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Five Steps to Demos That Close Software Sales
Monday, June 25, 2012, 5:08 AM
[General]
Now for the news from the market: no prospect, no matter how qualified has more than 20-30 minutes for a first demo. We've spoken with literally hundreds of post-demo prospects and every single one of them wishes the demo had been shorter. Shorten the demo and you're more likely to move ahead with prospects.
Some of the clients who love to demo suck and some who dread them are great.
Our sales team checks in with prospects after every demo we arrange for a client. Often those after action reports uncover the issues we've described in this article. Sometimes prospects let us know that the demo was fine but they really wish that they had been better able to understand our client. Sometimes they ask why our client didn't listen more.
If your demo prospects aren't converting, and you know your demo is great, you might want to consider having sales professionals take the demo reins. In an upcoming article, I'll give away 3 tips for qualifying sales professionals that will surprise you.
Showcase your best two features
Seems simple, but this one comes up all the time. If you develop custom apps for entertainment companies that will appreciate your high-end graphics, and love it--but suffer misery developing catalog apps or PR for business-to-business firms--leave the catalogs and BtoB out of your demo or presentation deck. Prospects want to buy from a vendor that is excited about their project. These days they nearly all want a specialist to do their work. Offering to do project types you'll hate will get you miserable work at best,Cheap Ryan Grant Jersey, and no work if your lack of enthusiasm seeps out.
Take out two demo segments that your spouse, or even co-workers, finds confusing
Our clients often tell us that their product is the exception to our short demo/two features suggestion. We helped the client who sells complex security for genomics sequencing labs to showcase two features; we can help you too.
Consider whether you should do your own demos
It's fine to tell prospects that there is a lot more to your product than the intro demo can show. It's even better if you build a demo that showcases two or three features that will solve a genuine business problem for the prospect, and leave the brief demo offering another similarly painless interaction as the next step toward buying your solution.
Every demo we've attended since approximately 1988 has had at least two confusing segments that left the prospect wondering what the feature did or whether they should care. If you remove those two confusing features or explanations, you've gone a long way toward your goal of shortening the demo.
Yes, we know that each and every feature of your new security solution is better, faster, a game changer, and absolutely critical to the prospect understanding your product. If you are one of our software clients you can bet that at least some of those features are why we agreed to represent you. Yes, every product is unique and yes, the prospects who agree to a demo (more on that later) want to see what is under the hood.
But more importantly you'll leave your prospect feeling confident of your product's capabilities and competent to describe those features and benefits when the demo is over and purchasing choices are under discussion.
These days, prospects want to be rock-solid certain of every purchase. In software sales, your demo for a qualified prospect is going to be more important than ever. We've sold over 200 software products over the last 12 years, and we've learned a thing or two along the way about demos. Virtually every demo we review,Cheap Mewelde Moore Jersey, schedule, attend, or critique has a few common faults. Here are five simple, quick, and virtually no-cost ways to improve your sales demo and improve your close rate.
If you've shortened your demo, honed in on two features, and removed anything you wouldn't love delivering,Cheap Chuck Howley Jerseys, your demos will go better. Or maybe not. We have two kinds of sales campaign clients: those who love to demo their products and those who dread every demo. We also have clients who are great at demos and clients who uh, fail to give good demo.
Make your demo shorter
Don't demo anything you can't or won't deliver
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