Need to improve your trade show demos? Here are four tips that will improve your demos and trade show success rate.
Stop doing "Drop off" Demos
Drop off demos are where the sales person walks up to the demo guide and says: "Joe from Amalgamated wants to see a demo", then wanders away leaving the sales engineer alone with the prospect.
Sales should be asking qualifying questions before they initiate a demo.
By asking simple types of questions like:
- What do you hope to accomplish with this product?
- Do you have something you use for this today?
- What types of functionality are important to you? Why?
Armed with the answers to questions like these, sales can make a smooth and productive introduction to the sales engineer. Using the information from the intro, the sales engineer can focus on specifics and not waste time trying to cover everything.
Do a quick sanity check
Review the items they want to see, make sure you are in sync with the prospect. This is also a good time to provide a brief menu of other things they may want to see.
Qualify more deeply during the demo
The introduction from sales was a great help in understanding what the prospect wanted to see, now it's your job to find out more. As you do the demo, ask probing questions like:
- How would this work in your environment
- How do you do this today
- What would be the value in terms of time, money saved...?
As you drill down, you can uncover more needs and more fully understand the prospect's situation.
Maximize the conversation
As you do the demo it may become clear that the prospect is not a good fit. Maybe sales didn't get a chance to fully qualify them. That's OK, you can still get useful information and maybe make a contact in the process. Here are a couple of things to try:
- Ask if they know of someone who would be a fit in their company, also ask if it's OK to use their name--this works remarkably well at trade shows.
- If they don't use your type of product or handle things another way, ask about it. This is great information for the marketing department.
- Try to help. If you know of a company or product that can help, suggest it. Pass the name along to the other company's sales staff; giving leads is the best way to get leads.
If you would like to learn more about how we can help improve your trade show demos, please visit our demo training workshop page.