Congrats. You have the demo / the meeting with the prospect. Check you out. Relax though, you’re still early stages and the opportunity is yours to lose. How do you convert now you know the prospect has some interest in your solution?
Work before demo
✅ Make it personal
You’ve heard it before, people buy from people. Connecting with your prospect is easier if you understand how they think. Research the following platforms:
- Quora
- Medium
- Youtube (for talks or interviews they’ve given)
- Google (find their blog by searching for their name
✅Research their company, learn about industry & pain points that many operating in their Industry experience
Connect on LinkedIn
Demo — game time!
✅ Intro — provide outline & structure of the call (give time frames if possible)
Rapport building
✅ Preliminary probing questions — understand where the company is, who the end-user is, who the decision-makers are, what was the trigger that prompted them to search for your product, SPIN selling,
Why is this an important problem to fix?
What are your company’s most important goals right now?
Who else will be involved in this purchase decision? What features are most important to them?
✅ Story -craft a story about your business, why you do what you do, why you are best positioned to help companies in their situation
✅ Showcasing the product/solution — aim here is to internally outline what the WOW moments are and get prospects to that WOW moments asap
Major Key: Customers only care about the features of your product that are relevant to their challenges. Most customers will never use every single feature so why waste time going over each one?
+ Remember: your demo shouldn’t be an hour-long monologue. Make it interactive. One way to keep the conversation going is to continually ask questions, as we mentioned above
✅ Q&A
✅ Summarise what you’ve learnt through your interaction — outline the next steps on your end + ask prospect the next steps on their end + ask prospects are they looking at other service providers, what are the variables in their decision making process + ASK
Were there any points you didn’t understand, or anything you wanted to go over again before we finish?
According to a study by Gong.io, successful demo calls spend an average of 12.7% more time talking about next steps than unsuccessful demo calls.
✅ Send a follow-up email post the demo
Within 24 hours of your software demo, send an email to recap the last meeting and your next steps.
✅ Schedule a follow-up email if no word back for 3 days
According to Gong.io, top-performing sales reps follow a process that mentions topics sequentially, giving the whole call a good flow.
All of the above goes out of the window if you fail to communicate with your prospect effectively. Failure to communicate effectively in many cases means you will need to have a solution much better than your competitors out the gate to onboard your new prospect. I’m sure you do/have or are working on that but let’s not make selling any more difficult than t has to be.
Here are a few quick tips to help with communication:
😊Try to send clear messages that are congruent in both verbal and nonverbal dimensions.
😊Nod, smile, or occasionally make affirmative vocalisations or other responses that tell the sender you’re paying attention
😊Say what you mean and mean what you say. Be direct and honest; don’t dance around the issue or play games
😊Wait for the person to complete a thought without interrupting to express your ideas.
😊Paraphrase what you heard so the sender can be sure you got the right idea
By following these simple guidelines, you can improve your communication skills greatly, promote better understanding in your relationships, and enhance the quality of your life.
Bedroom 2 Boardroom 🚀 