Yikes … we forgot the demo!
Associate Peter Hanschke is an Ottawa-based product management specialist. His post is part of our continuing series about the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market. We welcome your comments.
By Peter Hanschke
The ability to demo your product to a prospect is a key activity in the sales process. Prospects struggle to make the connection between what is shown in a slide deck and the issues that they need to address or the problems they need to solve. Furthermore, they also need to be assured that the product you are describing is simply not slide ware. A properly constructed demo that shows how the prospect can address their issues takes time and effort to create. But many companies leave the design and creation of the demo to the last possible moment. The result is the standby method– open the product, show individual features and hope that one or more of the features resonates with the prospect.
The problem is that the prospect is looking for a solution to a problem that they currently have – not a set of features.
Prospects are interested in buying your product or service only if it addresses a need or problem that they have. In today’s tight economy, products that address issues will be considered more favorably than those that are simply a collection of features. The intent of a demo is to show the capabilities of your product in such a way that resonates with the prospect. The prospect needs to truly understand how your product addresses their core issues. Upon completion of the demo, the prospect should have a clear vision of exactly how your product helps them.
