101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 96:
SHOW TO SELL
Sometimes, with some products, you do better not to talk about something, but to show it – demonstrate it –working. Whether it is a photocopier or a car in which you offer prospects a test drive, the principles are similar.
Idea
Many people do less than a good job of demonstrating. Here I have in mind Panasonic, and a perfectly conducted demo I once attended….
What are the key factors if a demonstration is to work and boost the chance of sales success? Many of the basic rules of selling apply here. You must focus on needs, maintain interest (maybe not every aspect of your customers and a comprehensive run-through of features may be neither necessary nor appreciated), go through matters following a pre-explained structure and sequence, and above all, talk benefits. The job is to get people to imagine something in use.
So remember:
- Set up fast. Make sure you get everything ready. Have you got the key and is the electricity switched on?
- Make it understandable. This is vital. Demonstrations can be spoilt by jargon, gobbledegook, and confusion. Sometimes they consist of an over-lengthy discussion about irrelevant details. Everything must be spelt out so that it is crystal clear. If your prospect finds it easy to understand, that is good sign. Prompts to imagination can quickly build up a powerful picture.
- It must work! If anything fails to work as you say it should, then from the customer’s point of view you have a problem, and quite right too. The experience must be smooth as silk.
- Make them feel how it could be. Everything must be done not just so they “get a feeling for something” in a general sense, but also so they can truly imagine how it would be to own and use the product.
- Project what you want – and what the customer wants. If the customer has asked you to demonstrate something specific, make sure you show how your offering will meet their needs.
In practice
- Throughout the process of demonstrating, the main emphasis is on proof. You are not just talking about your offering, you can show it, and the prospect can try it – and the prospect can try it – and seeing believes.
- You must work to ensure everything is exactly as you want. There are very few second chances in selling and in few parts of the process is this truer than when you demonstrate something in this way.
- Time spent beforehand to make sure that you get it right is time very well spent.