Friday, December 1, 2023

Assessing Demonstration Skills Levels – How Do You Rate?

 


(A Never Stop Learning! Article)


What’s in this article for you?

  • Assess yourself and your team
  • Ten levels of demonstration skills
  • Exploration of each level’s characteristics
  • Measurements for achieving each level
  • Pros and cons of each level’s demos, plus grades
  • The significant gains enjoyed by advancing through the skills levels

A head of presales commented, “They don’t know what they don’t know…! 50% of our sales opportunities end in ‘No Decision’ and 30% of our demos are just pure waste. We must move from our traditional approaches to a validated, proven methodology that delivers improved results!”


Here’s a simple method to assess where you and your team stand, based on ten levels of increasing demo skills proficiency:


Level 1:  Follows the standard demo script

Level 2:  Customizes based on prospect’s market/industry

Level 3:  Customizes based on discovery information uncovered

Level 4: Communicates tangible business value

Level 5:  Applies both Vision Generation and Technical Proof Demos

Level 6: Manages and explores prospect questions

Level 7: Uses Biased Questions to outflank competition and reengineer vision

Level 8: Applies storytelling techniques to reinforce key ideas

Level 9: Applies these skills to the broad range of demo scenarios required, including demos for prospects occupying different portions of the Technology Adoption Curve, presenting new products, Executive Briefing Centers, transactional sales cycles, expansion opportunities, lunch and learn sessions, tradeshows, demos for analysts and third parties, channel partners, internal demos, and other scenarios

Level 10: Captures and reuses demo success scenarios, and integrates, aligns, and leverages the skills above into a cohesive demonstration methodology


Where are you and your team on this spectrum? 


You can find the balance of this article here – enjoy!

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