You’re struggling to improve your Sales Engineering technical demos. How can you use feedback to get better?

1 Why feedback matters

Feedback is essential for any professional who wants to grow and excel in their role, especially sales engineers. By understanding your prospects' needs, expectations, and objections, you can adjust your demo strategy, content, and delivery to match your audience and situation. This will help you to highlight your product's features, benefits, and differentiators more clearly and convincingly. Additionally, feedback can assist you in communicating more effectively and persuasively with your prospects and sales partners, as well as building rapport, trust, and credibility. It can also help you to overcome challenges, objections, and questions more confidently and skillfully. Lastly, feedback can be used to measure your progress, celebrate your achievements, and set new goals.

2 How to get feedback

Feedback can come from various sources and in various forms. Your prospects can provide feedback after your demo, either verbally or through a survey, and you can observe their engagement, reactions, and responses during your demo. Additionally, you can collaborate with your sales reps or managers for feedback on your performance, impact, and areas of improvement. You can also seek feedback from experienced sales engineers or exchange feedback with peers who have similar challenges or goals. Lastly, you can self-evaluate your demo by recording it and reviewing it later, reflecting on your strengths, weaknesses, and action points.

3 How to give feedback

If you want to give feedback to others, such as your peers or sales partners, you need to follow some best practices for it to be constructive and helpful. Specifically, you should focus on the facts and behaviors, not the personality or intentions. Provide examples and evidence to back up your feedback. It is also important to highlight the strengths and achievements, as well as the weaknesses and areas of improvement. Additionally, you should give feedback as soon as possible after the demo, while the memory is fresh and the impact is high. Moreover, use a friendly and respectful tone and language while avoiding criticism, judgment, or blame. Offering suggestions, guidance, or resources can help the receiver improve.

4 How to receive feedback

If you want to receive useful and actionable feedback from your prospects or sales partners, it's important to be open and curious, listening actively and attentively, as well as being critical and selective in evaluating the feedback. Additionally, you should take proactive and accountable action on the feedback that you accept and value, implementing changes, improvements, or solutions that you agree on. It's also important to track your progress and results.