The Problem With Parking Lots

In the past you may have been taught about using something called a “Parking Lot” in a presentation or demo.

Parking Lots are typically used while you are  in the midst of giving a presentation or demo, and  someone asks a question that you dont know the immediate answer to. So then you are told to put the question on a flip chart or white board sitting in the front of the room,  known as a Parking Lot.

In our Demo2win! training this is actually something we advise AGAINST doing.

In our training workshops, we ask our students if anyone has been taught to use a Parking Lot before, and then we go into a role play similar to this one:

Lets pretend you’re in a demo/presentation and someone asks you a question and it’s probably something you can't answer in the moment,  then we write that on the Parking Lot in the front of the room and it starts to look something like this:

 “Something we cant do”

“Something I cant answer”

"Something we dont know"

 ...and so on.

All of these questions listed on the Parking Lot in the front of the room become a long negative list and visual reminder of everything you cant do, cant answer, and dont know.

The "correcting fundemental" for a Parking Lot is to write it down on your private notepad or on your phone.  Follow up after in an email with the things you noted, but don’t put it up on the wall in front of everyone.

Imagine the CEO of your prospect's company walked in on the demo and saw that long negative list, yikes! it’s not something you necessarily want out in the open until you can answer those questions.