Thinking about… an awesome demo

What makes for a good demo delivery?

I don’t deliver demos very often these days, but I still get called upon at times to demonstrate our Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solution, in which I have a lot of experience. I was pretty proud and pleased to receive the following feedback from the sales rep after a virtual presentation last year. And it’s a great summary of what went well.

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If you have time to read on, let’s explore each of those points in a little more detail…

Does lots of name-dropping of other org’s using it & the benefit they are getting

A rule of thumb I was given once by Steve Capper is to mention two customer names every 30 minutes. It can be done by presenting a case study or reference as part of the presentation, or it can be done briefly in passing. When I’m talking about a capability or feature in a demo, I like to add colour by saying something like “This is how they used (or configured) this at customer X and it helps them with Y”.

Dropping names adds credibility to the fact that other customers are using the software and getting value from it. You don’t have to use the actual name and can always say “a large bank”, for example. To be honest, I take a bit more leeway when speaking and sometimes will use the name, or make it obvious who the customer is (“a large green bank based in Perth”).

The other thing I did deliberately in this instance was to reference a customer early in the presentation. Slide 1 (title slide) introduced the session; Slide 2 introduced the solution (see next point); Slide 3 introduced a customer value story. It wasn’t until Slide 4 that I got to the agenda and then a few positioning slides. My goal was to capture their interest and attention up front, and reassure them that our solution is mature, low risk, and used effectively by other similar customers.

One note to make is that in a prep call, the customer indicated that they didn’t want to see the routine “who we are” corporate slides, nor did they want a lot of time spent on references. What was important to them was the demo. While I was happy to ditch the standard corporate slides, I decided it was important to include a customer reference in my opening. So I had one reference slide which I spoke to briefly. For the rest of the demo, the name-dropping approach allowed me to regularly reference other customers in a short and simple way.

Started with a teaser of what they would see in the whole preso

Slide 2 of my presentation was a relevant, colourful screen shot. It filled the screen, as if we were looking at the application, not a slide. I briefly explained what they were seeing, and why it was useful, promising that I would come back to it again in the demo, after presenting some introductory slides.

I want to give a callout to Peter Cohan and Great Demo! as I had read Peter’s book and attended one of his workshops not long before this demo took place. Peter talks about starting with a Situation Slide and an Illustration. While I did not use a Situation Slide here (change comes slowly!), the value of the Illustration was to quickly grab the audience’s attention. They were here for a demo, so I wanted to show them a glimpse of the product straight away. It got them interested and paying attention, which contributed to building engagement throughout the session.

An analogy here is the beginning of some TV shows and movies, where they immediately start with a scene that introduces action and sets up the story, before then rolling the opening credits. The explanation and detail behind the scene comes later, but our attention has been caught early.

Gave an agenda which was about the benefits they would see in each part of the preso
Checked that everyone was on-board … and did it in such a way that they actually meaningfully engaged with feedback

We had responed to a tender document and the customer had specified what they wanted to see in the demo presentation. I used their own words to summarise their requirements and linked that to a proposed agenda, based around four functional areas. Importantly, I paused here to ask if this agenda would meet their expectations and if the planned order was correct. This led to a brief discussion by the customer participants about what was most important to see, and a validation of my plan.

I had prepared well, and did not have to change my planned approach. What I gained was insight into the priorities of different individuals, and a sense of where to spend more or less time. I also got them talking early, which broke the ice and led to positive questions and interaction as we progressed.

Constantly talked about ways they could get business value from functionality

A common complaint I hear about Presales is that we talk about features and functions, not value. We focus too much on the what it does or how it does it and not enough on the why this helps me or the so what? A good question to keep asking yourself when preparing a demo is “how (and who) does this help?” or “why is this useful?”. And broadly, to have a business value perspective, the answer should link back to increasing revenue, reducing cost or mitigating risk.

Talking about value is something I have practiced and trained myself to do over time. The rough “formula” I use in a demo is along the lines of, “Here we can see [a capability, or information]. This is important because it helps you to [a business benefit or value]”. And sometimes the follow on is, “As an example, [Customer ABC] was able to reduce their costs by x%”

Question answering is masterful. Makes it sound like a great question. And answers it from a business perspective (with a tool demo backing that up)

One good technique with questions is to always compliment the asker: “that’s a great question!” or “that’s a good question”. As Peter Cohan says, there are never bad questions.

When asked a question, one thing I want to consider is the reason behind the question. What is the value they are looking for? Or what is the thing they are confused or uncertain about. It can also be good to ask a clarifying question back, to make sure you have understood and to potentially uncover more information. When answering, I also try to always include the why this helps, just as I do when demonstrating a capability.

A new approach I used in this presentation was to have a Word document open in the background. If the question asked was something I didn’t want to answer immediately, I wrote it down in the document. It was the virtual equivalent to a “parking lot” whiteboard or flipchart – the question was visibility captured and permission was granted to come back to it later. It also served as a useful visual tool for doing a recap and summary at the end of the demo.

Another factor in this situation was that I know the subject matter deeply. It helps that I have years of experience in using and presenting the solution. This is harder to train in people, but my advice for Presales is that you need to know your products extremely well. Take time to install, configure and modify the software. Practice your demos over and over, and get across new features and capabilities as they come out. It’s also important to visit existing customers and see how they are using the software, and to learn what challenges they are having. If you can help them solve an issue, you have made that customer happy, and have learnt something that can help you when a related question comes up.

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The outcome was the best customer engagement that I have seen for a long time…

This was a great example of a demo going well (sadly, not all my demos have been so good and some have failed badly). Apart from the positive feedback from the sales rep, another proof point was that the customer attendees asked lots of questions throughout. It slowed me down, but the customer attendees were so engaged and interested they agreed to stay on the call for an additional 30 minutes!

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I hope that I’ve been able to reflect on and share some techniques and tips that may prove useful to you. The core takeway for me is the importance of relating capabilities to business value. Linking seamlessly and repeatedly from what to so what?, while dropping customer names along the way.

How does what you are demonstrating deliver value to the customer’s business?