I was thinking about tips for delivering outstanding demos, along with reflecting on some of my pet hates when it comes to watching other people. As a result, here is my take on boiling something complex and nuanced down to 10 simple rules:
- Provide a roadmap
- Ask questions
- Start at the end
- Link to business value
- Do not configure a dashboard
- Do not talk softer when looking down
- Do not use nonsense data
- Do not distract with the mouse
- Pause
- Answer questions
1. Provide a roadmap
It’s important to give people a sense of where you are taking them. It helps your audience understand what they are going to see and not get lost, and it helps confirm you are on the right track before you start.
In its simplest form, a demo roadmap is an agenda slide with a list of use cases or scenarios that you will cover. A more sophisticated roadmap could be a diagram showing workflow steps, different applications or representing the different personas that you will adopt during the demo.
One idea with a more extensive or complicated demo is to print the roadmap on A3 and put it on the wall, so you can easily refer to it as you progress. You can touch the page and say, “we are here, and now we are going there, which will help us understand the value of…”
2. Ask questions
Start your questioning early: “Here is the agenda (roadmap) I had planned, is this in line with what you want to see?”
Pausing your demo to ask a question takes discipline but there are two main reasons for doing so: i) you increase engagement with the audience, and ii) you can learn helpful information.
Try to avoid “Do you have any questions?”. This is too open and will either get no response, or you will get taken off on a tangent. Think about more targeted questions that will get the customer thinking about impact and value, or questions that will help you uncover insight or data points. For example: “Will what you’ve seen address your current challenges?” or “How many projects are you currently managing?” or “How much time do your staff spend each week on reporting?“
3. Start at the end
If the most senior person in the room leaves after 10 minutes, what will they take away?
This is a good question to consider when structuring your demo. Starting at the end means showing the key dashboard, report or screen that summarises and clearly conveys the business value of your solution.
Unlike a maths exam at school where you need to show your working and logic, go straight to the answer. Showing the detailed steps of how you got there may still be required, but it is of secondary importance and will be more effective when done in the context of your audience understanding the destination.
4. Link to business value
Whatever you are showing, explain how it will help your prospect (using their own business language and terms), or tell a story about the outcomes other customers have achieved.
To link your demo to business value, your words need to describe how the solution helps reduce cost, increase revenue or mitigate risk.
5. Do not configure a dashboard
That fact that your tool has a configurable dashboard is not unique, it is a given.
If you are demonstrating filters or how to select widgets on a dashboard, then you are wasting time that should be spent differentiating your solution against the competition. Even if you are asked about dashboards, a “Yes” answer is often sufficient, without needing to show the steps involved.
It’s true that an evaluator may want to dive in to how dashboards are configured at some point, but never start your demo with this.
6. Do not talk softer when looking down
This is something to be alert for: the Presales consultant projects their voice well when looking out at the audience, but as soon as they look down at the laptop their volume drops. This reduces your ability to keep the audience’s attention and deliver a compelling, confidence-building demo.
One tip is to pause talking while you look down and type. It’s ok to have silence and gives your audience a chance to think or to ask a question. Otherwise, make a conscious effort to project your voice at all times.
7. Do not use nonsense data
It may be fast to mash keys or funny to use movie character names when entering demo data, but it undermines our goal of linking the demo to business value. It is much more persuasive to use “real” business data and to maintain the polite fiction that you are showing a live production system (even when the audience knows that they are watching a demo).
One thing that can be powerful is to use the customer’s own data such as key stakeholder, application or project names. Showing customer-specific data makes it a lot easier for your audience to imagine and visualize how your tool would relate to their business environment. Even better if you can load-in some of their actual data for use in the demo.
8. Do not distract with the mouse
Move the mouse with purpose, then take your hand off it. A mouse that is circling rapidly around the screen or clicking constantly into different fields is distracting. If your audience is distracted, then they are not putting their full attention into what you are saying.
9. Pause
It’s so easy to get into demo mode and just keep talking, especially when you have a lot to get through and a script to follow. This might enable you to cover all your planned content, but it means you will miss out on engaging the customer, uncovering their important questions, or even just giving them time to digest what they have seen.
One extra tip is to have a word to your sales colleagues in advance and let them know you will be pausing deliberately, and it is not a signal for them to start talking. You want to give the customer space to think and to ask their own questions.
10. Answer questions
If the customer is asking questions, that is a great sign of engagement and that they are actively considering and trying to understand. If you can answer the question quickly, then do so.
If you are going to answer the question later in the demo, a good practice is to write the question in a parking lot – either a whiteboard or a text file. That way you can acknowledge the question and ensure it is not forgotten, and reviewing the parking lot is a good way to summarise and recap at the end of the demo.
What are your golden rules for demos?
Thoughtful Presales 