What makes a good sales demonstration

Have you ever considered buying a product or signing up for a service but felt you needed to see that product or service in action prior to making your decision?

Maybe because you were unsure of how it actually worked or you didn't know whether or not if would solve a challenge you were facing. A sales demonstration, or a sales demo, is when a sales rep delivers a presentation to a prospective customer to show them the features, capabilities, and value of the product or service. The purpose of a sales demo is to close a deal. Before we dive into the sales demonstration process, let's look at the difference between a sales demo and a product demo, as they're often confused terms.

To reiterate, a sales demo is the process of providing a prospect with a demonstration of your product or service.

A product demo is the same process but it involves a current customer. The point of a sales demo is to create a sale whereas the point of a product demo is to show an existing client how to use the product or service they already invested their time and money in. Now, let's answer a few more questions that may come up as you begin thinking about your business's process and as you prepare to start delivering demos to prospective customers.

Use HubSpot's Sales Hub to organize and manage all aspects of your sales processes including your demos. You deliver a sales demo to close a deal. With a sales demo, you're showing a prospect exactly how your product or service meets their specific needs and can mitigate any pain points and issues they're experiencing.

This makes your prospect want to buy your product or service or at least want to learn more about it so they can convert later on.

Sales demos typically occur after a visitor becomes a lead. Depending on where a prospect is in the buyer's journey, there are a few specific points in time when you might deliver a sales demo or ask if your prospect is interested in a demo. There are a number of channels through which you can deliver your sales demos. You might offer your prospects different options to be flexible and meet their needs.

Ensure you have all of the tools needed to offer these sales demo delivery methods. For example, if you decide to deliver a sales demo via video chat, make sure you have access to software like GoToMeeting or Zoom , which allow easy screen share, face-to-face video chat, messaging, call features, and more.

The first step in the sales demo process is to research your prospect. As the rep who's delivering the demo, you should have a deep understanding of the prospect's needs and pain points as well as what it is the company they work for does. This will allow you to tailor and customize the demo to the prospect's specific needs and situation, which is a critical component of a successful sales demo. A sales demo is something that's almost always planned in advance — so it's important to remember to confirm the demo prior to it happening.

Make sure the planned time of the demo still works for the prospect and give them a window to postpone if they've accidentally double-booked or if something else came up. Send a calendar invite as soon as you've confirmed the date and time of the demo don't forget to include any dial-in information if needed.

Ask if anyone other than the person or people you listed on the invite will be attending so you can add them. Then, follow up with a confirmation email the day before, or a few hours prior to, the demo.

Use free scheduling software to efficiently plan, organize, and manage all of your meetings. There are many ways to plan your sales demo in a way that will enhance it and make it more engaging depending on the channel you choose to present through.

For example, share your screen during the call with tools like the ones we mentioned above , create a personalized slide deck with a tool like Canva , and have any relevant links loaded and ready to go in tabs on your browser to reference so you can easily incorporate them throughout the presentation. Examples of these resources include a customer case study, an informative infographic, and any other web pages, like your testimonial web page, you think may come in handy during the demo.

You should also prepare statements around each tool or service you plan to show your prospects as well as any tie down questions — which spark agreement and invite the prospect to better define the value of a given tool or solution for their business — to ensure your prospect is following along and understanding the given information.

Plan tie down questions for each tool or section in your demo to ensure your prospect is following along, understanding your descriptions, and grasping how these tools can help them solve their problems. You want to lay out a clear path from A to B so they can envision the way your product or service can resolve their challenge.

If you start the demo with, "Hi. I made a very sleek and easy to use technology appear complicated and confusing. To help you bring your product to life and make it look easy, here are my top 10 secrets to delivering an amazing demo: 1. Exude Calm and Positive Energy Focus on your audience, not on yourself. This talk from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program offers some great practical advice on how to build your personal charisma: 2.

Use this opportunity to direct the conversation. Tell them what you want to say and what they need to hear. Tell them. This is when you build your business case for why your solution meets their needs. Speak to how you can help—how can your product or service can help them overcome their challenges?

Tell them what you told them. Repeat your takeaways to drive the point home before you end your presentation. These are two tactical things you can try on your next call to really hear what your prospects are saying: When the person on the other end is done talking, slowly count to two before responding.

When you deliver your demo, pause early and often. In my early days at Marketo, I watched my fellow SCs employ the magic of a pause in their demos. At the end of each section, they would pause for several seconds—to the point where it was borderline uncomfortable—instead of asking for some kind of feedback.

Again, it demonstrates through your actions that you care about keeping the call conversational, and it gives your conversational partner an easy way to participate. A small video clip embedded within your slide deck can help you put your sales demo on autopilot. For example, a short video interview or case study snippet from an existing client can back up your points.

Another interesting way to keep your audience involved is to have them enter information so you can show them how your service works. Ask your lead to enter their info in it and show them how the template can help up their marketing game.

You need to work on humanizing your demo meeting by giving it a distinct voice. The same way as narrators of a good story do. Think of it, really. Would you sit attentively through a monotonous presentation that sounds like a boring microbiology lecture? Hand gestures to explain your point help too. This helps you connect with the lead. Using a conversational tone, asking questions, and sharing stories to explain a feature or case study can make your lead feel valued.

Use icebreaker questions to get your prospect talking and excited to learn about your service. Three things can help: providing background information, adding humor to your narrative, and telling stories. As for humor and storytelling: the brain is hardwired to enjoy them.

Imagine having to find all those email addresses on your own! A successful sales demo is not about your product features. And how does the hero solve his problem? With your service. Based on these findings, you can keep the focus on the problem followed by the solution rather than the other way around. You: To solve this [problem], several of our customers use [the product feature].

What are your thoughts on it? How would you like to solve this problem yourself? Prospect: We would actually take the following A, B, and C steps. The reason is simple: prospects have lots of options in their hands. So, for instance, a live streaming platform could say things like how their pricing is a differentiating factor or how they make it super simple for their customers to launch their channel and earn money from that channel.

Numbers prove this: successful demo calls spend an average of Delivering successful sales demos is only as hard as you make it. Your demo is a rare opportunity to understand product fit, build a relationship, overcome concerns and move the qualified lead towards a close. Richard Smith. Discovery is crucial to a successful sales demo. Unfortunately, corners are often cut or the Discovery process is skipped altogether. There are two types of Discovery: the Disco demo and discrete Discovery calls.

As long as enough Discovery takes place, Disco demos work. They are more common for early-stage or small organizations. But if somehow possible, the Discovery should be treated as its own, individual, scheduled conversation.

Because when combined with a demo, the Discovery gets rushed, generic, and not personalized. Steli Efti. Tell them to open their calendar and suggest a time to meet right away. As a general rule, try to schedule the demo within 5 business days out :. When you schedule the demo, stick to a few rules to minimize no-show rates and maximize the likelihood of a close:. Chris Orlob. By taking the focus away from features and functionality and reframing the conversation around overall business benefits you will avoid commoditizing your product, command higher average selling prices, and most importantly win more deals.

The best sales reps inform their prospect about the agenda at the beginning of the demo. This sets expectations and keeps everyone organized and on task. Knowing what will happen during the meeting also will put the prospect at ease and get her buy-in for the entire duration of the meeting. Stick to your agenda. You want to answer certain questions at specific points in the conversation.

As close. A professional and experienced sales rep will complete the demo within the agreed-upon timeframe. An amateur will apologize for going over time until the prospect cuts them off.

Erika Desmond. The likelihood that someone buys your product or service without liking and trusting you is almost zero. Use the first 5 minutes of the meeting to establish a personal connection with your customer. Robert Falcone. By synthesizing what you have learned from Discovery, you are framing the entire conversation and setting the tone for the demo moving forward.

This step is extremely important. That emphasizes the fact that the entire demo is about them. Reframe their goal, their key challenge, pain points, and the business implication in your own words.

This should be a dialogue between you and your prospect. Pause after every statement and let them counter or reconfirm. To survive the awkward silence up to the point where it feels uncomfortable and use it to gather valuable information.

If your summary is missing an important aspect or going in the wrong direction, your client will immediately let you know. Andy Raskin. If you introduce product details too soon, there is a high risk that your prospects tune out. Remember that most people you demo will probably know nothing about what you're about to present or how it works.