How do you plan and prepare for a product demo in sales?

There is a tendency for people that just started in technical sales to put on what has been described as a "dog and pony show". Taking refuge in slides you practiced over and over is surely comforting. Unfortunately, it is also ineffective as a sales strategy. Instead, plan your demo like a map. It can go in multiple directions - depending on feedback from the audience. To prepare that map, do some research. Even only reading the prospect's Web site can help. Then, at the beginning of the demo, make sure to communicate that this can go many ways, based on their feedback. It may be that the audience will sometimes want to wander outside of the map. That's OK. Gently nudge the conversation forward, and use the experience to refine.

There are different demos. Sometimes the goal of the demo is to demonstrate your capability. These are typically quick, goal is to demonstrate not your product, but your right to have a seat at the table. These are short and to the point. Then there is the demonstration to that helps the customer see that you deliver business benefit to them. For this demo, you will need a lot more information and they should be a lot more interactive.

Make your in depth research within your company’s knowledge base to find customer references of your offering which would make sense for your audience. It is best if you can come up with references in your target customer’s vertical, but if not, come up with similar reference use cases even if another vertical. This will prep you to answer a very high likelihood question during the meeting “Who else is using your offering, where was it deployed, which similar customers, etc…”

Before delivering a sales demo, it is essential to have a deep understanding of your potential customer. Complete research on their requirements, pain points faced, and what their preferences are to receive from us to personalize the demo to align with their needs. Understand their industry and challenges to demonstrate how our product addresses their specific concerns. Adapting the demo to cater to their interests will allow us to highlight the benefits of what our product is offering and increase the likelihood of successfully closing a deal.

The question is: how do you turn a technical topic or product into a story? First, make sure to have enough visuals. To most, seeing is not only believing, it is first and foremost required for truly understanding. Then, when you run the demo, explain what you are doing based on a real-life scenario. For instance, my product is a highly secured/robust OS that comes with an update capability. I usually go like this: "So, say for instance you need to correct for a bug. You do this, and that. And see? It is updated on the box" "But what if I make a mistake? Say I put this instead. It would fail, right? Well... no, it just rolls back!" Adding a bit of color ("imagine - my client needed to update on the top of a Swiss mountain") also helps.

It depends a bit on the audience, but one trick I often use is to ask for 2 or 3 questions before I start the demo. The audience for the demo is typically different compared to the earlier discussions with the team. Stopping and asking for clear direction will help you focus and will loosen the audience to ask further questions during the presentation.

In addition to others valuable insights, it also helps to break down structure like: 1. What was happening till this time 2. Until your product arrived with these core features 3. And this is how the future is going to be like post your product This format immediately brings attention to the core problem you are going to solve and how disruption would happen post your product. It always helps when your audience visualises impact rather than listening to technical specifications.

When presenting the product demonstration to the client, it is essential to begin by clearly defining the main points to be addressed and organizing them into a captivating storyline. Emphasize the unique selling points of our product and demonstrate how it addresses the specific challenges faced by the client. We can use practical examples or case studies to showcase the advantages in practice. Make sure that your narrative follows a coherent structure and aligns with the clients requirements and preferences. Through creating a compelling and interactive story, you will be able to successfully grab the clients attention and emphasize the significance of our product during the demonstration.

Fully agree with Steve here. A script is nice and needed if you are in unfamiliar territory or languages, but you need to fully internalize what your message is. I always coach my teams that they need to be able to do a demo at any point in time. If you and up in a deep technical discussion and a demo would add to it, you need to be technically ready. Demos should not require 10 mins of prep time, if that is the case, you need to simplify and improve the environment.

The most important tool in your arsenal has to be YOU, the technical sales on duty. Script? Sure - if you are speaking about something you need to run (like a bash script). But what you do NOT want to do is to literally read a script. Your audience will go like this: "just give me the script, and I will read it myself!" Instead, internalize your products and services to a degree where you just speak about them with ease. The bullet points on the slide should be sufficient to remind you of the main points you need to hit. If I demo in my fourth language, I may also learn a bit of script for the sake of clarity, but this is clearly a crotch, and as I become more proficient I seek to ditch it as soon as possible.

In my experience, audience engagement can be the trickiest part of all. In Western settings, it is usually not that much of a problem. If you ask people for feedback, they will give it to you. But I spent a lot of time doing demos and presentations in Asia. Feedback is usually more sparse in East Asia - people would often stare at the slides. And you are not sure if they understood. A few tips: 1. If you can speak the local language, do so. It helps break the ice even if you are not perfect or do it for part of the presentation only. 2. Don't patronize ("Do you understand?"). Instead, ask them about their experience. 3. Keep in mind the hierarchy. Sometimes only the boss will speak.

From my experience, interactive demo with real-world sample is really engaging for prospects. You need to paint a storyline to the prospects so that prospects will understand the whole presentation. In addition, educating the prospects with the fundamental behind the product concept helps prospects to relate the fundamentals withe the product. One more thing, always allocate time for questions during and at the end of the demo.

As I mentioned in the earlier comment, ask the audience to provide questions. If they have no questions, then there is no reason to demo them anything.

Throughout the demonstration, I ensure active participation with the client by asking questions and soliciting input from the client. This fosters a two-way dialogue and keeps the presentation relevant to their needs. Additionally, I maintain a friendly vibe to create a comfortable atmosphere, making the experience more memorable and impactful for the client.

Understanding the audience is key. To high level decision makers, you do a different demo than to practitioners. To people that use a competing product you do a different demo than to green field opportunities. In the end, demos should be fun, the prospect should learn something and so should you!