Know-How Exchange : Other

Part of my background is from a UK telco equipment manufacturer, and we always had problems with demos failing! Its part of the job, and customers generallyy understand if the demo is late in the sales process when you have their confidence already.

I guess the key here is to remember the sales process and wrap the marketing communications around that process.

As you will know, the basic process is:

Awareness - get your prospects aware of you and what you do.
Interest - get the prospects to understand what benefits your solutions can provide them
Desire - the offer, deciding on the killer offer that will have them banging on your door
Confidence - as you say, this is the demos etc that provides them the confidence that you can deliver the benefits
Action - the call to action ... the sale!

So how to gain their confidence!
We all know that selling intangibles, such as services, especially to business customers, can be harder than selling tangible products!
NEVER be too eagre to provide a live demo ... if you need a demo at an early stage, use more of a computer generated tour of your software first (you can give the prospects a CD with the demo presentation on it to keep and refer back to), but never start by providing a full live demo.

This is the basic process I used to follow:

1. Using written proposals.
As part of the overall sales process you may need to submit a written proposal. If you do submit a proposal, make sure it is done at the end of the sales process - when you have identified their needs and discussed the scope of the solution.

2. This can be followed up with a sales presentation, but I would strongly suggest you avoid a product demo at all costs, because of the problems you point out. Kill them with a professional sales presentation first.

3. Agree to the terms of the relationship.
By this time you have developed a degree of rapport with your prospect.

- Confirm 'how' you will work with them in writing.
- I usually get commercial or legal to look over the document
- Be clear about payment - how much, when is it due, how is it paid.
- Clarify responsibilities on both sides - who will do what and when.
- Confirm start date and key milestones if applicable.

3. Demo
Then, and only then do the demo.
All too often service companies start off their sales pitch with a demo. They tell their prospect all about what they can do, and wax lyrical about the benefits they can offer .. and all too often you are missing the key benefits the prospect is wanting!
The prospect is waiting for you to show interest in their specific situation. So pay attention to them and start asking questions. When you know what is important to them you can do your demonstration with confidence, emphasising aspects that are particularly relevant for that prospect.

By planning and controlling the sales process you can easily turn your warm leads into eager clients, developing a strong relationship along the way.

Good Luck

Peter,

For more than half of my 25-year career in consulting I have worked in software sales and implementation. I have seen some awful demos and also some great demos.

Awful demos are those that end – either with the client needing to be woken-up – or with the client fidgeting nervously and grasping at excuses to leave.

Great demos are those where the agreed end-time is reached and the client reaches for their phone to postpone their next meeting in favour of seeing more of your solution.

One of the most common pit-falls of software demonstrations is when the demonstrator wants to show the customer all the cool stuff that s/he likes about the product and completely misses what the customer actually needs. Look at the performance from the point of view of the audience. They may not be technical and they may not even care that it is has “256-bit encryption” and a “twin carb processor ram-blaster”.

I will try to be brief – but this is a topic on which I have some strong views… :-)

1 – If you are selling software, there is no excuse for the demo to crash. I’m sorry, but really…! This tends to happen when over enthusiastic sales reps insist on showing unstable pre-releases of software that are not yet ready. All this does is build unrealistic expectations in the client and leads to their dissatisfaction and bigger problems down stream in implementation. Make sure that the software works and the demonstrator knows it backwards. A demo audience is one of the least forgiving audiences you will ever meet.

2 – Canned demos (screen captures etc.) tend to put clients to sleep the quickest. Some clients see them as an insult. At very least they imply the instability of your product, they force you along a pre-tailored script and deny you the opportunity to respond to your client’s specific questions surrounding their needs

3 – Begin any demo session by asking the client about their business, their current solution, the things it does that they like, the things they don’t like about it. Find out about what they do manually or with other supplementary software (e.g. Excel). Naturally you will be leading your questioning down the path towards the solution that you are offering but make careful notes as they describe the difficulties they currently have and their current needs.

4 – As you proceed with the demo, focus on the areas of your solution that provide the most value to meeting the needs they have discussed. You may need to pre-face this detail with an overview positioning of your product. Be careful though – as casual as your demo is and as tailored as it seems to the audience – you should only show well rehearsed sections of carefully constructed demo. Again – the focus is on the skills of the demonstrator to be able to present with confidence, no hesitation and speak to the audience.

5 – Finally – smile, and don’t show your fear.

Sorry I went on a bit – but there is more if you need it! :-)

Best of luck with the book Peter

Paul Linnell