Attention is the new currency in technical sales demos. Potential buyers are constantly bombarded with information, so it’s important to keep their attention. Good presales demos should be a blend of entertaining, engaging, and educational.
Steve Winward stressed the importance of employing all three of these techniques in his DEMOFEST 2023 presentation “What Makes a Technical Sales Presentation Great.” If you rely too heavily on one element, you risk your presentation sounding stale.
Steve says, “You can’t assume that if you get a conversation booked with a customer that you have their full attention for the entire 60 minutes, you need to earn it every single minute and keep it entertaining, keep it engaging, and keep it educational for them to want to continue to watch.”
Think about your demo like a piece of music. If you just play the same note over and over again, people will tune out. It’s when you vary the notes that you create a melody that people want to listen to.
The same is true for technical sales presentations. If you deliver a list of features and benefits of your product, people will likely get bored and tune out. You’ll be more likely to keep their attention and ultimately win their business if you weave your presentation into a story, use visuals to illustrate your points, and ask questions.
While potential customers are looking for technical information from you as a solution consultant, they are still human and only have a certain amount of attention span. Not only will presenting information in an entertaining way keep the buyers focused, it will also help them retain the information better.
There are many ways you can entertain your audience: