A 2018 Gong study of recorded calls showed that calls with product discussions that are 9 minutes or less have a much higher likelihood of closing.
The attention span of the typical buyer has dropped since then, making the principle of focusing on short micro-presentations more true than ever.
Start by presenting your product capabilities with two-to-three short sentences or “talk tracks,” which offer a quick description of how the product or service works.
Next, use a peer success story to show how these specific product capabilities helped one of your buyer’s peers to become more successful.
It’s not enough just to claim impact; a buyer wants to see it demonstrated.
There are three ways you can demonstrate how you make a buyer more successful:
- Show the “before and after” of a changed behavior with an example
- Tell the classic peer success story in a problem – solution – result format
- Talk about a common outcome across a range of customers
Finally, end the micro-presentation by seeking buyer feedback.
Too often, team members end a product discussion with questions that add little or no value to the conversation, things like:
- “Any questions?”
- “What did you think?”
- “Isn’t that cool?”
Instead, use that pause to have your buyer tell you about the impact:
- “How would what I just shared help you?”
- “Where is the first place you would think to apply this?”
The purpose of the product discussion is not to show the product. It is to get the buyer to tell us if they see how the product could help them in a meaningful way.
So, we need to stop and ask that directly.
Don’t get caught in product demos that drone on for 20, 30, or 40 minutes. They bore your buyers and provide little information on their buying intent
Break up your product discussions. Commit to micro-presentations instead.