11 tips for an efficient sales demo

A sales demo can make it or break it when it comes to your deal. It is your chance to show how your product or service can solve the challenges of your prospects and help them in achieving the best results.

The art of leading an efficient sales demo requires a lot of practice. Yet, when you use the right tools and tactics, it can be easier and bring you better results. Let’s see how to make your demos successful.

What is a sales demo?

A sales demo is a presentation delivered to prospective customers which shows them the value that your service or product has to offer. After the demo, your prospects should have enough information to decide whether to close the deal or not.

Sales demo is not a product demo

Sometimes you can spot the use of a product demo as a synonym. Although those notions are similar, the product demo is shown to a current customer after the sale has happened.

How do you deliver a sales demo?

In general, you can deliver a sales demo yourself or attach a link to a video explaining your product. In this article, we will focus on the first way of delivery.

You can schedule a meeting via different channels. According to yours and your prospects’ preferences, you can settle for a video or phone call, or meet in person. Remember to agree on it when you schedule your meeting to avoid any misunderstanding. In Harmonizely, you can create various meeting types and allow your prospect to choose the most suitable way.

How to make a great sales demo?

As with each skill, it takes mainly practice. When you feel you need ideas on how to improve your sales demo, try out our 11 suggestions.

Know your product

As elementary as it sounds, it can be the key to a successful sales demo. Knowing your product or service goes beyond the fluent use and demonstration. Think about specific data or stories about how the product helps your customers in achieving their goals.

Knowing your product means also being able to tailor the communication to the needs of your prospect, even in such demanding sectors or business as commercial truck insurance NJ.

Make it easy to schedule

Allow your prospects to schedule a demo exactly when they are considering it. When you provide them with a link to your scheduling site, you will shorten the time-to-demo and better the effectiveness.

There are several moments in which you could schedule a demo with your prospect. For example, each micro-conversion can indicate that your prospect can be interested in a sales demo. Also, don’t forget to add a link to schedule it in your contact page or the email footer.

When you offer your demo via a video call, make sure you provide your prospect with a link to the call. Harmonizely can come in handy. It has an integration with Zoom that allows you to create and automatically add to your invitation a link to the video call.

Ask the right discovery questions

Getting an insight into your prospects’ needs before you call them will be crucial for the success of your demo. That is the purpose of your discovery questions.

You can ask about the challenges that your prospects face with their current solutions or the essential features. Don’t forget to build a bigger picture: ask about the company goals and profile, as well as details about the purchase decision.

If you use Harmonizely, you can ask custom questions when scheduling a demo. Use this feature to learn about your prospect and gather the information in one place.

Personalize the demo

All the information you gather with your discovery questions serves you to adjust the demo to the profile of your prospect. Each demo call should answer the individual needs and address the pain points.

If you have some further information about your prospect, like industry or type of business, you can research other challenges your prospect might face, but also their competition or target groups. The more precise the picture, the better you will respond to their needs.

Prepare the agenda

Preparing an agenda will help you in staying on track of your presentation. You will be sure that you present the complete information in the most friendly way. Also, don’t forget to set some time for questions from your prospect.

Make sure you send it in advance. It will help your prospects in setting expectations and then follow the presentation. They will be able to think about some questions in advance. When you use Harmonizely, you can make use of custom email notifications: for example, with a link to the agenda file.

Get the intro right

The beginning of your call helps you to set the tone of your relationship. You can mention here some past interactions with your prospects if there are any. Another good idea is to give some background info about your company. A successful intro helps in setting the trust and partnership between both of you.

Be flexible

Preparation for your sales demo is important, yet during the call you need flexibility. Perhaps, you will notice that your prospect needs other information, or different features are more attractive.

It also means for you to be prepared for a broader range of issues than you planned out in your agenda. Your prospect may need more in-depth information and stick to one topic. Don’t let it get you floored.

Ask questions

Questions asked in the right way, and a perfect moment can make your sales demo highly efficient. When you prepare your demo, think about tie-down questions. They spark agreement and help the prospects in defining the value your service has for their business. Treat it as a kind of a sales audit.

Keep several in mind for each stage of your demo. You will be sure that your prospects are following you and you get the message across. When you notice that they don’t grasp the idea of the service, you will be able to stop and explain it better. In an ideal situation, those questions will lead your prospects to a clear vision of how your product solves their challenges.

Pay attention

The sales demo should be a conversation, not a monologue from your side. That is why you should be attentive to your prospect, responding to any questions or putting things in another way to make sure you understand each other.

Let the data speak

As you will probably deal with different types of clients, you will need several ways of argumentation to make sure one of it convinces your client. That is why apart from success stories and use cases you should gather valuable data.

Think about the next steps

After you finish your sales demo, your prospects should have a precise idea on how your products work and how their needs can be addressed. Yet, they may still lack the details on what resources are necessary to make your solution work.

Guide your prospects in terms of how much time, money and effort are required to implement your solution. Of course, these requirements should also be adjusted to individual situations.

At this point, talk with your prospect about the next steps. You can set up a follow-up conversation or speak directly on completing the deal. According to the reaction of your prospect, you should have a different flow to follow.

As a recap

As you can see, the most important issues in an efficient sales demo are preparation and personalization – and they are strongly connected. Make sure you research your prospects, their individual needs, and focus on the challenges they face.
The implementation of a scheduling tool will make your sales easier. Check out the free trial of Harmonizely and see how it works in your case.