Avoid product sales demonstration & learn product sales presentation skills

The product sales demonstration or presentation is only ever a chance to lose the sale. Make sure the prospect is pre-sold before you begin. Avoid product demonstrations towards the end of the sales process because at this point you are at your most vulnerable and have it all to lose. Follow the fourteen sales presentation skills and your success will be assured. These include sharing your similarities, ignoring the things your product can not do or mistakes you accidentally make, blame yourself for errors, avoid repeating words, avoid talking futures, stop and look, avoid the nuts and bolts, maintain flexibility and make sure you have a Eureka moment.

One of my mentors is famous for saying the following words;

“The product sales presentation is only ever a chance to loose the order” B. Lyne.

The product sales presentation is the part where you give final proof that what you are saying your product does it actually does. This means that when you sell a highly technical product the risk for misunderstandings can be considerably high. The product will most probably require training. As a result the prospect can become easily confused or even baffled by the demonstration. You risk something going wrong. You're at even higher risk towards the end of the sales process when you have everything to lose.
Win your point then demonstrate it and then stop. Keep going and you risk losing everything. A troublemaker could easily use your product demonstration as an opportunity to look for reasons why you should lose. Do not give them that opportunity to look for weaknesses and invent problems. Learn to control and restrict your demonstration time.

In no particular order please read carefully below the fourteen secrets to making a good product presentation:

Product sales presentation skills #1. Share your similarities:

When delivering a product demonstration the questions that you need to answer in the prospect’s mind is what makes you credible? If you have the appropriate technical background there is a lot of value in you giving a short introduction of your background and experience. But don’t ramble along they don’t care that much just that you are credible. The idea of this is to build up familiarity and to put you round the same side of the table as the client if you have similar backgrounds.

During the demonstration it is very important to maintain interaction with your audience. Asking questions that help make your point are excellent ways to do achieve that.

If you make a mistake or do something wrong then do not apologies for it. If you make a fuss about the mistake or overly apologize then you give the mistake existence and this makes it more important than it really is. The prospect will remember this mistake even more and punish you for it later.

Product sales presentation skills #4. Rehearse and learn the demonstration:

The best approach is to learn a script and try to avoid going off piste. You just increase the risk that something will go wrong.

Product sales presentation skills #5. Blame yourself for errors:

If something does not work the way you want it to blame yourself not the product. The product does not make mistake you do.

Product sales presentation secrets #6. Avoid repeating words:

Watch out that you don’t keep repeating the same word. Such as “the point is, “the point is” etc. each time you have a point to make. You will only annoy the customer and yourself.