sales process. Traditional salespeople say: "Wait till the end." They're both wrong.

When should you offer a free trial? It depends.

Ask yourself two questions

1. How hard is it for you to set up a trial that will go well?

2. How hard is it for the prospect to participate in a trial that will go well?

Sometimes, it's obvious: You need to integrate with their systems to run a trial and that is HARD.

Sometimes, it's less obvious: You can give someone a log in to your software without a problem, but users need training to see value and the software takes time to learn.

That's the worst - you think it's easy to do trials... but really it's just easy to kill your deals by offering trials that don't go well!

And that's the key: Don't offer trials unless you can set them up to go well. It's VERY hard to recover from an unsuccessful trial.

So here's the bottom line:

1. If it's easy for both sides to engage in a trial that goes well, offer them right away. Heck, your company can probably have product-led growth rather than sales-led growth.

2. If it's hard, offer them for free to help someone evaluate a concrete proposal. You want to do one good trial that helps them make a final decision.

You can't do that until there's a proposal on the table: They don't have a specific set of options to evaluate!

They also may not be bought in enough for either of you to put enough effort into the trial for it to go well.

3. If it's REALLY hard, make your trials paid proofs of concept. Make sure they have skin in the game before you expend your resources.

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If you liked this article, check out our article on Guerrilla Sales Enablement to see how to build the resources your team will need for success. You can also check out the P.S.I. Selling Content Page for more insights on sales communication, strategy, and leadership.

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