We all know that we need to gain a sufficient understanding of our customers’ needs and specific situations before proposing solutions – and before presenting most demos. Here’s an additional reason to do this:
Miller Heiman, Inc. reports in their Executive Summary of their 2009 Sales Best Practice Study that 93% of “World Class” vendors vs. 50% of “All” vendors do “Clearly understand our customers’ issues before we propose a solution”. “World Class” organizations achieved stronger results in five areas measured:
- Average account billing
- Sales force quota attainment
- Number of qualified opportunities/leads
- Customer retention
- Forecast accuracy
Not surprising…!
For more tips and articles on demonstration effectiveness skills and methods, email me at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com [1] or visit our website at www.SecondDerivative.com [2]. For demo tips, best practices, tools and techniques, join the DemoGurus Community Website at www.DemoGurus.com [3], or the Great Demo! LinkedIn Group, or explore our blog at http://greatdemo.blogspot.com/ [4].