Anyone who has attended a great product demonstration knows how powerful they can be in creating demand. When you see a product at its best (or more importantly, see yourself using the product at its best) you can't wait to get your hands on it. Apple knows that, Adobe knows that, Microsoft used to know that.

Now I know at this point, I expect some of you are shaking their heads and saying "well of course that's true for a sexy product like the iPad, but no-one is going to get excited seeing my accounting system or my firewall or my  storage device".

And here's where I disagree. Because the iPad isn't sexy - Apple make it sexy. If you don't believe me, have a look at other tablets that can't get anywhere near the same level of excitement. Because demonstrating a product is not about showing all the features to prove that the advertising is correct. A product demo is about creating desire and showing the customer how their life will be better with your product. It's about creating an emotional connection to the point that they want it, not just need it.

And if I'm an IT Manager who has my boss breathing down my neck that staff are complaining about not getting access to information they need, or performance is slow, or they want to use their own devices, then absolutely, if you can demonstrate a solution that solves my problem, I want to see it.

I've seen some dud presentations, and I have seen some killer ones, and this article from Geoffrey James beautifully summarises the attributes of the latter.

6 Steps to Giving a Killer Product Demonstration  Read More

An interesting article from Sales Machine blogger - Geoffrey James - on the 8 Most Crucial Sales Skills.

Although it's based on a consolidation of inputs from various sources, the key skills identified here absolutely resonate with everything we teach in our Dynamic Solution Selling workshop.

Do you agree? Are there any others missing?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505183_162-28556664-10391735/the-8-most-crucial-sales-skills  Read More

There are few activities in the world of selling that are more time-consuming (but potentially lucrative) than writing sales proposals. They’re a lot of work, but they’re also the key to winning the big money deals. Therefore, if you’re going to write a sales proposal, you’ve got to do it right, and get it right.

In this article, Geoffrey James shares everything he's learned about about writing winning sales proposals from a collection of world experts on the topic.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/how-to-write-a-killer-sales-proposal/9012

  Read More

You probably never thought that eating a salad could help you grow your business! In this article that appeared in CRN, Moheb Moses talks about the dangers of assuming how much your customers actually know about your business, and gives some valuable advice on how you can build stronger relationships with customers.

http://www.crn.com.au/News/168877,opinion-what-else-is-on-the-menu.aspx

  Read More

Author: Moheb Moses
I know it sounds absurd in today’s environment, but I used to work for a distributor selling a word processor, and we used to make 30% margin (before you start thinking I was being greedy, I’ll say that our resellers also made that kind of margin).

The year was 1988 and the product was WordPerfect.

Then one day something disastrous happened.  Read More