While you may not need a demo to win every deal, when a prospect wants to see a demo, that is usually a pretty good indication they like what they’ve heard so far in the sales process, and that you’ve done a good job connecting with the buyer.
A great demo can help you accelerate the sales process and a demo that is just mediocre can slow down the sale significantly, or even potentially kill the deal. Planning, preparation and a focus on delivering the right message to your prospect are the keys to success. You can follow these do’s and don’ts below to help ensure you deliver a demo that wows your prospect and helps close the deal.
Do the following:
1. Plan out what you want to demo
Each demo is not the same. If you understand your prospect’s business challenges and why they are exploring your services, you can build a good plan to show them what they care about the most. You can either start with what’s most important to them or work through some or all of the hire to retire workflow, but make sure you tell a clear, simple story.
2. Ensure your demo setup is pristine and clear
Make sure your demo environment is setup properly, that you’ve tested what you show in the demo, and that you ideally have a demo account that looks and feels like your prospect. If you find your PEO is selling to a lot of law firms, then make sure your demo environment has a demo client account that is a law firm.
You can even wow your prospect by showing them what their employee self service experience will look like by setting them up with an experience that has their logo, their colors and branding. If you are going onsite, bring a tablet and show them, or even better let them play with it while you are there.
3. Focus on business value more than anything
Most prospects are coming to you because they are busy and don’t have time or expertise to manage the complexity of modern Payroll, Benefits and HR. They most likely only know a little about what you know about compliance, risk and HR. They are potentially looking to reduce costs and risk, have great benefits for their employees, and focus on their business, instead of HR. So tell them a story about how your services and software together make their lives easier, save them money, and free up their time. That’s the business value they want and look for when deciding on an HR solution.
4. Practice and then practice some more
The best way to wow a prospect is to have your flow and message down pat. The only way you can do that is to have practiced and practiced and practiced. Find a colleague, friend or family member who might work at or run a small or medium-size business and give them the demo. Ask them for feedback. Then incorporate that feedback and practice again. And again. Then once more. You can’t practice enough.
5. Keep it brief
Your prospect is busy running or managing their business. Stay focused on their interests that they shared with you before the demo, and keep it short. You don’t have to show them everything that you do or everything the software does. If you keep it brief and then they want to see more, that’s a good sign. If you’ve done a good job they may ask for another demo.
Don’t do the following:
1. Don’t show feature after feature after feature
If your prospect is like almost every other small or medium sized business owner out there, they don’t want to see everything. They want to see just the things they care about. And they don’t need to know or care about every single feature that PrismHR can provide. Don’t hide anything, but focusing on features instead of business value may derail or cancel your sale right then and there.
2.Don’t show every step of every process
Some of the processes that an employee or a client manager will go through can be complex and have multiple steps. Your buyer doesn’t need to see every single form that someone needs to complete to onboard or enroll in benefits. Show the high level process, and setup your demo so that you can start a complex process to illustrate how it works at a high level. Then show it already completed whenever you can.
3. Don’t overwhelm with PEO speak
Your prospect doesn’t speak the same language you speak in your office, as your team probably geeks out on ACA, SUTA, compliance, workers comp, ACH and the hundreds of the other complex problems that a PEO solves. Most prospects only know a little about these terms and the detail that your operations team spends all day every day on. If you keep it simple, and use language that breaks down complexity and ties it back to the problems your prospect has told you about, your demo will be much more successful.
4. Don’t confuse training with sales
Sales is about mapping a buyer’s pains to value and solutions. Stay focused on solving that when you are demoing before a sale closes. Training is about teaching functional how to to a customer (who may be different than your buyer), so they know how to complete a task efficiently and accurately. What you say, and what you show may be completely different if you are selling reporting to a buyer vs. teaching a client manager how to run reports.
5. Don’t forget to ask questions
Make sure you are showing the client what they want to see, and that they understand how this helps. Validate understanding, and reiterate value by asking them questions. You can ask questions like:
- Does that make sense? If not, what else can we help you understand?
- Can you see how this can save you time?
- Is it clear how easy it it is for your employees to view their paystubs?
Resources and next steps for a great demo
Learn How to Demo PrismHR
- Download the Demo Training Guide
- Watch the Demo Training Course in PrismHR Training
Hone your message by focusing on value
These resources are essential to delivering the right message to your clients
- Client sales and marketing guide
- How to market and sell PrismHR: webinar recording and cheat sheet
- Selling Smart HR Technology webinar recording and questions to enhance your sales process so you can have conversations that connect with your buyers.
Setup your demo environment
- Follow this checklist
Keep things brief and explain both value and some features
- ESS demo and script
- Client Manager demo and script
- Onboarding demo and script
- Hiring demo and script