Excellent, you have presented your solution, its uniqueness and it its potential value to your customer. They are very interested and are considering buying what you are offering, But before that happens they need you to prove a few things.
A Proof of Concept (POCs) is not always but often needed (it will of course depend on what you are selling) as part of a sales cycle. The customer is usually looking to validate a number of things:
Your ability and efficiency in delivering
How you interact with the customer and demonstration of your flexibility as a solution provider
That your solution actually works
A limited business case in an actual customer environment
POCs can be critical to acquiring a new customer, someone who has never dealt with you before in a business environment. It is human nature to be skeptical so its all about building trust. Remember that many companies (in a B2B environment) have solution vendors knocking on their door every day. These vendors often oversell their solutions promising the world to the buyer and how THIS SOLUTION will solve all the customer's problems. Well be careful. If you get to the stage of a POC, this is a critical phase in your business development and sales cycle. Here are a few tips on how to approach a POC.
Identify any particular customer pain points that your POC might be relevant to
Keep the POC as simple as possible with a very limited but focused scope and expected output, while still being sufficient to demonstrate value
Have a clear timeline for delivery as well as completion of the POC
Set a balanced expectation for the outcome but do your utmost to overdeliver and provide 'more value' than expected
Make sure there is a POC owner (with a stake/accountability) on the customer side
Ensure the output results are relevant to the customer business and link the results to direct potential customer business value if possible
Ensure that all relevant people on the customer side are presented with the results
Dont be afraid of the POC. Its a fantastic opportunity to showcase your offering. But do make sure you try and follow the key points above. If not your POC could become never ending, thus draining your time and resources and even worse, result in no business for your company.
You may get many customers suggesting you run a POC. Don't forget that if you are a small company you have limited resources available (time, money, equipment, people etc.). Therefore choose your POCs carefully. Consider the following:
Choose POCs where you feel there is more than 50% chance of succeeding and getting a contract at the end of the day.
Request the customer to cover all or some of the cost of the trial.
Have some high level pricing for a commercial solution agreed before you run the POC, otherwise you could be in for a big surprise even after a successful POC.
Good luck!