How to run Sales Demos

👷🏼‍♂️ WORK IN PROGRESS 👷🏼‍♂️

Great demo:

  1. use a 'what we heard' slide summarizing their key priorities and challenges

  2. align with new stakeholders on the priorities and challenges to ensure their perspective is heard

  3. ask them about their process before showing how it'd work with your solution

  4. only show features that were directly related to their #1 priority and challenges

  5. start with the most powerful feature first and build momentum as quickly as possible

  6. provide context before showing a feature ie why you're showing it and how it'll help

  7. ask about their team, and their process, so you can effectively multithread ie demo other people who will be impacted by the change

  8. differentiate our solution ie communicate what the differences are and why those differences are important

  9. After showing a feature ask questions like "what was running through your mind as I was showing that?" instead of "any questions?"

  10. set a call as the next step and clearly communicate what the next step would be and why it'd be valuable

28 Feb 2024

People are bored in your demo, but it ain't bc it's boring (not totally true).
It's bc how content is consumed has changed, and you didn't adapt.
Here's how I figured this out and how to align:

I was talking to my son's boyfriend while they were visiting home.

I asked if they wanted to go see a movie. They said no.

I said why not. They told me they don't like movies.

I said "SAY WHAT?!" Then, they said they don't really watch shows either?

I said what do you watch then.

They said TikTok. Duh. And Instagram. Duh. And YouTube Shorts. Duh.

I asked why they didn't like movies and shows.

They said (you probably see where this is going) that they are too long.

Literally, TikTok has lowered the available time they can pay attention to something and be interested to sub-5 minutes.

I Googled what % of adults watch TikTok.

53.9% of adults spend 4.4 BILLION minutes on TikTok DAILY.

Ok. Ok. I'm starting to connect the dots. Old man brain is catching up.

So, if more than half your buyers are actively training their brain (unknowingly) to take in content in 5 minutes bites, how do you think your 33 minute marathon demo is going...and you know it runs over every meeting (which means you aren't setting next steps!)?

I'll tell you. It's boring, not bc it's actually boring but bc it's too long and people stop paying attention. Too long = No watch.

Same thing happened with email. Too long = No read.

Wanna take your demo up a notch (or 10) with the tiniest effort possible?

  1. Break your demo up into chunks (or demos of a specific screen or function).

  2. Make each chunk one screen or concept and put it inside a TikTok video timeframe.

  3. At the end of each mini-demo, stop the screenshare and move to another TikTok video...this one is a live feed of how they "rated" the mini-demo you just did. Ask questions to understand what their takeaways are and how they understand what they just saw connects to solving their challenges. What would be the comments they would have typed in if this had been an actual TikTok video?

  4. Then, go into the next mini-demo.

  5. Rinse and repeat for 3 mini-demos, reserving the last 5 minutes for next steps.

When you see it, it's obvious.

Conform to how people consume content and they will consume yours.

Continue to have Scorsese-ian length demo movies* and you'll crash at the box office (or in quota attainment).

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