Let’s explore typical product demonstrations.
- Step 1: Welcome and casual conversation about the weather or sports (try to steer clear from sports, that’s another topic)
- Step 2: AE presents brief company overview, what we heard last time (how to identify a top seller), nascar slide with customer logos, paid-for report from Forrester or Gartner, customer quotes
- Step 3: Hand-off to SC for demo
- Step 4: Demonstrate as much as you can based upon the last call
- Step 5: Run out of time for Q&A or Wrap-Up
Now there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with following these steps, but let’s think of these steps against how we measure the success of a demonstration or presentation. In the follow-up call with the sales team after the call, the one thing everyone discusses was how ENGAGED the audience was (or not), and we often hang the success of our last hour or two on this engagement.
I actually like that. Engagement is a fantastic measure (as you can tell by the title). But here’s the problem, take a look back at the steps we went through for our demonstration. Where was engagement in our plan? During the demonstration? During the Q&A that we ran out of time for?
Traditional demos typically involve a comprehensive script where you attempt to cover everything the customer might possibly care about. There’s a lot to cover based upon what you hope they will care about. In that time, we do also hope that someone will start to engage with us, but what if there was a way to guarantee that someone would engage?
Please feel free to interrupt me!
How do most SCs kick off their demonstrations? Well, I’d bet that 3 out of 4 demonstrations begin with a version of this phrase: “I want this to be a conversation, please feel free to interrupt me.” There are a couple of problems with this:
- Most people don’t like to interrupt! Especially if you are on a roll and by interrupting the customer worries that they won’t get to the part they really care about
- It is YOUR job as the sales professional in the room to make the conversation engaging. And you are asking the customer to do your job for you. You’re putting the ownership on them to turn the conversation into an engaging conversation
Here’s how I want you to open your meetings instead:
“I have a few scenarios prepared that we are going to walk through, but before we dive into each one and along the way I will be pausing so that you can ask your questions.”
I can FEEL the sigh of relief from your customers after you open with this sentence. You have built engagement points into your presentation and they don’t need to interrupt you to ask questions.
Turn EVERY demonstration into a conversation by kicking off with engagement in mind.