About ten years ago, my boss asked me to join a demo by a camera manufacturer with our management team. I was the VP of Sales of a manufacturer, and our company was evaluating block cameras to complement our thermal imager. Everything was going pretty well for this manufacturer – they had arrived early and set up strategically to highlight their strengths, they asked the right questions during our plant tour, and their image was sharp. And that’s where it all went downhill…
As we were looking at the image on the monitor, the camera sales person’s boss made this statement: “That’s the best image in the industry.”
I wanted to reach out and grab those words before they reached the ears of our managers. These guys were done – history. There was no way they could dig themselves out of this mess. You might ask “what mess?” Which brings us to the second worse thing a sales person can say…
Don’t ever tell the customer how great your product or service is.
Here’s the small dynamic that happens in that type of dialogue: If you’re presenting in front of influencers, then they likely have strong personalities and have formed their own opinions over the years. (If you’re not presenting in front of these types of people, then you might be wasting your time.) They don’t like anyone else telling them what their opinion should be. When you tell one of these strong personalities that something is “the best image in the industry”, their instinct is to prove you wrong. The worst part is that they usually don’t challenge you verbally, but they talk badly about your boasts after you leave. You’ve got no opportunity to defend yourself. After that awesome demo, you don’t receive any return phone calls and then you’re shocked that they decided to move in a different direction. Has this ever happened to you? It has to me … many times.
How can you express your enthusiasm and point out the benefits during your presentation without boldly telling your customers about your greatness? Follow this routine:
- Use credible case studies to illustrate the benefit.
“We’ve worked with the folks at FLIR and DRS, and they’ve really gravitated to our image quality. In fact, Jacob at FLIR said that this was the sharpest image he has ever seen.”
- Ask for their input.
“Everybody has different opinions, so I’m interested in your input. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to this demo for weeks to get your opinion. What do you think about the image? What areas could we improve? What sticks out as strong?”
Think about yourself sitting in the demo above, as the customer. Compare these two approaches. Which one would you respond to more favorably?
What do you think? Have you done this before? I teach this stuff, and I still get overly excited about our services and make this error.
