It's all just marketing to me.

Product demonstration is an important part of any field marketing strategy.  After the most important features of a product are clearly identified, a good product demonstration agent can educate potential consumers in many things in a way that hold mindshare longer than being shown without a human educator.  To work properly the market messages have to be VERY clearly defined and researched, with talking points and FAQ's either dynamically made up during the operation or before hand using test groups / focus meetings.

Like a salesman without commission.

Product Demonstration Agents very rarely receive what is traditionally considered "commission".  Usually a demonstration team has a quota they have to acheive in the following catagories.

• Approaches - Having initiated communications with a target.
• Samples - Have put the target into the Product Operator Position.
• Demonstrations - Have shown off the product while in the Product Operator Position.
• Hand Offs - Passed the target off to the next part of the product ownership chain, usually a salesperson.

The goal is to make the hand off, which can be 'signing up for a newsletter' or 'using the coupon' or 'bought the product'.   The demonstration agent should NEVER be the sales agent; as targets are much more likely to trust the opinions, advice, and/or suggestions of someone that doesn't appear to make a commission.

Required Skills

• Ability to approach strangers
• Ability to physically appear in a way that makes sense in context of the product message
• COMPLETE knowlidge of the product and market messages
• Ability to stay on message and not wander too far off in casual discourse
• Keep good notes about demographics, demo statistics, and suggestions to increase field team effectiveness.
• Judge a targets useage comfortableness range.  This means determining a targets likely use patterns and not demonstrating advanced features that they will only be confused by.  Also means letting advanced users guide the demonstratio.
• Be extremely upbeat.

Agent Application

An agent may offer to provide product demonstration for products that they feel are exceptional and wish to see their marketing messages reach a greater audience.  In an IT product this may involve providing free technical support, guided online tours, and guides for new users.  It may involve memetic spreading and namedropping in online communities.  In physical products this could be a commercial product that the agent feels a close personal attachment to, such as a fine solar panel system or a piece of mobile kit, because the agent feels that the more people use the product the better their lives; and by extention their world, will be.