Sales Demos: Stop Using This Phrase

When it’s all said and done, it’s your sales team that differentiates you more than anything else in the B2B sales process. Sales demos are your best opportunity to shine because you have the numbers in your favor when presenting to an audience of multiple stakeholders.

Some wise person once said, “Customers don’t buy because they understand you. They buy because you understand them.” Truer words have never been spoken!

That brings us to the subject of credibility, especially during sales demos. The greater your ability to present from a “been there, done that” perspective, the greater your chances of standing head and shoulders above the competition.

Here’s one thing you can change that will go a long way toward boosting your credibility even further.

Stop Using This Phrase

Many of you have solutions that automate manual processes and save customers significant headcount. We can all agree that it’s faux pas to blatantly tell buyers they can whack people as one of your key benefits.

To that end, many of you have resorted to the phrase “you can redeploy resources to other more strategic activities.”

Stop using this phrase!

It’s not that it’s a bad phrase. It’s just too cliché and sounds fluffy. More importantly, it’s a missed opportunity to convince buyers you understand them at a much deeper level than your competition.

Instead of using this generic phrase, give your buyers some specific examples of “more strategic activities” that everyone knows would benefit from additional resources.

If you have customer success stories that prove the point, even better.

“We have several customers that have shifted resources (they no longer need) from payroll processing over to employee engagement activities since retention is a top strategic priority in most organizations.”

Cast a Wider Net During Discovery

As a rule, the sales discovery process is too narrowly focused on issues and problems your products address.

It’s a good practice to cast a wider net early in the discovery phase to understand from the top down, where the buyer organization is investing strategically and why those investments are critical to their success.

That knowledge gives you greater context for positioning unique/strategic value beyond the primary departments and users of your products.

The Psychology of Credibility

There’s a bit of psychology when it comes to convincing buyers you understand them better than your competition.

Think back to a time when you were in the buyer’s shoes and the salesperson spoke so eloquently about your situation that you just knew their solution was the superior option.

It works both ways!

Here’s the thing about the magic of that credibility. If you’re able to speak more eloquently and more fluently about the situation of your buyers, their assumption is that your solution is also that much better than the competition…and it’s all because of you and your superior understanding of them!

Superior sales credibility (knowledge of the customer) usually results in a done deal!