Closing Techniques For Conducting Effective Demos

You've been there. You get on a demo call. You're excited to show your product. You want to impress the prospect with ALL the cool features... ...and halfway through, you can see their eyes glaze over. Meeting ends. No follow up. Deal dead. I wasted YEARS making this mistake. The problem? I was "selling steaks to vegans". Showing features my prospects didn't care about and never would. Reminds me of the time I walked into an Infinity dealership looking for a comfortable car with good storage for road trips for my growing family. For 20 minutes, the salesperson showed me luxury wood trim, UI features, and rubber floor mats. I walked out, drove to Lexus, and bought from a rep who focused ONLY on what I cared about. Your demo shouldn't be a buffet where prospects sample everything. It should be a custom crafted meal addressing exactly what they're hungry for. Before any demo, ask: "If I could only present 3 things that would move the needle for this prospect, what would they be?" After implementing this approach, my close rate jumped from 22% to 54%. The formula is simple but rarely used: 1. Only show what solves THEIR problems 2. Link every feature to direct business impact 3. Use THEIR language and terminology 4. Make it interactive with questions throughout 5. Keep it simple (fancy fails, simple scales) 6. Prove everything with relevant examples 7. Make it smooth and polished 8. Handle objections before they arise 9. Practice until it's muscle memory Remember: Most prospects will pay MORE for CERTAINTY. — Want to CRUSH your quota and 2x your sales? We should talk: https://lnkd.in/gr9u5Vgd

The only time I am 100% sure I have your undivided attention is when you are talking to me. And I need your undivided attention to sell. So why do most sales reps talk so much? Why do they do a 30 minute demo or presentation without taking a breath? #CEOs you want your sellers to close more deals, make sure your sales leaders are teaching them how to: 💥 Say only what they need to 💥 Ask great questions 💥 Listen to the answer so they can drive the conversation You don't drive the conversation by talking you drive it by asking questions and listening and then formulating the next great question to continue driving the conversation. If you haven't watched a demo lately, do it. What are your sales reps doing? 🤔 Are they demoing all the bells and whistles without understanding what the buyer needs? Without planning to have a conversation their presentations and demos may not move deals forward. Why take a chance. The questions they plan to ask are as important as the features they plan to share based on their knowledge of what the buyer needs. Need some help to identify if they are doing it right? And you might be wondering if salespeople are asking and listening instead of telling and presenting how does the prospect learn about the solution? The solution should be interwoven into the conversation during the demo or presentation as appropriate. Here's what it might look like. Salesperson: The first slide is a statement of their problem as you understand it. “Your company needs to generate more leads quickly “How has your company done this in the past?”  (It's not about your company or product.) Prospect: “We have never really found a good solution.”  Is this an invitation for the salesperson to dive in with their product information? No, more questions need to be asked. Salesperson: (Second slide – the word Solution)“What have you tried?” and after they answer, “Why didn’t that work?”  The answers will help determine if your solution is a good fit, which you should have a good idea about from previous conversations. Salesperson: “It sounds like you need a solution that will be easy to use, consistent, and sustainable, is that right?” Depending on the answer, reveal some information about how your solution might work in that case. Share a slide or two about your solution. Keep the slides simple with graphics that show the solution and very few words. You do the talking, not the slides. Salesperson: “How would this work for your company?” Before moving on to the next part of your solution that is a fit, there is always a question and confirmation. 💡 If you are watching your sales team present and it is not a conversation, you'll need to do some retraining followed by practice. Want some content on this you can give to your sales leaders, see the comments 👇

When I was a VP of sales, I had an SMB AE that was only converting 20-27% of his demos. When I listened to his calls, he kept asking the worst type of question on his demos: → "Do you have any questions?" Salespeople underestimate how bad this question is. You're using up your 'discovery time' to ask a question that most likely gets flat engagement. Most of our 1:1s for the next 3-4 months was focused on 1 thing only: How to ask more engaging questions on demos. Here's what he started asking instead that helped him get a 50% demo conversion rate: → "Aside from yourself, who will be using this on a day to day?" → "What does this compare to your current process of _______?" → "Based on what you've seen, how aligned is this to what you were expecting?" → "What do you feel wouldn't work for you?" → "On a scale of 1-10, 10 being 'mission accomplished', how would you rank this solution to your problem of [PAIN]?" → "What constructive criticism will [other stakeholder] about the way we do this?" Trust me, if your prospect has questions, they'll ask. You're better off asking more discovery questions that reveal concerns, objections, and alignment. P.s. the only way to nail the demo is to nail discovery. So here's a master list of 24 of the top discovery questions to quantify pain - I used these to close a $180,000 deal in <4 months: https://lnkd.in/eR69raD4

From 2017 to 2021, Gong grew from $200k ARR to nine figures. During that window of time, I spent dozens of cycles with our VP Sales on crafting demos that sell. Here's 6 elements of insanely persuasive sales demos I learned (trial and error): 1. Flip Your Demo Upside Down Most salespeople save the best thing for last. Wrong move. By that time, buyers have checked out. Some have even left the room. Start your demo with the most impactful thing. Save dessert for the beginning. Not end. 2. Give Them A Taste, Not A Drowning You eat, sleep, breathe your product. So you want to show EVERYTHING. You believe that the MORE you show, the more VALUE you build. Wrong move. Your just diluting your message. Show exactly what solves your buyer's problem. Nothing less. But also, nothing more. 3. Focus Your Demo On The Status Quo’s Pain It’s  tempting to focus on benefits. They’re positive and easy to talk about. But focusing your message on the pain of the status quo is more persuasive than focusing on benefits. If your buyer believes the status quo is no longer an option, they’re a step closer to investing in a new resource. Your new resource. People are more motivated to NOT lose than they are motivated to gain something new. Use this psychological bias to your advantage. 4. Avoid Generic Social Proof We're all trained to use social proof. Whether it works is not so simple. Using endorsements from big customers might win credibility with a few buyers, but it'll work against you if your buyer doesn't "identify" with the customer you're name-dropping. It alienates them. If you cite a bunch of your customers who DO NOT LOOK like your buyer? They’ll think “This product isn’t designed for clients like me.” Only name drop customers they can identify with. 5. Frame the problem at the beginning of the demo. Start with a "What We've Heard" slide. Center your buyer on the problem. And get new people in the room up to speed. Then show a "Desired Outcome" slide. Do those two things, and now your demo is a bridge between the two. Easy for your buyer to "sell themselves" when you do that. 6. Frame the pain each feature solves. This is the "micro" version of the previous tip. For EVERY NEW FEATURE you showcase: You HAVE to frame the problem it solves. Otherwise, it's meaningless. At best, your buyers write it off. At worst, it triggers objections. That's all for now. This is nowhere near the last thing to be said about demos that sell. So what would you add? P.S. After watching 3,000+ discovery call recordings, I picked out the best 39 questions that sell. Here’s the free list: https://go.pclub.io/list