Have you ever attended a sales presentation when it felt like the person selling the product had a mentality of “stop me when you see something you like” or worse yet, flops a 30 page presentation in front of you and says, “Let’s get started!” If you’re like the average buyer, we tend to get restless (at least) and desperate (at worst), already anticipating how long this is going to take and expecting that if we don’t do something creative we’re destined to be late for our next meeting (or dinner that night).
Often, the creative executive approach to this scenario is either to be perfectly quiet to ensure discussion and dialogue doesn’t exacerbate the problem, or they may text message their executive assistant to come into the meeting in 20 minutes to tell them that they’ve been called away unexpectedly with no plan to reschedule our visit. If you think this doesn’t happen, you’re wrong.
Here’s the point – “telling” and “selling” should be avoided at all costs for someone who embraces the UnSelling approach. In fact, even “demos” in many environments are dangerous for the average buyer-seller relationship. The reason is when the client sees a demonstration of your solution, they often feel they now have everything they need to know in order to make a decision about your solution and they no longer “need” you (even though they often never really “wanted” you). Here’s an example: one of my clients for many years is one of the largest healthcare companies in the world and I work with a division that sells a leading-edge technology into hospitals. A few years ago I facilitated a meeting of some of their top sales people with the intent of defining the “best practice” sales cycle steps that these sales people were using to manage the buying and selling process so that we could document these practices and share them with the balance of the sales people in this division.
I was fascinated to find that on this topic of demonstrations, the high performance sales people in the room that day had learned that in the 7 step sales process they were following, they would politely defer doing a product demo for the client until at least stage 5. In fact, when we published the best practice “roadmap” for this organization, we had a coaching section at the bottom of the first 4 stages of the sales process (Qualification, discovery, strategy development, etc.) that said in bold letters, “NO PRODUCT DEMONSTRATIONS ALLOWED!” These experienced reps had learned that when you provide a demo, you actually lose your leverage with the client. And if we’re intent on having open, collaborative dialogue to really understand the problem(s) the prospect is intent on solving, you can’t jump to the answer with demos, collateral brochures, or worse yet – premature proposals and/or PowerPoint slides.
And when the prospect says – “I’d like to start our evaluation by seeing a demo of your solution” you have to be prepared with an effective answer. I’m in favor of an approach such as, “I want to first ensure we actually have a solution that fits your needs. If we do determine our solution is a reasonable option then I’d like to make sure I share it in a way that is most relevant to your needs.” In essence I’m saying I don’t even know if I have a solution for your needs and until I do, it would not be a good use of the client’s time to schedule a demonstration. Instead, we need the client’s help to better understand their challenges and goals.
Remember what we said about a key lesson learned from win/loss reviews – differentiation has less to do with your solution’s features and functions and far more to do with your ability to “link” your solution to the pains the key stakeholders are intent on solving. You can actually have the third or fourth best solution in a competitive pursuit and win the client’s business because you’ve done a better job of connecting your solution to their challenges and goals. Trying to “wow” the client with great PowerPoint slides and demonstrations is no surrogate to accomplish this goal of differentiation!