Demonstrate products to consumers
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
The research, the list building and the first draft of the pitch are already automated across most sales teams. Closing is not. Buyers still want a person to be answerable, and volume without judgment mostly produces noise.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Selling and influencing |
| Jobs that do it | 9 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Selling or Influencing Others (4.A.4.a.6) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 9 occupations that perform it.
- Conduct field demonstrations of new products, techniques, or services.
- Demonstrate equipment to customers, and explain functioning of equipment.
- Demonstrate use or operation of merchandise.
- Demonstrate the operation or use of technical or scientific products.
- Demonstrate use of solar and related equipment to customers or dealers.
- Contact regular and prospective customers to demonstrate products, explain product features, and solicit orders.
- Demonstrate or explain products, methods, or services to persuade customers to purchase products or use services.
- Visit prospective buyers at commercial, industrial, or other establishments to show samples or catalogs, and to inform them about product pricing, availability, and advantages.
- Explain products or services and prices and demonstrate use of products.
- Practice demonstrations to ensure that they will run smoothly.
- Work as part of a team of demonstrators to accommodate large crowds.
- Visit trade shows, stores, community organizations, or other venues to demonstrate products or services or to answer questions from potential customers.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for selling and influencing, and what it costs.
The research and the first draft of the pitch are the automatable part, and a $20 assistant does both. Clay is worth its $149 a month only once the list is bigger than you could research by hand.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
9 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Demonstrators and Product Promoters
- Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers
- Farm and Home Management Educators
- Parts Salespersons
- Retail Salespersons
- Sales Engineers
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products
- Solar Sales Representatives and Assessors
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Promote products, services, or programs”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.