Could Your Demos Be Better?

Consider this a checklist and identify where you could do better:

• You didn’t do any discovery
• You did qualification, but not discovery
• You have no clue as to the prospect’s needs and wants
• You did do discovery, but then ignored it in the demo
• You did do discovery, but didn’t summarize it before diving into your software
• You think you are doing “discovery on the fly” but it really is just your standard demo
• You don’t connect capabilities to solving prospect problems
• You don’t communicate business value
• You treat everyone the same and don’t differentiate by job title
• You think an “overview” needs to be at least an hour
• You feel the need to pack as much into the time as possible
• You say, “Stop me if you have any questions” but you don’t mean it
• You ask, “Any questions so far?” over and over and over, without realizing that there are other options to draw from
• You ask, “Does that make sense?” without realizing the consequences
• You suffer from rampaging pronouns
• You suffer from zippy mouse syndrome
• You don’t start with the most important deliverable
• You assume your prospect “gets it” and understands everything they are seeing
• You assume your prospect can remember dozens of “important” things
• You show all of the if, or, and also pathways
• You turn a 3-click pathway into a 20-click ordeal
• You show detailed workflows to executives
• You show Setup Mode items to everyone
• You save “the best for last”
• You run out of time before you get to the best stuff
• You show the latest, coolest new features regardless of prospect interest
• You don’t ask your prospects, “Would you like to see…,” you just show it
• You don’t understand how to apply the Primacy-Recency Effect or the Serial Positioning Effect
• You don’t understand the power of threes
• You don’t understand inverted pyramid
• You show capabilities the prospect doesn’t need or want to pay for
• You don’t understand “Buying It Back”
• You say, “Remember when I showed you xx?” and they don’t
• You don’t actively encourage prospect questions and comments
• You don’t explore the “why” behind prospect questions
• You show detailed answers when “Yes” would have been sufficient
• You don’t “park” questions, when appropriate
• You don’t close questions
• You don’t customize the data to match the prospect’s industry/vertical
• Your data time-series, action items, and alerts are not realistic
• You use the phrase, “What we call a …”and assume your prospect will remember
• You don’t understand the power of the pause
• You demo on autopilot, with little enthusiasm
• You present from a large monitor to prospects with small screens
• You never use annotation tools
• You don’t use props or visual aids
• You think “a day in the life” is an effective story
• You don’t use analogies or metaphors
• You don’t use mini-stories
• You don’t invite the prospect to “drive” by proxy
• You don’t operate as a team when multiple vendor players are involved
• You don’t prepare or plan roles when multiple vendor players are involved
• You “pile-on” answers to prospect questions
• You use American/UK/etc. colloquialisms with non- American/UK/etc. audiences
• You inflict corporate overview presentations on your prospects
• You inflict product overview presentations on your prospects
• You ignore the case studies, the single most valuable portions of corporate overview presentations
• You don’t dry-run important demos
• You offer trials and POCs without need
• You deluge “just browsing” prospects with hour-long “overviews”
• You don’t understand the difference between Vision Generation and Technical Proof Demos
• You understand the difference between Vision Generation and Technical Proof Demos, but don’t apply the principles
• You’ve been trained in “Tell Show Tell” but never do it
• You feel you’re at the top of your game…

Any others to add?

To avoid the above, consider enrolling in a Great Demo! Workshop. For more demo tips, best practices, tools and techniques, explore our blog and articles on the Resources pages and join the Great Demo! LinkedIn Group to share your experiences and hear from others.

“Doing Discovery” is coming – expect availability in August!