Teaching at the Cutting Table and Beyond!

Whether you agree or not, shop owners are entertainers! You are pushed into the spotlight each time a customer needs how-to information. By sharing your knowledge, you become the authority that customers seek. Follow these tips for memorable demos.

Demonstrating products or techniques is important for your store’s financial strategy

• Providing good customer service always makes business sense. Having well trained store personnel aids in good customer service. 
• Helping your customers make their hobby easier to perform will keep them coming back to your store for help.
• Demos introduce customers to new products while enticing them to make a purchase.
• Educating customers proves that you value your store and appreciate their business.
• Store demo events get customers through the door.

Understanding who your audience is

• Know the needs of your customers.
  • In a beginner’s class, demonstrate use of tools, techniques, and other necessary skills so the student gains the most knowledge.
  • When at a demo event for a guild, it’s assumed that participants will have basic knowledge and will want to enhance their skills. Show unusual or more advanced demonstrations.
  • At a show or shop hop, a demo shares information quickly to educate but it’s main intent is to sell product.
• Ask shoppers or students in class what skills they wish they had or techniques they’d like to learn.
• At a store-hosted quilt retreat, spontaneous demos (preplanned, of course) add excitement, and profitability, to the event. Have plenty of supplies on hand.
• While chatting at the cutting table, discover what that customer’s needs are.  Pull out a demo and show them how to solve their problem. Keep demo ideas handy in a basket with all the tools you need so you can grab it easily.

Choosing what you are going to demonstrate

• What is the educational value to your customers.
• New product, especially if there is a learning curve to it.
• Inspiration or examples of creativity to help customers expand their way of thinking.
• Ideas for quilt shop demos
  • Which rotary cutting tools to choose
  • How to properly use a rotary cutter
  • Cleaning your cutting tools and mats
  • How to trace embroidery
  • Basic embroidery stitches
  • Using fusible web
  • Shortcut method for cutting binding using a ruler
  • Sewing partial seams
  • English Paper Piecing
  • Squaring fabric edges
  • Using the 45° ruler line to accurately cut half- and quarter-square triangles
  • Creating a box bottom on tote bags
  • Choosing fabrics to create contrast
  • Using the correct sewing machine needle
  • How to use a longarm quilting machine
  • Joining binding ends
  • Making and stitching binding
  • Sewing machine maintenance
  • How to change your rotary blades

Location, location, location - not for real estate only!

• In the store is easiest where the supplies you need can be quickly assembled. Add-on sales can be identified from the store inventory. However, you’re limited to how many customers you can reach at one time.
• Live at events gets you in front of lots of potential customers at one time.
  • Real-time events give you immediate feedback and allow you to troubleshoot issues that may prevent a sale. Allowing customers to try the tool or technique themselves reinforces need.
  • Having a QR code prominent at your demo table or other signage in the booth will refresh shopper’s memory later. Lead them to products or tutorials on your website. 
• Pre-recorded tutorials
  • They demand that you have figured out all of the questions beforehand. Without a call-to-action they become  a customer service opportunity vs a revenue producing event.
  • Editing can be done prior to loading online.
  • Use as a tool for driving traffic to your website or YouTube channel.
• Social media reaches larger audiences you wouldn’t be able to access on your own.
  • As an independent shop that carries OLFA you have available to you our Distributor Tool boxes that are filled with lifestyle images, free classes, product images and more that you are able to use on your website and/or social media, and newsletters. Click on the link above and request access. 

When is the best time to provide a demo?

• On the spot demonstrations are presented exactly when the customer needs them. Pull together a demo and show them how to solve their problem immediately. For common questions, keep demo ideas handy in a basket with all the tools you need.
• Tutorials on your website allow customers to see demos on demand. Designate a specific place on your site to hold the demos you create. Add a QR Code to handouts or advertisements that link to them. We have product videos on our YouTube channel that you are welcome to link to your page for your customers. 
• On your blog, you can show step-by-step how to use a tool or create any project that a reader can come back to time after time.
• Any event where you want to promote a product or your store is a great opportunity to demo.

Making compelling demos

·   Personal excitement is the best testimony. Customers get caught up in your enthusiasm. Some call it ‘selling the sizzle’.

·      Sharing your knowledge, plus being able to utilize customer suggestions, makes you authentic and sets you up to be an authority on the topic.

·     Your presentation of the demo should be like telling a story. Have a beginning where you share features and details they need to hear, a middle where you show the how-to , and an ending where you reenforce what they heard and saw. 

Demo logistics

• Step-out demo boards or posters, through words and examples, show each step. Handy for when you need to repeat the demo many times. It reinforces the information and helps customers understand the process.