Inside Sales Telesales Tips Blog

Why aren’t my demonstrations converting to sales?

  

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Irene, a subscriber to my blog, contacted me last week about a serious problem she was having. She’s great at getting demos, and has more than anyone at her company. The prospects love the demonstrations, and they love her. Problem is, she has a low conversion rate. As much as they love her, many are not buying from her. We tackle this issue in my inside sales training classes, so let’s get into this today, and help her out. 

I asked her how she went about closing, and she said she worked very hard on building value, talking about her company, the great research staff that contributed to the success of her product, and the fact that her solution had tremendous value, worth every cent. The prospect’s response has typically been “great, I’ll go to my people and discuss it.”  And nothing happens. She makes more calls to the prospect. Still no decision. Ad infinitum. 

So I asked Irene a question. How is your solution going to make the prospect money? And she really didn’t have much of an answer. 

Oftentimes, we fall so in love with our product or solution that we forget about what’s driving our prospects’ business. But all they care about is either making money, or stop from losing money. Those are the only two reasons businesspeople will buy anything. Emotion-driven sales get stopped at the CFO level, who will demand that the champion provide hard numbers as to the return on investment (ROI). And when the champion can’t prove it (as I suspect is happening with Irene), the sale goes away. 

So I suggested that Irene do her demos differently. After the formal demo is finished, I want her to ask “Now that you’ve seen (and liked) the demonstration, how do you perceive that adopting my solution will help your company to make money?” She did that several times last week. And you know what she found? Several things. The prospects began drilling down into how their businesses worked. Irene’s product helps her customers to obtain new customers, so her prospects began telling her about challenges associated with gaining new customers. And they also told her how her product would help them find new business. She then asked “based on what we’re charging, can you make a case with your CFO that this is a wise investment that will pay for itself this year?” 

In one case, the prospect couldn’t articulate how Irene’s product could help his company make money. So Irene knew she was in trouble. She drilled and drilled, and worked with the prospect to come up with hard numbers that the prospect could use when discussing Irene’s offering with colleagues. She turned a doubter into a champion. 

Irene told me she feels more in charge now, has a better understanding of her prospects’ business, and has worked with her prospects to analyze the ROI of her solution. And she knows that if she doesn’t have those discussions around ROI, she won’t get the sale. I’ll bet she starts converting a whole lot more of her demonstrations now. 

I’ve blogged before on the dangers of giving informational webinars that leave out the sales component, and even written a whitepaper on it. You can’t close business without getting agreement from the prospect that the solution makes financial sense, and often, when the solution is being discussed at the higher levels in the prospect company, you won’t be there to advocate your solution. Only the prospect(s) to whom you demoed will. And this is where Irene was coming up short. 

In summation, be a little skeptical when the prospect enthusiastically tells you he or she loves your solution. Be sure to ask why the prospect loves your solution, why he or she thinks it makes financial sense to adopt it, and how he or she is going to sell it upwards within the company. When you do, you’ll know whether your demonstration succeeded, from a sales perspective, or whether it died, while everyone was smiling over the dead body. 

So add these three questions to your Best Practices Playbook before ending your demonstration: 

1) Why do you love my solution?
2) Why do you think it makes financial sense to adopt it?
3) How are you going to sell it upwards within the company?