Sales POC Playbook: How to run a sales pilot (+free template)

Window shopping may very well work for impulse buys, but buying B2B software, especially in the SaaS world, is more like buying a new car.

Your potential customers don’t just want to see the showroom—they want the keys in their hands, the engine roaring, and a full spin around the block before they commit.

But the B2B “test drive”—the sales proof of concept (POC)—is often a bumpy one. Too many POCs are a slow, painful trek towards a lukewarm “maybe.” 

So some sales leaders write off POCs altogether. But POCs themselves aren’t the enemy; it’s the soaring expectations—from both buyers and sellers—that trip up the POC process.

Buyers, scarred by past overpromises of functionality and a tightening economy, demand more than just a peek behind the curtain. They want seat-of-the-pants proof of technical feasibility that your tech won’t stall out mid-deal. 

One misstep, and that deal you’ve poured months into can simply vanish. Poof.

In this guide, we're diving deep into what truly works for POCs, what’s a waste of your time, and how to nail it—every single time.

Here’s what a sales POC is NOT:

• A demo: Demos are for showcasing features. POCs prove fit. POCs prove how your product’s functionality addresses the customer’s needs and solves their core pain point.
• A proof of value: POVs zero in on return on investment (ROI) calculations and the business case. POCs answer: Can I make this work? POVs answer: Is this worth it? You need both to let your clients make more informed decisions. 

What makes a sales proof of concept different from a simple product trial is that it is not self-guided by the prospect, but rather a joint effort that builds on a pre-existing relationship they have with the vendor's sales team.

Why is a sales proof of concept valuable?

The strategic payoff of a POC is huge for your buyers and your sales process efforts for three primary reasons:

1. The endowment effect

Beyond hands-on proof that your product works as advertised, POCs help build trust by tapping into deep human instincts that nudge prospects toward “yes.” 

During a POC, prospects don’t just watch dashboards—they build them. They drag in their own fields, set up filters on segments they care about, and tune alerts around their budgets. That sense of ownership around their specific needs makes walking away feel like abandoning something you “own.”

This is the endowment effect in action—we overvalue what we help create.

2. Sunk-cost stickiness

POCs also create powerful "sunk-cost stickiness." Once a prospect invests their own time and effort, walking away feels more costly than moving forward.

We hate losing more than we love gaining—this is loss aversion in action.

A small paid commitment—say, 90 days of access you actually pay for—changes behavior overnight. Suddenly, prospects want to hit their targets so they don’t feel like their budget went to waste.

3. Proof you stand behind your promise

Plus, running a tight, professional POC shows you have an unshakeable belief in your product's ability to deliver.

Todd Busler, CEO of Champify (and a very happy Dock customer)—shares that they offer a 15-month agreement with a 3-month paid, opt-out period. 

And according to Todd, “14 out of 15 times we’ve done this, the opportunity converted into a long-term customer.”

When (and when not) to run a POC

In a recent LinkedIn post, Dock’s CEO, Alex Kracov, points out, "More and more buyers are asking for POCs — not because they don’t trust you, but because they’ve been burned before."

But—and this is a big "but"—that doesn't mean you say "yes" every single time. 

"Don’t do a POC just because someone asks for one," says Alex. POCs eat up time, budget, and team bandwidth. Only green-light them when the deal’s potential payoff outweighs the investment.

So, how do you make the smart call?

Joey Wright, Head of Sales at Dock, Todd from Champify, and Alex recently discussed the when, where, and why of sales proof of concepts.

Here’s what they had to say:

Run a sales POC when…

Your product delivers an “aha” moment quickly

If you can get a prospect into a live workspace, point them at real data, and have them say, “Wow, that just solved my problem,” you’re in POC territory. 

Todd says, “Maybe you have one sales leader that wants to start doing this, in a company that has 10 sales leaders, and you meet in the morning, and you have a perfectly spun-up Dock workspace for a call in the afternoon—that's super powerful.”

Basically, if your product can show “aha” moments within hours, so stakeholders actually feel the benefit, that’s POC gold.

And Todd knows this firsthand. Champify’s product delivers powerful data directly into the CRM, but with no flashy UI to show off. That makes a traditional demo…kind of pointless. 

Instead, they run POCs. It’s how they show prospects exactly what kind of data they’ll get, how it fits into their workflows, and what kind of impact it’ll have. No guesswork. Just a real-world preview of the value, before anyone signs a contract. 

You’re up against competitors in an RFP or “bake-off” 

When prospects are comparing you side-by-side with two or three vendors, a live pilot becomes the ultimate differentiator. Instead of debating features on paper, you’re showing them “here’s exactly how it works in your world.”

You have dedicated bandwidth to refine and iterate quickly

According to Joey, the sales POC process “takes a lot of refinement” and it takes time “getting confident with it.” That ongoing fine-tuning is exactly what makes rapid, responsive POCs so effective.

You’re dealing with technical buyers and tricky integrations

If a prospect juggles multiple data sources—CRMs, finance systems, support tickets—a POC shows them how unified reporting actually works. It’s one thing to promise a “single pane of glass”; it’s another to connect five APIs in 24 hours and show a unified customer 360-degree view.

But this work is costly. A sales POC helps make sure there’s some agreement on both sides about the outcome of the work before you invest the time.

You're wooing risk-averse buyers or highly regulated industries

For sectors like finance, healthcare, or government, verifying security, compliance, and rock-solid reliability in a controlled environment is non-negotiable before signing the dotted line.

You’re a startup 

For startups, a sales POC plays an important anxiety-reducing role for hesitant customers who find it hard to invest significant time (and budget) in a solution that’s newer or less market-tested.

A POC forces clear alignment on what success actually looks like, moving beyond vague promises to concrete outcomes.

Don’t run a sales POC when…

The deal value doesn’t justify the effort

Running a POC on a small, transactional sales deal often costs more in hours than it returns in contract value. For low-ACV, mid-market, or simple self-serve offerings, a 14-day trial plus a tight demo script will close the gap without over-investing your team’s time.

If you're offering a product like Dock that includes a comprehensive free version, encourage prospects to explore that before moving into a formal POC. Many buyers use “POC” language when they really just want a sandbox to play around in.

Your product requires a deep, lengthy setup

To Todd’s point of immediate, tangible benefits, the flipside is when the setup itself takes weeks to configure. In this case, he advises companies to be “realistic.” 

Because if getting data flowing takes weeks of engineering work, a rushed POC can frustrate prospects more than help them. 

In these cases, discussing your product roadmap for future integrations or starting with a proof-of-value deck that outlines the integration path might be more suitable. Then shift to a pilot once the foundation is laid.

You don’t have the resources to iterate in real time

A POC left unattended is worse than no POC at all. If your team can’t commit to daily check-ins, rapid issue resolution, and proactive tweaks, the pilot will stall and prospects will walk away. 

It’s better to focus on a structured trial or a scope-limited demo that you can fully support.

How to run a sales proof of concept [+ free template]

We’ll walk through an example sales proof of concept setup between NimbusFlow, a fictional workflow orchestration SaaS startup, and Hooli—to show you exactly how it all comes together—built using Dock.

👉 Grab your free, customizable Sales Proof of Concept Template and follow along:

Before we dive in, our CEO, Alex Kracov says there are three questions you need to ask and answer to run a successful sales POC and set expectations from the get-go:

1. Why are we doing this?
2. What does success look like?
3. Who’s involved?

Let’s break down each question step by step and populate your template.

1. Executive summary

Start strong. Clearly state the core problem your solution is set to tackle during this POC. 

Then, outline how you'll address it within the pilot's defined scope, and what success ultimately looks like. 

👉 This directly answers Alex’s first essential question: "Why are we doing this?"

2. Stakeholders

Next, you’ll want to outline both the partner team (your team) and evaluation team (your client’s team) stakeholders and decision-makers. That way, everyone’s on the same page from the start, and you won’t have to scramble to add people at the last minute.

👉 This is Alex’s "Who’s involved?"

1. On the partner team side: Include product and engineering team members to help with technical implementation, as well as a solutions architect, on top of the primary sales point of contact on the account.
2. ‍On the evaluation team side: Mirror your partner team’s setup with people from engineering and product, but also include any procurement, legal, or security team members from the client.

Use Dock’s contact cards to show every key player on both sides. Include their titles, roles, photos, and booking links. 

This becomes your go-to cheat sheet: Who needs chasing? Who needs looping in? And when a new stakeholder joins halfway through the pilot (they always do), you’ve got a centralized list to update.

3. Success criteria

If you do nothing else, do this. Together with your prospect, define 3-4 specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) metrics. This could also include tangible deliverables like a new logo. These are the explicit benchmarks that, if met, mean the POC is a success, and the deal moves forward. 

👉 This answers "What does success look like?" with precision.

4. Project milestones and timeline

Break down the POC into digestible phases, each with clear tasks, deliverables, owners, and target dates. Think: 

1. Kickoff and alignment: Align on roles, lock down success metrics, and finalize the timeline. 
2. Admin setup: Detail all technical configurations, any data migration, and user training.
3. Execution and monitoring: Review progress, tackle any roadblocks, and adjust course if needed.
4. Evaluation and decision: Present your findings against those agreed-upon success criteria. 

Dock’s mutual action plans are your best friend for keeping this on track. 

Track progress by embedding a mutual action plan aligned with each phase of the POC:

5. Solution overview

Even if your POC focuses on a narrow slice of functionality, your buyer is thinking bigger. They want to know: how does this fit into the bigger picture? Will this scale? What happens after the pilot?

That’s why your POC shouldn’t live in isolation. Use Dock’s multi-page workspaces to give your buyer a full, navigable view—POC plan on one tab, product docs and demos on another, case studies and ROI calculators right there when they need them. It’s structured, but flexible.

For example, this is where NimbusFlow could include: 

• A quick Loom walkthrough showing how the full product works beyond the pilot use case.
• Product docs or API guides to show technical depth.
• A summary of insights gathered during discovery, tailored to their priorities.
• Customer stories that mirror their use case or industry.

Dock makes it easy to embed all the materials your buyer needs—videos, slides, PDFs, spreadsheets—right where they’re already working.

Generate a sales proof concept using Dock AI

Building a killer POC workspace takes time—a significant effort for your pre-sales and sales account teams. Writing up success criteria, outlining timelines, dropping in the right onboarding materials...it adds up. 

Here’s where Dock AI pulls its weight. Instead of opening a blank workspace and wondering where to begin, try this:

1. Select the Dock AI Widget: Click the Add Section button in the workspace editor and select Dock AI from the options.

2. Select "Proof of Concept" as your content type: Choose Proof of Concept from the list of content types so Dock AI knows what to do.

3. Choose a source: Select where you want the POC content to come from. 

You can:

• Grab text from a meeting summary or notes.
• Upload a document outlining the POC goals.
• Choose a recording of a recent Gong or Chorus call, so Dock AI can extract key insights to create a proof of concept plan.

You can give the AI specific instructions, like highlighting certain use cases or focusing on particular success criteria. 

4. Click generate: Dock AI suggests sections for your proof of concept plan. You can then:

• Enhance individual sections with additional AI prompts.
• Create sections individually to customize your workspace layout.
• Select Add All to quickly drop all items into the workspace at once.

5. Edit and enhance within the workspace: Like any other content, the POC sections can be edited once they’re added. The final POC plan can be fine-tuned, revised, or updated as necessary-ensuring that it is clear, compelling, and ready for sharing.

And whenever you need more content, just go back to the Dock AI widget and generate more sections!

Best practices for running a sales POC

1. Pitch your sales POC as a mutual success plan

Don’t call it a trial. Frame it as a co-pilot plan—something you and your champion build together to hit shared goals. This is a structured project with real stakes and real outcomes. 

This is psychology 101. Shift the conversation from "we're testing your software" to "we're building a joint success plan." Your prospect should feel like you're a partner in their success, not just another vendor under the microscope. Focus relentlessly on their priorities and what a win looks like for their business.

And Dock helps you bring that vision to life. Start with a pre-built sales POC template, customize it together on a kickoff call, and lock in agreement with a shared success plan inside the workspace. 

2. Run your POC from a unified workspace

A good POC dies fast in a sea of email threads, 17 versions of the same deck, and Slack messages that start with "Just circling back..."

There’s a moment in nearly every messy POC when someone sends the wrong spreadsheet. Or asks a question that’s already been answered. Or forwards a deck that says “final” but definitely isn’t. This is where deals go to die. 

Disorganization makes your team look scattered, it makes the buyer feel uncertain, and it turns what should be a high-confidence sprint into a game of digital whack-a-mole.

The fix is a shared client workspace like Dock, also known as a digital sales room—one centralized, always-up-to-date place where everyone knows to look to eliminate the sprawl, and anchor your pilot in a single, buyer-facing source of truth.

With multi-page workspaces, you can dedicate an entire tab just to that success plan, making it easy for stakeholders to revisit throughout the process. 

Everyone from IT to procurement gets what they need, without tripping over what they don’t. The result is a clearer internal view and a smoother handoff process to Customer Success.

And because there’s no login required, buyers can pop in anytime—no password resets or IT tickets required.

When buyers see structure, they feel safe. When they help write the plan, they’re bought in.

Also, according to G2, using a unified enablement platform boosts your win rate by 80%. 

Here’s what a Dock sales room looks like:

3. Communicate like a project manager, not a sales rep

Once the POC kicks off, you’re not just selling—you’re running a mini project. Consistent and proactive follow-up is paramount. Keep things moving with short, frequent updates. Use the shared client workspace to post notes, share agendas, or flag blockers. 

Dock’s inline commenting means your buyer can ask questions right where the issue lives—on the task, against a milestone, or alongside the success criteria. No need to hunt down threads or wonder what happened. Everything’s logged, visible, and tied to action. This is what keeps a POC from stalling out at week two.

In each workspace section, there’s just one comment thread, so it’s easier to follow and link to the comment threads.

Our page navigation also has notification badges, so you can jump straight to where customers left comments.

👀 Bonus: Dock’s analytics tracks exactly how your POC is being used. You get detailed visibility into who’s viewing what, when, and how often inside every shared workspace. That includes both individual users and team-wide patterns, whether it’s a sales deal room or a post-sale onboarding hub.

What you can actually see:

• Individual-level insights: Know which stakeholders are actually accessing your POC workspace. Is your champion carrying the deal? Is legal poking around in the security docs?
• Time-on-page metrics: See where buyers are lingering (like pricing or value props) and what they’re skipping.
• Last viewed timestamps: Get a heads-up when someone important suddenly goes quiet—or reappears before your next call.
• CRM-integrated engagement data: Push Dock’s real-time engagement metrics into your CRM to fuel forecasting models. So you can predict deal outcomes more accurately and focus on the opportunities most likely to close.
• Team-level rollups: Track how engaged the broader buying committee is—not just your primary contact.

4. For the big whales, consider a "paid opt-out" play

Todd Busler's innovative model—that 15-month agreement with a 3-month paid opt-out—is a sophisticated strategy for high-stakes, strategic partnerships. This isn't for every deal. But as an advanced tactic, it’s potentially a powerful part of your GTM strategy for engaging enterprise-level clients. 

This approach screams mutual commitment and, as Champify has found, is conversion gold with stellar conversion rates (think 14 out of 15!). It’s you, confidently putting your money where your mouth is. 

And here’s Todd’s savvy accounting tip: "You can’t count this as ARR until the opt-out period passes 🙂".

💡Pro tip: Don’t reinvent the wheel with every sales cycle. If you’re looking for a ready-to-use structure that can become your sales team’s standardized playbook, check out Dock’s Sales Proof of Concept Template.

Run your next sales POC with Dock

Sales POCs don’t fall apart because your product isn’t good. They fall apart because the process is a slow-moving mess. One person is working in a Google Doc from three versions ago. Someone else has a spreadsheet no one’s touched in a month. And your champion’s pinging you on Slack asking for a deck you sent…twice.

Dock gives you one clean, organized place to run a successful POC, end-to-end. A place where your buyer doesn’t just see your product, they experience what it’s like to work with your team:

• Start fast with Dock AI: Drop in a Gong or Chorus call, a meeting summary, or even just your notes—and Dock AI will spin up a tailored POC plan with timelines, deliverables, and stakeholder assignments. From there, you edit and customize, not start from scratch.
• Track momentum, visibly: Use project timelines, task lists, and percent-to-completion trackers to show exactly where things stand—no second-guessing or status update meetings required.
• Put everything in one place: From onboarding videos to security documentation, embed all the supporting content your champion needs to win over their team. All in one multi-page workspace.
• Loop in everyone without friction: Add Sales, CS, Engineering, and your buyer’s team. With Dock’s contact cards and no-login-required access, everyone knows who’s doing what and where to go.
• Spot risks early: See who’s engaging (and who’s ghosting) with Dock’s people analytics. If a key decision-maker hasn’t logged in, your sales team will know it’s time for a strategic follow-up before the deal goes cold and their purchase decision turns from a “maybe” to “we’ll get back you.”

👉 Try Dock’s Sales Proof of Concept Template now, or

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