What’s your demo strategy? Do you leave the close of the sale in the hands of your sales engineer to “demo” (demonstrate the features, benefits and flexibility of products, platforms and systems)?
How successful are you?
If your sales strategy hinges on living and dying by the demo, let’s look at 3 tips to enliven your outcomes.
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Own the room, own the table, own the sale.
When you turn the sale over to your sales engineer to demo, you relinquish control to an individual whom decision-makers may be meeting for the first time. As a salesperson of worth, you work long and hard to build energy, synergy and empathy. If you do not remain fully engaged during the demo, it’s like driving a car at 85 miles an hour and hitting the brakes. It is a shock to the decision makers with whom you have built relationships. Demo respectfully and strategically. Avoid shortchanging everyone’s emotional investment in you and your company.
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Involve a team concept in your demo strategy.
Business isn’t conducted in a vacuum. Decision makers understand that while you may be the front-facing individual they deal with most of the time, you work with lots of people whose jobs are to have your back. Why let these folks be a mystery? Sure, the folks who demo may not speak sales language. Think about your demo strategy like cooking a sales stew. The demo spices things up and re-engages customers! Let your customers meet the folks who, ultimately, are responsible for having their backs, too.
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Always have a customized demo strategy.
When you are used to making sales presentations and bringing in your demo jock to do her thing, it can feel “old” after a while. Always have your sales antennae on high alert for signs of autopilot demos: rote and bored presentations from you as well as your sales engineers. The symptoms of demo auto-pilot? The times when you fall back into standard spiels and sling professional lingo around like confetti. That is the point when your demo begins to sound like everyone else’s demo. That is when your customers turn-off and tune out. Keep presentations fresh. Remain engaged. Change up at least one aspect of how you will demo for every customer. After all, your customers are unique individuals. Demonstrate that you appreciate their individuality.
Your team demo strategy can be a deal maker for you. All you have to do is start focusing on connecting your team with your customers’ teams first and foremost.
That demo strategy creates an empathetic connection which you can reinforce throughout the demo and the close. That connection is what post-sale follow up and customer retention strategies are all about, too.
Babette Ten Haken is a catalyst, corporate strategist and facilitator. She writes, speaks, consults and coaches about how cross-functional team collaboration revolutionizes the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) value chain for customer loyalty, customer success and customer retention. Her One Millimeter Mindset™ programs draw from her background as a scientist, sales professional, enterprise-level facilitator, Six Sigma Green Belt and certified DFSS Voice of the Customer practitioner. Babette’s playbook of technical / non-technical collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. Visit the Free Resources section of her website for more tools.
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