find
Compelling events
Find the real deadlines that force a pilot to start and finish on specific dates.
Events that count
Acquisition cutovers, system sunsets, safety or compliance mandates, and board or fiscal deadlines close deals.
Ask why the pilot has to start then and end then. If they have no answer, you don't yet have a convertible pilot.
Using the event
Put the event and the dates in the agreement. If procurement stalls, loop in the champion and tie the pressure back to the event.
Without an event
You can still run paid diagnostics and nurture the account, but treat the missing urgency as a qualification gap.
Claims and patterns on this page are paraphrased from practitioner session notes and the Startup Bible (Pilots that convert). See Sources.