Many presales, sales, marketing, and customer success practitioners say they are skilled at doing demos – but are they?
A head of presales commented, “They don’t know what they don’t know…! 50% of our sales opportunities end in ‘No Decision’ and 30% of our demos are just pure waste. We must move from our traditional approaches to a validated, proven methodology that succeeds…!”
Assess where you and your team stand on these ten levels of increasing
Level 1: Follows the standard demo script Level 2: Customizes based on the prospect’s market/industry Level 3: Customizes based on the discovery information uncovered Level 4: Communicates tangible business value Level 5: Differentiates Vision Generation from Technical Proof scenarios Level 6: Manages and explores prospect questions Level 7: Uses Biased Questions to outflank competition and reengineer vision Level 8: Applies storytelling techniques to reinforce key ideas Level 9: Applies these skills to the broad range of demo scenarios required, including demos for prospects occupying different portions of the Technology Adoption Curve, presenting new products, Executive Briefing Centers, transactional sales cycles, expansion opportunities, lunch and learn sessions, tradeshows, demos for analysts and third parties, channel partners, internal demos, and other scenarios Level 10: Captures and reuses demo success scenarios, and integrates, aligns, and leverages the skills above into a cohesive demonstration methodology
Organizations that reach Level 4 enjoy substantial competitive advantages vs their peers, those at Level 7 gain critical differentiation, and teams at Level 10 experience remarkable scaling and amplification rewards.
Consuming and performing the exercises in this book can transform individuals, teams, and organizations from undifferentiated sellers into high-performing experts who truly enable buyers, resulting in mutually successful outcomes that endure.
There are a few exceptionally good nuggets in this book, and the author knows what he is talking about. I think it is an essential read for anyone in enterprise tech product marketing, product management or sales.
I cannot rank it higher, however, because it is a tediously repetitive 450 pages. If the author were to get rid of 200 pages it would be a better, more accessible and more effective book. As it is, it is a barely tolerable slog.
Great content for sales and presales people. With many examples illustrating every topic. It could probably be shorter and explain the same ideas. A Pocket edition more compact would have been more suitable for me.