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Posted In: Demo Skills and Tips by Pat

There are quite a few articles with titles like this on the web. So, why read this one?

Before I Wrote This, I Took a Surf Around the Web Looking for “How To Demo” Articles

I was looking for specific advice for what I would consider to be the “bread and butter” of Product demos to industrial clients. Demos done with the specific purpose of selling high-ticket B2B software to a specific company or group.

As a result of my hunt for demo articles on the web, I found three main issues:

1) While there is a fair amount of information out there, much of it is focused on doing demos for consumers (B2C), as opposed to business-to-business (B2B). For example, Steve Jobs doing an iPOD demo is clearly for a consumer audience, ditto for Gates showing off the latest version of Vista.

2) Other articles that were B2B specific often were focused on demoing for large audiences. Many of the examples given–like the DEMO Conference–espoused a very specific set of constraints. The DEMO Conference is focused on giving a six-minute demo to introduce/launch a new product to a large audience. In general these examples were not very relevant to preparing a customer-focused on-site B2B demo.

3) Finally, I had to flat out disagree with some of the advice that was given, such as: “Don’t allow questions during your demo”! Yikes!

This post is offered up as specific advice for doing on-site B2B demos of complex technology products.

If You Don’t Sell Complex Software to Technical End Users and Managers–Stop Reading

Let me be clear about the type of demo I’m talking about. I realize that there are many types of demos from trade show demos to web demos to seminar demos, but for the sake of this discussion we are talking about a business-to-business (B2B) Software product demo.

This demo is done on-site, typically for a team (2 to 25 people) at a company with a specific need for your type of solution.

This type of demo is one phase in the sales process of a so-called complex sale.

A complex sale is sale where:

• You are typically dealing with multiple contacts on the client side. Some of these people will make the buy decision (Management), some will influence it (Techies), and some will have no effect at all on the outcome (Dilberts? or Miltons?).

• The dollar value for a complex sale is often large.

• The decision process can take anywhere from a few months to many months or more.

• The product is typically complex in nature. Selling this type of product requires that you understand how the product/technology can help your prospect solve critical business issues that they need to solve, and/or to realize a vision that improves their results

• One or more visits with the client are required to close the sale.

• The Selling is typically done by a sales team comprised of a sales person and a Sales Engineer (AKA an FAE)

How to Create and Deliver an Effective B2B Product Demo

I have been selling and demoing technology products (and training others on how to do it) for a long time. Many of the large sales that I or my sales team have made, have included and on-site demo.

This section outlines the procedure for creating and delivering a winning demo.

The Goal of the Demo

The goal of a demo should always be to move the sale forward in the sales process.

All prospects are in search of one or both of the following things when they go looking for new products:

• A solution to a problem
• A path to achieving their vision

In a typical B2B sale, senior management has the vision and is aware of the problems. Technical end users and line managers are responsible for the realization of the vision or the resolution of the problems identified by management.

To move the sale forward you need to:

• Understand their specific critical business needs (visions and problems)

• Be sure that they are motivated to achieve the vision or to solve the problem using a solution like yours

• Be sure that they have the budget to purchase your type of solution

• Show them, in terms they understand; using examples specific to their world, how they can solve their problems and enjoy the ROI of using your solution.

• Engender trust and gain credibility so that you become the trusted and preferred vendor.

The Winning Demo Method

Now, lets take a look at how we would prepare and deliver a demonstration using the step-by-step method that I teach in my demo skills training classes.

Use a Demo Creation Worksheet to capture all critical aspects of the demo such as:

• Who are the decision makers
• What are their key business issues and visions
• What is the impact or implication of these issues on their business: what happens if they don’t address them.
• Who is the competition, what are the issues
• What are they doing now, what do they want to change. To keep?
• What do you want them to remember
• Which customer success stories are relevant to them?
• Map benefits of your solution (success stories) to their specific needs and visions.
• Create the shortest, most compelling and customer relevant demo sequence possible

Outline for a Winning Demo:

Open:

Answer the questions they have in their head

• Tell them what you will cover
• Tell them Why it matters to them
• Tell them it’s their demo: encourage questions

Most important Message First: Solution to problem or realization of a vision

• Use a time compressed scenario format, based on a success story
• Be ruthless, only show the detail that sells

Close

• Summarize the value
• Ask about the next step in the process

Credibility Tips

As you deliver the demo, you need to be sure to gain credibility with your audience. Here are a few tips:

• Know your stuff - If you can’t answer around 80% of the questions asked, you don’t know your stuff well enough.

• Gain facility with industry tools such as VI or Emacs. Practice sequences until you are fast and impressive. This goes a long way with customers as they can see that you have spent some time in the trenches.

• Anticipate questions, have great answers.

• Do some product support. This will give you insight into real world issues faced by your customers.

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Posted In: Demo Skills and Tips by Pat

 

"Yo Columbus, get your sextant and your buddy Magellan–we’re going to watch some product demos!"

 

The Problem: You Never Told Them Where You Were Going

Have you ever started watching a demo, either on-line or live, and wondered: "Where the heck is this demonstration going?!?!?"

You know exactly what you want to see, but so far you can’t even tell if you’re watching the right demo.

 

 

It goes something like this:

 

Opening screen for the product is up

Demo Guy says:

"Let’s get right to it.

This so neat–You can change the color, let’s change from pink to blue, er light blue. "

"There. "

"Nice. "

"Now, let’s go back to pink. "

"The really cool thing about this is that you can make these changes on the fly and see what the screen will look like"

 

"OK, let’s see, your gonna love this!" "Watch how I can rearrange the rows!"

"Really cool right? I Bet you never saw drag-n-drop in a web browser before!" 

"Wait till you see this next really cool thing!"

 

And on it goes.

 

–Not once are we told what we are about to see; where we are going.

–Not once are we burdened with details about how a particular feature would help us do our jobs.

 

Nope, we’re simply left to try to divine where this is all going from what we’re seeing.

We get to watch the whole demo (or not, if we can escape) before we decide if there is anything at all that we care about. Yikes!

 

SO… What can we do to avoid this all to common demo disaster?

 

 What to do: Think Like a Customer

 Think like a customer.  It turns out that everyone has a set of questions in their head that MUST be answered before they relax and accept what you are saying.

Your job is to answer those questions as quickly as possible so that the viewer can settle in and relax for your demo.

The key questions are:

 

• What are we talking about and where is this going?
• Is this stuff of value for me?

 

Example Demo Sequence

Here is a quick outline to keep you on track next time you do a demo:

 You can assume some context, some background knowledge. Perhaps you were introduced. Perhaps their was a handout. Just be sure to err on the cautious side–not everyone will be up to speed, so be sure to include the necessary basics.

Here is an example from a demonstration of embedded debug tools to embedded systems Engineers:

 

"Today were are going to show you how our product helps you to…"

 

1) "Bring up your new PowerPC hardware. If you don’t have stable hardware, you can’t beging to debug your software"

2) "Load embedded LINUX and some application code to the system and debug it. Our tools can debug LINUX application code even with the MMU and paging turned on, most tools can’t and this will save you hours of debugging time"

 

I will show the same steps that you would use with your new board, only my sequence will only take 10 minutes and I don’t have to ship a working product. Your work may take a bit longer !

"Is this what you were expecting to see today? Are there other areas that I need to cover, need to omit?"

 

 Conclusion

Notice how I introduced the topics, the flow and then provided a benefit for each topic.  Now the audience can let me know if I am on track or if I need to make adjustments. I have answered the key questions that all audiences have:

• Where is this demo going?
• What’s in it for me?

The’re now ready to receive my message loud and clear.

To learn more about our Demonstration Skills Training Seminars please visit: Sales Demo Skills Training

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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7

Posted In: Demo Skills and Tips by Pat

I see this all the time, I’ll bet you do to.

Watch a demo of a product on a web site or at a trade show and you’re sure to hear:

And another cool thing is…

Cool to whom?

Why is it cool?

How do you expect them to remember the cool feature when you just said that the last 10 of them in a row were cool?

See the problem?

People tie new info to info they already know. Cool does not tie to anything.

Details about what the cool thing can do to help them do their job, now that sticks!

 

Long Boring Technology Product Demos (LBTPD) are way more common than you might think. Avoiding Demo Data Dumps is a key demonstration skill that you must master to be successful in technology sales.

 

To see if you are guilty of giving a LBTPD, take the quiz below:

1. Do you ever say "and another cool thing is", be honest :>)
2. Do you show more than 3-4 key features?
3. Have you ever done a "menu walk" of the product to be sure that you did not miss anything?
4. Does your sales person keep saying: "show them this, show them that"?
5. When you ask for questions, do you hear crickets?

 

OK, so what can you do about it?

It’s actually incredibly simple: PUT YOURSELF IN YOUR AUDIENCE’S SHOES!

Only show what they want to see and nothing more.

That means understanding what your audience is looking for.

If you don’t know what they need, never start showing features, ask what they want to see.

 

So, next time you find yourself doing a demo, before you show anything: Ask yourself, "Do I know what they are interested in?" Before you show a feature, ask yourself: Do they care?" If they don’t care don’t show it.

 

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