Use This Jobs Dashboard For More Successful Sales Demos
Successful sales demos ultimately come down to showing users how you’re going to make them quantifiably better at their job and doing it in ways that have measurable strategic value to their organization at the executive (buyer) level. But it’s a lot easier said than done.
Keeping your would-be users in their comfort zone should be top priority in every pre-sales demo. Unfortunately, leading with the product (our comfort zone) is the fastest and quickest way to alienate them.
Think about it this way. Your audience wants to talk about what they do, why they do it, and the hurdles that keep them from doing it better. Let that conversation be the centerpiece of your demo. In fact, the more you’re able to lead that conversation, the better.
Successful sales demos come down to convincing your buyers you understand them as well as they understand themselves. It’s the single biggest thing that leads them to believe your products are superior to the competition.
The Value of Using a Jobs Dashboard to Drive Your Demo
Most software sales demos follow the same formula – a handful of slides telling buyers about your company followed by an overview of the product, and then you dive into the demo.
This flow makes your value far more difficult to understand because buyers often feel like they’re drinking from the firehose in terms of absorbing all the capabilities of your products, especially if they’re seeing them for the first or second time.
You’re essentially shoving a 7-course meal down their throat all at once instead of serving them bite-size portions where they can fully enjoy each course! The jobs dashboard is your way of serving the meal in easily digestible portions.
The best way to illustrate the value of the jobs dashboard is with an example.
Take the commercial lending function in a bank for instance, and look at a few of the common jobs people perform in each of the four functional areas below.
Notice how the jobs are tied to a functional area, e.g., lending, credit analysis, etc., instead of specific user roles. Why?
This approach helps you cover two bases at once because you’re demonstrating the value of improving specific job tasks for any and all users that perform them, plus the value of those improvements to the overall department where your economic buyers reside. This approach makes it easier to connect user value up to the (strategic) executive level.
Using the Toggle Technique – a Visual Spacer
As a solution consultant or sales engineer, you always make your best attempt to let your audience know when you’re shifting gears to a different topic or going to a different area of the product. But they don’t always get it or they’re multi-tasking and not paying attention.
The toggle technique, toggling between your slides and the demo, does two things. First, it keeps their attention because visually, they know you’re shifting gears.
The second reason, and maybe even more important, the content of your slides and the accompanying conversation are all about what they do, not the product. The thing is, going back and forth between the dashboard and the demo forces you the presenter into delivering the demonstration in spoon-size bites that your audience can more easily understand, plus it keeps the focus on them. I know firsthand how easy it can be to drift into a technical feature presentation without even realizing it.
Tell Job Stories to Showcase Your Buyer Expertise
Back to the philosophy of “they buy because you understand them,” here’s your storytelling dialog while you’re on the jobs dashboard.
- Pick the job task you’re going to discuss, e.g., gather information for underwriting.
- Highlight the ideal outcome of performing that job task, e.g., you know exactly what you need, it’s easy to find and you can get it done quickly with little or no effort.
- Explain why it so difficult currently, e.g., it’s scattered across a lot of systems, gathering it is a manual effort, it slows the process down, creates a bad experience for the customer, etc.
Now, toggle to the demo and show the features that help the user complete the task with little or no effort (the ultimate outcome).
After you show the features, have a discussion if necessary. Remind your audience of the benefits to the user/department/organization of performing this job task quantifiably better and get closure on this job. Toggle back to the jobs dashboard slide and do it all over again for the next job.
The Value of Strong Discovery
A great demo always starts with great discovery, whether it’s before or during the demo. Don’t forget to ask the simple open-ended questions like:
- If you could improve or make any part of your job/department more effective, what would it be?
- Why?
- How would it make you better personally?
- What’s the value of that improvement to your department and/or the organization?
- What’s stopping you from doing it better today?
I’ve seen all too many discovery meetings become narrowly focused on verifying buyers have problems your products can already solve. Those conversations rarely yield anything that gives you a competitive advantage. Remember, buyers don’t buy because they understand you. They buy because you understand them.
The Bottom Line on Successful Sales Demos
Back to where we started, the ultimate goal of your demo is to convince buyers you can make them better at performing specific job tasks and doing it in a way that has strategic value to their organization. That means user job tasks have to drive the discussions and the demo. Think of your product features as the proof points to your in-depth knowledge of the customer and their business.
Convince them you understand their world better than the competition and you’ll win a lot more, and with fewer demos to get the deal across the finish line.
If you want to deliver more successful sales demos, contact us about a personalized Pre-Sales Demo Skills Course. You’ll learn these techniques and others that’ll help you differentiate because of your unique presentation style that convinces buyers you know them as well as they know themselves, and far better than the competition.
