· · ·
When you are purchasing a product, be it an electric fan for your house or a sales management software for your company, you would want to know how it’s the best fit for your needs, how it is value for your money, and why you should purchase it.
This is where a Product Demo comes in, it is a demonstration of how a product works.
What is a Product Demo?
A Product Demo is a unique opportunity to demonstrate the value of a product to a prospective customer. It helps the prospect to visualize what the product would look like in real life. It is used by salespeople to demonstrate the value and functionality of a product to prospects.
The importance of a product cannot be over-emphasized so this blog post would be teaching you in 7 steps how to deliver a great product demo that converts to sales.
- Be Prepared
- Set an Agenda
- Answer Questions
- Tell a Story
- Establish a personal connection
- Manage time
- Talk about the next steps
1. Be Prepared
Before your product demo, you should have a good knowledge of who you are meeting.
You’ll want to craft your demo to cater to the specific needs of your prospect, to do this you need to understand your prospects and have answers to their questions before they ask.
Know and Understand your prospects'
- business,
- their challenges and
- how your products address their challenges and help them achieve their goals.
2. Set an Agenda
Have a presentation and thought-out strategy of how the demo would be and send it in advance to the prospect, so they know the breakdown of what to expect and you can be sure you’re on the same page. You can send it as an email to the prospect.
Although, most sales reps make a huge mistake of carrying a script and reading it out. You are not a robot, so dump the script and sound like yourself. Sound like a human.
3. Answer Questions
In the first few minutes of your demo, find out if your prospect has any questions regarding your product or how the product would run. You can ask questions of your own too if your prospects have no questions.
“You’re facing X challenge with your current sales management software and I understand that your goals are Y and Z. Is my understanding right?
“What criteria and features are you looking for in the next software you choose”
This would help you understand your prospect and even confirm the research of your prospects. This helps you structure your demo to tell your customers' stories.
Now you can focus on making it about your customers rather than describing your product.
4. Tell a Story
Use storytelling, start your product demo with a good story, and make your prospect the hero of the story; don’t bore your prospect with unnecessary gimmicks about your prospect. Make it about them, “Paint a picture of the promised land”.
You already understand your prospects, their challenges, and their goals. Spend time outlining their challenges and paint your product as the solution. Highlight the benefits and value of your product, not the features. (What does your prospect benefit by using your products, what value does your product bring to them?).
5. Establish a Personal Connection
By telling a good story, and making it about your prospects you have begun to establish a personal connection. In sales, it is necessary to understand that people make buying decisions by emotions and not by logic. People would like you because you care about them and you show interest in them, and people buy from people they like.
By showing that you understand and care about your prospects you can establish a personal connection with them.
6. Manage time
You have told your prospect already the time you will be spending on the product demonstration, ensure to keep to be conscious of that time and stick to it.
7. Talk about the next steps
You have done a good job getting here, now you should take it a step further. This is what we call the follow-up, before you wrap up, make sure you find out what your prospect needs to move the deal forward and close the sale.
You should also give room for any last-minute questions your prospect might have. To keep control of this process, send an email containing anything relevant concerning their questions and current position.
For example, If they indicated an interest in the product, in the pricing specifically, send them a proposal or quote information. Send them product information following the call so they can learn more about the product.
· · ·
Here is an example script you can use to conclude your product demo:
“I hope we met your expectations with what our product can do for you and addressed your concerns and questions. It seems (product name) is a good fit for you and would allow you to achieve your Y and Z goals and mitigate your X challenge.
I’ll send a follow-up email with (product information, proposal, quotation, and so on) for you (and/or other stakeholders, decision-makers) to reference.”
“Feel free to reach out if you need any information in the meantime.”
· · ·
With a well-run product demo that identifies and addresses your prospect's needs, you'll be ready to move the deal forward. And this will likely result in a closed-won deal.
