Why the sales call starts before the call!

The Luxury of Choice is back for Series 3! In the episode, host Steve Vaughan and trainers Pru Layton and Christian Walter discuss the critical importance of preparation before sales calls. They explore various aspects of preparation, including mental, physical, and technical readiness, as well as the significance of researching customers to bring value to meetings. The conversation also touches on the role of AI in enhancing preparation and shares real-life examples of both good and bad preparation experiences. The episode concludes with final thoughts on the necessity of thorough preparation to ensure successful customer engagements.

Steve Vaughan, Jonathan Cooper, Pru Layton, Christian Walter, Pascal le Floche and Jayne Green are Sales Trainers from george james ltd. You can email the show at: Podcast@georgejames-training.com

The trainers on LinkedIn:

Steve Vaughan https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-vaughan-salestrainer/
Jonathan Cooper https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cooper-18716b1/
Pru Layton https://www.linkedin.com/in/pru-layton-b46a3528/
Christian Walter https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-walter-a1857b1/
Jayne Green https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-green-salestrainer/
Pascal Le Floch-Riche https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascal-le-floch-220ba46/

Jonathan Slasinski https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-slasinski-449a655/

george james training website https://georgejames-training.com/

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:00)
Hello again and welcome to The Luxury Choice, a B2B technical sales and business podcast brought to you by the training team of Joyce James Limited. My name is Steve Vaughan, I'm a member of the training team here and also the host and the producer of this podcast. And today's topic is demonstrations. And I don't mean the things where people go on the streets with placards and all those kinds of things. I'm talking about product demonstrations or demo, think is what we're to use today as shorthand. I'm joined today with two of my colleagues again, Prue Leighton.

and Christian Walter. So Christian, how are you feeling today? How things?

Christian (00:35)
I am great, never boring, ⁓ always lots of activity ⁓ and of course always looking forward to being in that podcast.

Steve Vaughan (00:36)
Good. Good.

Great, great to have you here. Yeah, and Prue, how are you?

Pru (00:48)
Good, thank you. Yeah, so I'm looking forward to going off to, I don't know when you're be listening to this, but there's currently a Rugby World Cup going on and I'm going to a quarterfinal, so I'm quite excited about that.

Steve Vaughan (01:00)
By the time this one goes

live, it might be all over. It might be celebrating, Prue. It might be celebrating the England win or commiserating, who knows? Yeah, it's always that weird thing when you record a show a couple of weeks before we go live. We don't know what could have happened in the world in that period of time, but hopefully we're all sitting here and doing our jobs normally and nothing dramatic in the world has happened in that period of time. But yes, let's fingers.

Christian (01:02)
Wonderful.

Pru (01:04)
Perfect.

I think as

they famously say on the television, you're watching it on Dave, the Dave channel.

Steve Vaughan (01:25)
I'm Dave.

So if you're in the UK, Dave is a TV station that shows ⁓ old programs, shall we say, or repeats or reruns, as they would say in America. ⁓ Anyway, we digress wildly. So demonstrations or demos, I guess ⁓ all of us on this podcast have all sold equipment most of the time in our careers, I think it's fair to say. ⁓ So no doubt we've all been involved in product demonstrations and given product demonstrations. ⁓ But the topic today of the show is

why the demonstration isn't the sale. So Christian, when that topic came out as part of our plannings for the series, we came up with that as a topic. What did that mean to you when we came up with that one?

Christian (02:13)
⁓ Yes, it meant quite a lot because my career started as an applications chemist. So I got involved quite a bit with demos and that was maybe my first interaction with customers and the selling process because salespeople would reach out to me and say, hey, can you help me with that demo? And of course I did and I always enjoyed

Steve Vaughan (02:19)
Okay.

⁓ you got the scars then.

You would do, yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Christian (02:43)
And about I fully agree, even if you do a perfect demo and the customer is mightily impressed and everything goes swimmingly, you may not end up with the order. And I think that is really important to understand.

Steve Vaughan (02:58)
Right. Okay. So it's, it's, it's part of the process is not the process. In other words. Okay.

Prove what were your thoughts when we first came up with this as a title.

Pru (03:12)
I think just adding on to what Christian said, you can do the perfect demo and you can get the perfect data and you can have all the right people there. But if you do it at the wrong time, it's not the sale. It's not just about performing a fabulous demo where you're well prepared, but it's doing it at the right time. It's the right time of the sales process. And I guess that leads into what I thought about. ⁓

Steve Vaughan (03:23)
Yeah, no, completely. Yeah.

Pru (03:39)
Demonstration is part of, can be part of your sales process. And it can be a classic one where we go to sharing an instrument or even a software demo, to be honest, that's a similar sort of process. But the demonstration is the proof bits for me of any good sales process where we have understood what the customers require. We've kind of shaped our solution.

Steve Vaughan (03:44)
Okay.

Pru (04:07)
made a proposal to them about this is what we think fits really well. They've accepted that we understand what they want and we've got everything. We think we know because we've done our best, but we need to get that acceptance side that they do accept this is a great solution for their business need or whatever. The demo part of it is then the proof that we can deliver.

Steve Vaughan (04:15)
Right. Yeah, good point.

Pru (04:36)
and do what our proposal said. So I think it can be more than just an instrument or a software demo. There's other ways of demonstrating that we really can deliver against what we understand and the customers accepted that they need.

Steve Vaughan (04:39)
Okay.

So it's a proof of concept, proof of capability, proof of understanding. It's proof generally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I you nodding Christian. Yeah. Yeah.

Pru (04:57)
The proof thing, yeah.

Christian (05:01)
Yeah,

think it's really impressive. So Proulx is talking about software demos. I am very skeptical whether there has ever been a good software demo in the world. ⁓ Typically, typically when people demonstrate software, live demo of software, it never works. It's always confusing and the audience switches off very, very quickly. So I would personally be very, very careful.

Steve Vaughan (05:11)
Okay. Provocative comment.

Christian (05:27)
a demonstrating software, only maybe few clicks, very few things, very short, 30 seconds, that's it. ⁓ On the other hand, of course, when we demonstrate an analytical instrument or a synthesizer or a ⁓ robot or something a bit more sophisticated, maybe we want to show what we have because it helps us to point out the USPs, point out the relevant...

⁓ strengths of our product for this particular application. But you have to be very, very careful not to not to talk about stuff that's completely relevant for this particular customer or because you are technically so excited about your product, you end up speaking 20 minutes about the the interfacing connectors it has and the the USB-C and A and RS232 and

Steve Vaughan (05:58)
show.

You

Christian (06:22)
auxiliary input and output and the customers long switched off. So I believe there is it's an art to do a good demo is an art and it has a lot to do with observing your customer and asking questions and checking in to see whether they are still engaged or

Steve Vaughan (06:42)
some great points there. Yeah. Great points. I was tempted to say I'd stop listening for them, which you were talking about product features, Christian, but I thought that a bit too obvious. So let's wind it all back then. So first of all, do we have to do a demonstration? Is it the must? Is it like a, that shout to a product demonstration? You're both shaking your heads. Why?

Pru (07:05)
I've seen, I've been involved in it in businesses myself where, where we always thought because we had some kind of technical edge that we had to drag the customer screaming and kicking into a demo. Cause that's how we'd win the sale. And we're saying, no, is the demo the sale? No, it's not the sale. It should be.

And I think if we understand it's a stage in the selling process, then we'll do it in the right way at the right time. So, yeah, we don't always have to do a demo. And in fact, if you have a complex piece of instrumentation or you're trying to show software, because you do have to show software if that's what you've got to sell, then

then it's important that we have an opportunity to do that. it's the most costly thing that you do. I I look at some, we've all been involved where we've had some pretty complex pieces of instrumentation and the demonstration might be half a day, it might be a bit longer, but the preparation is always considerably more, always involves more than one person in your organization.

Steve Vaughan (08:03)
Sure.

Hmm.

Pru (08:22)
So the cost of doing demos is really high. And you know, so it's not something that we should offer up to everybody because we will quickly run out of resource in the organization if we do that.

Steve Vaughan (08:26)
Yeah.

and stretch and stress the people who are doing the demonstrations because they've been pulled every which way as well. So let's talk about something that you mentioned, ⁓ Christian, when do we do a demonstration then in the sales process?

Christian (08:50)
So typically it's like an autopilot. We have an initial discussion. We establish what the customer needs. We establish ⁓ which is the right ⁓ solution, which is the right instrument. We qualify the opportunity, establish that there is budget in the ballpark of our costs and so on. And then almost automatically we

Steve Vaughan (09:12)
Okay.

Christian (09:17)
assume that the next step has to be a demo. And we even, I think we walk out very happy from that initial call if we have a demo scheduled into our diary. But maybe the question should be, what would you need, dear customer, to move this sale forward? What would you need from us? And then don't suggest a demo, just pause.

and wait. And maybe the customer will say, I need a presentation from you to my management team. Or maybe they need more literature or maybe they would like you to meet their boss. Maybe that's more constructive than to do a demo to people that are already convinced.

Steve Vaughan (10:10)
Yeah, yeah, good point. So it's back to the topic we mentioned in our previous podcast as well, and that is the importance of qualification and qualifying, you know, the budget, the time, who's involved, all those kinds of things. Would we ever do a demonstration for somebody that hasn't got any money?

You're saying yes, Prou. Yeah, go on.

Pru (10:33)
What kinds of demos really, I think, one is around that part of the sales process when we're actively working towards a close and a win. And I believe the demonstration, whatever form it takes is the convincer, if you like. So the customer is convinced that we can deliver something that meets their requirements. I think you can also do a demo in terms of lead generation prospecting.

Steve Vaughan (10:34)
Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, tell me more.

Pru (11:01)
You know, one of the ways

that you can do, you can demonstrate capability, particularly if you have something that is not well known or new to market or a different way of doing things. You know, you can, you can use demonstrations to motivate and excite people about capabilities, which they may then go away and, and actually start to look at fun, look at getting money for it. So I think that it.

Steve Vaughan (11:21)
Yeah.

Pru (11:30)
Demonstrations sit in two places for me in terms of managing sales process, but be very clear about what you're doing. There's no point demoing something when somebody on a material that the customer has, when they've got no money. So, you know, if we're going to do proof of concept or capability or whatever it is, we do it on something that we understand very well and we know is going to wow them.

Steve Vaughan (11:57)
Got you.

Pru (11:58)
We don't open it up to them bringing that dusty sample that no one's ever been able to get any data on, blow the dust off. but you can't do this one. It's very much

Steve Vaughan (12:04)
I bet you can't do that one. Yeah.

Pru (12:09)
around this, look at the amazing things that you could do. Why don't you go inside your business and see if you can raise money for this?

Steve Vaughan (12:19)
You're nodding Christian, yeah? You agree with that?

Christian (12:21)
Yes, I remember I remember colleagues selling selling analytical balances, using that a lot when when a new balance was brought out that had like a hands free door opening. And of course, if you work in a lab with with with gloves and you know, this is really a game changer because you don't have to touch the button anymore, no contamination. And and so that was used a lot to to

Steve Vaughan (12:35)
I remember it well, Christian. ⁓

Christian (12:49)
kind of show the attractiveness of the new product and create ⁓ a demand if you want. Make the customers plan the replacement of the old balances. So I fully agree with Prou. That is a second type of demo, a demand creation type. But it only really works if you have something new and impressive to show.

I think that would be my prerequisite for doing that.

Steve Vaughan (13:21)
I well remember the time that product was launched, Christian, because you and I were working for the same company at the time. And I remember there was a video of a mouse running around the lab and the mouse ran into this balance chamber and the doors closed automatically. We all went, oh, wow, that's incredible. So that kind of takes me on to what is the theme often of these podcasts moving forward. And that's AI. So is a...

a role here, do you think for AI to take away the need for physical demos? we see the scenario where we don't have to lug a piece of equipment around or fly a customer in from another part of Europe into a demonstration lab? All that cost. Is there something that we could replace with AI? I just popped it to my head. There may not be, but I just wondered if you've seen a role there. Or are we still using videos?

Christian (14:12)
Not

so much AI perhaps, but VR, virtual reality. And I mean, during COVID, at that time I was still working as a head of sales for a company. And we installed a studio where we could do virtual demos. ⁓ And this can be still a very efficient way of doing a demo.

Steve Vaughan (14:16)
Okay. ⁓ yeah. .

Christian (14:41)
I don't think it's quite the same

because it lacks the tactile bit. know, always, when I did demos, always ask the customers to touch the buttons or the touchscreen now and, you know, make them load the sample and so on. And this you can't do with a virtual demo. But I think it is a very cost effective way of showing your product in a better way than just with a video.

Steve Vaughan (14:45)
Of course.

Yeah.

Yeah. I guess there's a difference between buying a camera online or going into a camera shop and picking the camera up and holding it. As we're about photographers Christian. Do you see a ⁓ role for technology here or are we still doing the things that we've always done?

Pru (15:24)
think that we have to be like any business that wants to be successful. We have to be open to what is going to work for the customer and not what's going to work for us. And I think that there will be some customers and businesses who are very comfortable with doing things that way, whether it's through virtual reality, whether it's through remote.

of interacting with it and some who just want to get their hands on stuff. And you know, it's not about what we like. I think it's about what's going to work for them. And we have to be constantly able to establish and ask and inquire and be curious about what does the customer need in order to move to the next step with us, to move forward and be prepared not to go, this is our way of doing it. I mean, I remember

Steve Vaughan (15:50)
Yeah. Completely.

Hmm.

Mm.

Pru (16:13)
in my early sales career, it's astonishing that I can remember, but I can. We were kind of measured on the number of demos we had. was like a KPI. We didn't call them KPIs in those days, you had to get so many demos a month. And so we used to just go out and sell demos, which looking back was crazy. It was, do you?

Steve Vaughan (16:25)
Mm, me too.

Yeah.

I think businesses still do that, to be honest. think

businesses still do. I think they think the customer's going to go, oh my God, where do I sign? is, life isn't like that, is it really? No. Yeah.

Pru (16:48)
It's amazing.

No.

So I think, you know, we're not selling demos. We're trying to sell solutions to the customers and the demo may or may not form part of it. So if the customer is satisfied or their way of doing the evaluation and their openness to do it, we can give them an option of how we allow them. Then I think we're of more, we resonating better with customers. So I think we have to offer traditional stuff.

Steve Vaughan (16:59)
Great.

Great points.

Pru (17:22)
like for people who do want their hands on, you know, I know people look at me and they're crazy. They think I'm crazy because I think most of the cars I've got, I've done. I've, um, I don't do test drives in cars. It just can't be bothered. And I will actually get a car and I've never driven it. And lots of people go, what do mean you've never driven it? I go, I just don't have time. I'm not interested. It's not that I don't have time. I'm not interested enough. So I am very happy to.

Steve Vaughan (17:31)
surely not prune.

Hmm. Hmm.

Pru (17:51)
to order a car or to get a car based on what I've read and looked at, because I think they're roughly all the same. Whereas other people would go, no, no, I definitely have to sit in it and do this. So you have to be able to satisfy these extremes, I think, in terms of your offering of how you demonstrate what you can do for a customer. Yeah, all the time.

Steve Vaughan (17:58)
think you're right.

Yeah.

Customer preference. Yeah, good point. Yeah, absolutely.

So go ahead. Yeah. Yeah.

Christian (18:17)
I'd like to maybe come back to how we do a demo. And I believe

if you have to do a demo or want to do a demo, then preparation is extremely important. And I don't mean just preparing the instrument and the chemicals and that, that of course is a non-brainer that has to be right. But I think we need to prepare to understand what is it

Steve Vaughan (18:33)
I'm just going to go there.

Christian (18:46)
this customer is looking for and what aspects of my instrument do I want to point out? Is it a customer who is concerned about chemical consumption, wastage, waste management, environmental ⁓ safety, etc.? Then I talk about solvent recycling. I talk about ⁓

exhaust fume handling, talk about operator protection, things like that. If it's a customer that's more interested in throughput, in productivity, in high speed, then I talk about that, then I make my analysis to be very, very fast, maybe a little bit less accurate, but it has to be very fast. So the customer is impressed about the speed. If it's a customer who is really concerned about accuracy,

Steve Vaughan (19:32)
Yep.

Christian (19:37)
I need to make sure that I fulfill this accuracy requirement. And I remember one of my very first demos was silver determination for a Romanian mint. And they wanted 99.5 plus minus 0.3. So it was extremely difficult to achieve.

Steve Vaughan (19:56)
Thank

Christian (20:07)
prepared for about a week before I knew how to prepare the sample to actually get to that accuracy. You to have the right balance. have to have the, you to wash your silver sample with acetone beforehand and so on. So it's really challenging, but this was crucial for this customer and we did it and they bought. So preparation, I think is very, very important. Sorry, I spoke too long.

Steve Vaughan (20:19)
Thank you,

I was going to say to get the order. Yeah.

Pru (20:27)
It

Steve Vaughan (20:29)
No, no, not at all. It's fascinating because it's real examples. It's real life. So I wanted to go into the area preparation because we talked about that on our last podcast about preparing for a call. But I think preparing for the demonstration is super important as well. And as you rightly said, Cristian, I'm preparing the instrument or the application for what the customer wants to see and not showing what the customer doesn't want to see is it should be obvious, but often it isn't.

Pru (20:36)
Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Steve Vaughan (20:54)
⁓

But what other things do we need to prepare, Prue?

Pru (21:00)
think that it reminded me, I had a moment at one of the companies I was at where I was forced to become the application chemist because I was in the sales team and our application chemist left the business. And we looked around at the demos that were lined up and the only person who'd actually run one of these instruments was me. So I became the...

de facto application camest and it really, it really made me think differently about how to prepare. And we had pretty complex system with all sorts of pre-analytics on that. And yeah, I think it's to prepare. I think what you need to prepare is how are you going to wow the customer? I think that's what you need to prepare. It's that the customer is likely to have been on a journey of seeing a number of different solutions from different vendors and.

Steve Vaughan (21:44)
Right. OK.

Pru (21:56)
I'm sorry, listener, but actually they will sometimes confuse what they saw where. They really do. I've seen evidence of that where they've seen so many things. They don't have that familiarity. So they think they saw this particular functionality or performance at someone else. we do, customers do get confused. So for me, the preparation is around what's my wow moment going to be? What's the...

Steve Vaughan (22:02)
Yeah, of course they will.

Pru (22:24)
What's going to really amaze the customer. used to have an applications guy ⁓ when I worked somewhere and we sold infrared instruments. And what he used to do was to prove just how stable the framework that our infrared was built on while he was scanning it, he used to jump up and down on it and he wasn't a small guy. So he looked to use the put it on the floor and jump up.

Steve Vaughan (22:52)
I'd bite.

Pru (22:53)
And, you know, and

it just proved, you know, because infrared is very susceptible to vibration and stuff when you're measuring. So, because the interferometer goes all over the place. yeah, so he used to just jump up and down on it. And that was always the wow moment. And they would never confuse that with anybody else that they saw. You know, so I think, you know, for me, what you prepare is, is that thing that's going to impress and be memorable for the right reasons.

Steve Vaughan (23:01)
basic.

Not surprised. Brilliant.

Kristen, did you ever used to jump on your instruments when you were doing demonstrations? ⁓

Christian (23:25)
We used to pour,

one trick we did was pour water over it actually, near infrared spectrometer that went into process or operations environments and it was fully waterproof. You could hose it down, which of course is important if you have it in ⁓ a abattoir for example, or in a food production site. And so when we did the demo with the customer, we would pour a jug of water over it.

totally unexpected, you know, and that's also something the customer never forgets. So yeah, you can do these things and I agree with you. The wow moment is important. It's however important that the wow moment is adjusted to the particular customer.

Steve Vaughan (23:59)
I bet. Yeah.

Yeah, great point. Yeah, great point. Can I just put a disclaimer in there before we go any further? If you go and chip a tip water over your instrument or jump up and down on it in a demonstration and you break it, we're not liable. Okay. Just it's at your own risk, guys.

Christian (24:23)
you

Pru (24:27)
But

yeah, you're right. You're right, Christian. And when I, when I did this short stint as the application chemist, you know, I, kind of had time to sit back and I remember preparing for two very different demos. One was for somebody who was working in a highly regulated environment in an environmental space. And they just would do the same thing day after day. It was a water lab. Basically I set the whole complex system up so that when we walked into the demo.

It was ready to go. So the customer just pressed one button and the auto sampler started working, doing the calibration and doing the samples because in their lab, that's what was going to happen on a daily basis.

Steve Vaughan (25:08)
Yeah, great point.

Pru (25:10)
So they saw what it was going to feel like when they bought it. And then another demo with exactly the same system, but it was a research area.

And what they wanted to see was just how much, you know, you always get those people and however brilliant the software that drives your instrument is, they want to do something different. They want to be able to amend and customize everything that you showed them. So, you know, we had like a, we did the demo very differently, or I set it up very differently when we built from the base up and showed them just how much input they could have into the...

Steve Vaughan (25:31)
Yeah, always.

Pru (25:50)
way they ran their experiment so you can have exactly the same setup and share it in very different ways which is relevant to that customer and not go this is the way we always do the demo.

Steve Vaughan (25:58)
Super important.

Now super important points really so

When we talked about demonstrations on a previous show a couple of series ago now, there was a few things that came up and I just want to revisit a couple of those in case people haven't heard that one. And Christine, you alluded to this, think earlier, but when the customer's effectively going around looking at everybody, looking at you, looking at the competition, I know again that people play it sometimes, let's get the last demo. ⁓

are the customers going to see the competition next week? Okay, let's tell them that the instrument's broken or the demonstration chemist is ill so we can get the last demo. I mean, I'm being slightly facetious, course, But does it matter really? Does it really matter whether you are the last person to do the demonstration? Well, let's talk about it. So why don't you think so, Christian?

Christian (26:47)
I don't think so.

Pru (26:47)
If

you're desperate.

Christian (26:55)
So look, I think customers are looking at multiple vendors, have to look at multiple vendors, and they eventually develop a preference. And of course, what we have to do is we try and have to encourage them that the preference is us. So how do we do that? By listening and understanding well what it is they're doing. That's absolute key.

Steve Vaughan (27:03)
Yeah. Of course.

Christian (27:22)
The better we know what they're doing, the better we understand what their challenges are, the better we comprehend what keeps them up at night and what makes them worry, what makes them angry with the current solution, the better we can then position our instrument. And they feel heard. know, I think many people don't feel heard enough in this world. And if you're a lab tech in a big, whatever multinational pharmaceutical company,

Steve Vaughan (27:38)
Perhaps, yeah.

Christian (27:52)
you normally don't feel hurt so much. if we can actually truly listen and truly understand what drives them, I think

we can swing the balance in our favor, no matter whether we are first or last.

Steve Vaughan (28:05)
Yeah.

Yeah. You agree with that, Prud? ⁓ yeah.

Pru (28:10)
Yeah, absolutely. know how passionate I am about active listening and how

it's so important. It's our biggest differentiator and whether whatever part of your sales engagement with customers, the demo is often the time when you spend a lot of time with a customer more than you probably do for anything else. So your ability to show that you've listened and I spoke earlier about the fact is have you got them to say that

I do accept that if it works like this, I'd be happy to go ahead with you. I think it's really important. And, you know, if you say, you know, we, used

Steve Vaughan (28:42)
Great point.

Pru (28:49)
to play the game. mean, I'm a bit embarrassed to say, but I did used to play the game of trying to get the last demo. ⁓ because we were sort of almost forced to actually. But, you know, if you said the instruments, the instruments breaking down, well, that's not great, is it? Cause it's going, Hey, my instrument's a bit unreliable. If you're saying, you know,

Steve Vaughan (28:51)
⁓ no me too. Yeah. No.

Pru (29:08)
your applications person has more time off than anybody else because they're always ill or can't make it. It's also kind of saying, if you want some help from

our technical expert, they're sick all the time. Yeah, good luck. You can really actually undermine being ⁓ an organization they want to have a long-term relationship with. mean, the biggest sin.

Steve Vaughan (29:20)
Good luck.

Absolutely. Not completely.

Pru (29:34)
is trying to get a demo because you haven't done a good sales job. So we go for demos early as big convincers. So we think, this is not going well. If I get them in for a demo, I can turn it around. Demos are never about turning around. You know, it just doesn't work that way, I think. And that's,

Steve Vaughan (29:40)
Yeah. Yeah. No.

Pru (29:56)
think, we get the timing wrong.

Steve Vaughan (29:59)
That's a great point. Yeah, I mean, you can flip it the wrong way if you do it badly, of course. It can flip it towards the competition, but no, it's not about sort of having a sort of complete conversion or change of heart. No, doesn't work that way. Back to this timing thing, one of the things I used to encourage my team to do was, you know, and this matters wherever we are in the pecking order in terms of number of first, last, middle, whatever, demonstration.

Pru (30:10)
No, a moment.

Steve Vaughan (30:26)
is we always need to agree on what happens next in the demonstration anyway. ⁓ If it's, yes, they're going to head and order it great, but if they're going to look at somebody else, we need a reason to go back and it could be to present a demonstration report or run some samples and present the data. A reason to get back in again, because what we don't want obviously is for the competition to demonstrate after us and then close it. And then we've lost the sale. So a reason perhaps to go back or agreed with you and the customer.

to follow up the demonstration. yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Pru (30:57)
I think to be honest about that as well. say,

look, I appreciate that we've been trying to fit all of your evaluations in with who else you're looking at and us, because if we've qualified, we know who else they're looking at. And it's just going, what I want to make sure is that we can't show you complete capability at any event. So let's put some time after you've seen the other things.

because I just, you know, I really want an opportunity to have a discussion about something you've seen, which maybe we haven't had a chance to show you or talk through. And, uh, you know, just say why you want to do it. Don't be, don't be too over smart here. They know you're

Steve Vaughan (31:33)
Absolutely.

Pru (31:40)
in sales. They know you'd like to win the deal. We don't have to be that kind of standoffish about what we're trying to achieve. quite like a bit of, yeah, a bit of boldness about it.

Steve Vaughan (31:47)
Machiavellian almost, yeah. Yeah,

Christian (31:51)
Yeah, I agree.

Steve Vaughan (31:51)
love that. Yeah. Yeah. So one final thought from both of you about demonstrations, the demo, know, why the demo isn't the sale and any good hints and tips for person. go on, love stories. Yeah, go on.

Christian (32:02)
So I have a story to tell.

So the best demo I ever did was for a lubricants company in the south of England. And they wanted to buy an instrument for total acid number, total base number determination. Yep. And this is a complicated analysis, actually. It's a challenging method, challenging for instrument, but also challenging for applications chemist. was the applications chemist at the time.

Steve Vaughan (32:22)
That takes me back. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It is.

Christian (32:37)
I prepared really well, everything was spot on. We set the instrument up, we got the samples from the customer, we ran them. The results were absolutely perfect. Best precision ever. Fully in line with the instruments they had. All the instruments they already had were from our main competitor. ⁓ And we were left on a very happy note. The sales rep said, yeah, we'll be in touch, you know. And the customer thanked us for the great demo.

Steve Vaughan (32:47)
What? .

Christian (33:06)
And we thought we're going to win this. And then after that, it took about three months. We never heard back from the customer. He wouldn't answer our telephone calls. wouldn't answer our faxes. At the time, there was no email for the younger listeners. That's how old I am. No way of hearing from that customer. Eventually we heard back and we heard that they bought again.

Steve Vaughan (33:22)
Faxes.

That's

Christian (33:34)
from our direct competitor just because they already had so many instruments from them. And the demo we did made bugger all difference. Excuse my French. Even though it was absolutely perfect, it didn't achieve what we wanted to achieve. It didn't change the customer's preference for our main competitor.

Steve Vaughan (33:47)
okay. ⁓

Christian (33:57)
And my learning from that is think twice before you do a demo.

really understand whether you have a proper chance or is it just the way of the customer to try and fend you off.

Steve Vaughan (34:10)
Great point. Great point. Prove you got a story.

Pru (34:15)
Yeah, I think for

me, ⁓ I'm going to be controversial and say the demo can be the sale. Because, know, I think one of the things I think is if you have got a customer present at a demo and you're the salesperson, you should be present. I have seen so many times when the salesperson has introduced the customer into the environment, whether it's virtual or whether it's in person.

Steve Vaughan (34:20)
Okay, great. ⁓

You always should be, absolutely.

Pru (34:44)
and then is not physically present. So if you have got the demo set up, you've got the customer and the decision makers and all those important things there, don't please as a salesperson not to be present. It can be your best opportunity to close the deal. It's not always, but it could be. So be present.

Steve Vaughan (34:47)
Absolutely.

You and I used to work for the same company, Prew, and I remember ⁓ being responsible for that site, it's in the south of England, it begins with H, and actually going upstairs and dragging salespeople down to the demonstration because they've gone up, you know, they left the demonstration specialist running the demonstration and the salesperson's gone upstairs and started writing emails. No, you should be there. For as as anything, they're there to help if something goes wrong, you know, to...

Pru (35:09)
we did.

Steve Vaughan (35:32)
to give the customer, the applications person time to regroup, you go and take the customer on a, a coffee or a tour of the site or something. But also, as you say, it's their job to manage the sale. It's not just the applications person. Yeah, great point.

Pru (35:43)
Yeah, if you believe the demo

is important, you need to be present and it's unforgivable not to be present. So the demo isn't a sell, but it could be.

Steve Vaughan (35:47)
super point.

Christian (35:51)
I agree.

Steve Vaughan (35:53)
Exactly. Great

Christian (35:54)
No,

Steve Vaughan (35:54)
point. Yeah.

Christian (35:54)
I agree with that statement, Proulx.

Steve Vaughan (35:57)
So we're all aligned on that one. yeah, thoughts, Christian, Proof. Thanks again for your time, both of you today. If you've enjoyed today's episode, dear listeners, then don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app. And if you use Apple or Spotify, then you can also give us a review and we'd love a five-star review, of course. If you'd like any ⁓ questions to the show, give us any feedback, any comments, any thoughts, suggestions for other topics, any candy, us. It's just podcast at georgejames.

hyphen training.com that's podcast at georgejames hyphen training.com. There is also a LinkedIn group now for the show where we will be putting more content in there, sharing some thoughts, sharing some video clips from the show. And it's also a great place to ask questions or just generally hang out with people who listen to the show and share some thoughts or like-minded ideas as well. I'll be back again with two more of my colleagues in a couple of weeks time until then happy selling and we'll talk to you soon.