Elements of a good Demo! Engagement! (Part 3)

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By JewelsExpert - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
One thing that separates truly great presenters from good or average, is how well they can read the room, and engage the audience in order to ensure a reaction. 

Your job in a demo or presentation is not just to impart information but to get a response, or reaction, and move deals and pipeline forwards.

Engagement is an art form, but it is something that can be measured too. 

How many times do you stop and ask your audience a question? 

How often do you ask for other kinds of feedback, like a poll, or ask them to fill in some blank on your whiteboard presentation?

Getting engagement means you have feedback from your audience, and a way to measure if your points are making an impact. You can tell better that they are listening, and how well they are following the pace and delivery.

If you've ever made it to the end of a session with a customer and find out not only then that half of what you showed wasn't relevant, but there was something else they'd have liked to have seen, and you didn't give them a chance to ask, you've witnessed a situation that engagement would help you with.

So how do you foster a session where engagement is welcome?

  • Give your customers a chance to respond to your points, don't just fill the air with noise
  • Work with your seller at spotting when people want to ask questions
  • Directly ask them some questions where relevant.

What kinds of questions help drive engagement?

Try questions that are open ended, rather than closed yes/no kinds of questions. Questions that ask "How" help open up customers to talk more about their challenges. 

You can ask questions that help you get a better understanding of their challenges, but more importantly, what the payoff is for them in solving them.

All of these interactions that I seek, are to help customers confirm to themselves your value to them, and their ability to move forward with you.

How do you check if they are going to do something about it?

Make sure you end your session with a call to action. Give them a task to do, or a thing that they can think about afterwards. Tell them how you are going to come back to them, and what they can do to prepare for that.

Don't just show up and throw up.  Sales is much more than that.

How do you drive engagement? Let me know what your top ways of engaging customers in demos are, and we can discuss on the next Presales Talks call.