Power of demonstration

The Power of Demonstration Have you ever had a friend try to describe a magic trick to you? I have. It didn't do anything for me. However, when I saw the magic trick done in person, I was blown away. Why? The power of demonstration. People, more often than not, trust what they SEE over what they hear. That's why infomercials work. They SHOW you what the product can do. From how fast your food gets juiced, to how easily you can clean up unexpected messes, to how convenient it is for you to exercise in your own home. When you're able to demonstrate your product or service for someone, you can quickly win them over and take them from prospect to customer. Now, of course, some products and services are easier to demonstrate than others. For example, if you sell soap, then it's relatively easy to show your prospects how awesome your product is. I once saw a soap distributor take two cloth napkins and smear them with oil, shoe polish, and rust. He then let them "set" for a few minutes, while filling two glass jars with water and soap. In one jar, he put one scoop of his soap. In the other jar, he put 2 bigger scoops of a leading brand's soap. After doing this and explaining to us the power of his soap, he dunked the two filthy napkins into the jars of soapy water. One dunk. Two dunks. Three dunks...and lifted them out. The difference was astonishing. His soap immediately took out the stains, while the other soap barely lightened the stains. If he told us how great his soap was, then we may or may not have believed him. But he didn't just tell us. He showed us. And he won us over immediately. In addition, the more powerful the demonstration, the faster you'll grab people's attention and build trust, confidence, and credibility with them. I once saw a show on infomercial sales geniuses Anthony Sullivan and the late Billy Mays. On the show, the two admen were showing the power of demonstration - and kind of competing with each other. The product was a gel shoe insert. They were showing how powerful and durable the insert was by taking the insert through some tests. After some minor demos with little impact, one of them grabbed the insert, wrapped it around their hand and smacked their hand with a hammer! That was impressive - or crazy, depending on how you look at it. Either way, it was a great demo that showed how much the shoe insert could take. But they weren't done yet. After some other more intense demonstrations, Billy Mays took to the street where he wrapped the insert around his hand and had a car drive over his hand. Miraculously his hand was still intact - and showed how amazing the shoe insert was! NOTE: The demonstration you use doesn't always have to correlate to the product's or service's direct benefit. Take the last example. Does wrapping your hand with a shoe insert and running a car over it have anything to do with the insert's ability to help your feet? No. But that's not the point. The point is showing the durability of the insert. The viewer makes the assumption that if it can handle the demo, then it can do everything else they say it can do. Odd assumption, but it works. I digress. My point to all this demonstration talk is this: Demonstrations build trust in you and/or your product/service faster than almost anything else! Figure out how to demonstrate YOUR product or service and you're on your way to building trust and confidence faster than the Vitamix can whip up a iPhone smoothie. (Don't get the reference?