What is the difference between a sales demonstration and sales presentation? The distinction between the two comes down to timing and intention. A sales demonstration is typically what happens early in your sales process and is meant to show your prospects and customers how to apply your product, service, or solution. It's the cumulative result of research, process, and most importantly, an effective needs assessment. A sales presentation is typically what happens toward the end of your sales process. It is meant to highlight and prove the value of your solution as well as tell a compelling story and align your message with the needs of your audience while also providing a strong call-to-action that appeals to the emotions and desires of your audience. Knowing the difference between the two will help you enhance your sales approach and allow you to apply the proper strategy to each opportunity and sales situation. Let's look at demonstrating and presenting from 4 different perspectives:

It’s a weighted question, and the answer depends on who you ask. Far too often, sales managers will give “lip service” to sales training, but never really do what’s required to make it worth the time and effort. Merely “checking the box” and providing a once a year training event is simply not enough. Both sales reps and managers must perceive training as an integral component to the culture of the organization, and not something that’s “optional” or “extra.” For sales training to really make an impact, it needs to be: personalized, ongoing, actionable, and supported by a coach. Because training is about changing behavior. It doesn’t matter whether you’re training for a marathon or learning a new skill, training means you’re changing your habits and activities in order to reach a specific goal. To help you make the most of your training efforts, we’ve outlined 3 tips to help you do just that:

Sales forecasting is about taking the necessary actions and implementing proper sales techniques to understand, predict, and forecast promising sales. Forecasting helps you to put things into perspective. It allows you to see both the possibilities and challenges of pipeline management, and then plan your next steps. Accurate forecasting helps you to maintain full control of your pipeline. However after working with thousands of salespeople and sales managers, we’ve reached a definitive conclusion about most of the sales forecasts salespeople submit…they’re inaccurate and unreliable. In fact, 44% of executives think their organizations are ineffective at managing their sales pipeline according to research conducted by Vantage Point Performance and the Sales Management Association. What can you do to increase the reliability and accuracy of sales forecasts?

Did you know that around 92% of all customer interactions take place over the phone? This means being able to communicate effectively over the phone is a skill worth perfecting. You need to be able to seamlessly handle objections, address concerns, and answer questions. Whether you're in a sales or customer success role, there are four things to consider when speaking with prospects and customers over the phone: Slow Motion Agree Know Can I Ask?

Every deal has an owner. It’s either the buyer or the seller, one or the other, but not both. While both parties help to shape the final product, only one can truly own it. If the seller doesn’t own the deal, then the buyer does by default. And aggressive buyers will attempt to take control of the deal from the very beginning. Guess what? Whoever owns the deal tends to get the more desirable outcome. “Win/win” is widely promoted as the best outcome of a given deal. A seller can still own a deal and provide a “win” for the buyer at the same time. There’s nothing wrong with one party or the other having the upper hand in a deal as long as you are that party. “Playing for a tie” doesn’t work in sports and it doesn’t work in sales either. And you better be prepared to take the lead whether in person or not, as 92% of all customer interactions happen over the phone. Consider the following 4 tips to take control of your sales:

Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. If you’re not first, you’re last. In about 0.48 seconds Google found me “about” 86,800,000 results for “quotes about winning”. Odds are most of you didn’t need the help of Google to recall these familiar quotes, most of them are deeply ingrained in our ambitious psyches. The concept of winning is so heavily discussed because we compete for nearly everything in our lives; whether it be against our competitors, co-workers, or even ourselves.