The Ultimate Product Demonstration Guide

By Erika Desmond | 05/3/2017

Have you ever wondered about any of this?

"How can I showcase a product demo that wows my prospects?"
"How can I personalize my presentation to grab their attention?"
"How can I make sure more of my product or service demos end up as deals?"

If the answer is yes, and you want to create a stellar value proposition in your next demo and attract a large number of new potential customers, then we have just the thing for you.

The team at Cirrus Insight has created a complete playbook to show how your product works the right way and deliver awesome product demos to your target audience.

The importance of nailing your product demonstrations

According to research by Sales Benchmark Index:

"A World Class Demo has the second biggest impact on the outcome of a sales campaign, behind an independent colleague referral."

If you have an effective product, why is a demo so important? Well, 99% of people will not buy a vehicle without driving it first. We need a product tour before we commit. We want to see how it works, assess whether it matches our expectations, and see if it solves the problems we had with our previous product. We want to see the live product in action, and it would be best if we had access to an interactive demo.

The same behavior applies to other big-ticket items, such as furniture, expensive TVs, pro-level computers, etc. Customers want to sample products before agreeing to buy them. That's why sales representatives spend hours creating a great product demo that will begin the sales cycle and make the customer enter the sales funnel.

The situation is no different with a software platform. Whether you are selling a SaaS product or a simple app, your sales team will have to work to create an effective product demo showcasing all the most attractive product features. Your customers want to see how the product works. They want to know if it solves their unique problems without generating any new ones in the process. Finally, if they get to the point of experiencing a live product demo, they want to see how simple or complex it is to use.

A good product demo will also benefit your company overall. Customers will look at you as reliable and trustworthy. After all, 71% of customers buy because they like, trust, and respect the salesperson they work with. If you are a sales rep, you know that every successful product marketing campaign has to offer live demos or demo videos.

To cut a long story short, sales demos help customers see how the product fits their needs and help sales reps connect with them. In this guide, we will show you exactly how to showcase a product's value by preparing and delivering different types of product demos that engage prospects and improve your demo-to-close rate. Master the product demo to optimize your sales process.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this guide:

1. Prequalify the prospect interested in your software product!

It's a common scenario:

You know how useful your product is and how much it could help your prospect, so you rush off and book them in for a demo, eager to show them the marvel you have. Then, you deliver the presentation and never hear from them again.

What went wrong? Chances are, you made a product presentation without properly qualifying first.

Not all prospects are ready for a presentation when you meet. Some are only researching their problem. Others might have started investigating potential solutions, but still don't know what feature set they'd need. They are not interested in making a purchase.

Also, not every prospect matches your ideal buyer profile. Even though they seem interested, they probably won't buy from you even if you offer a well-crafted product and deliver an interactive product demo.

That's why it's crucial to prequalify them before the demo. Prequalifying helps you establish three very important things.

You can see if this particular prospect is your ideal buyer.
You will understand if you can really solve their unique problems.
You will conclude if this is a deal you want to spend time pursuing.

Without these things, you will never reach the option to demonstrate how the product can help them, and the chances of them becoming a successful long-term customer quickly diminish.

How to Prequalify a Prospect

You can do this either during your initial call or at the start of the demo call. Many good sales reps will say something like:

"To make sure you get the most out of this, is it okay if I ask you a few questions to better understand what you are trying to achieve and whether or not we can really help?"

Ask questions to help discover their customer profile, unique needs and pain points, decision-making process, and competition. Which specific questions you ask depends on what you already know about this prospect, but below are some of the things you should find out:

General:

- How do they compare against your Ideal Customer Profile?
- Which buyer persona do they match?
- Have they looked at something similar in the past?
- What other products do they have in their toolkit?
- What are their priorities? Is this a priority for them?
- How do they make buying decisions on products like yours?

Inbound:

- Why did they sign up for a demo?
- Why are they looking for a new solution?
- How long have they been looking for a new solution?
- What problems do they hope your product can help you solve?
- How are they currently dealing with these issues? What are the biggest pain points with that arrangement?
- What goals do they hope your product is going to help them achieve?

Don't think that your job is done just by checking off these questions. Try to find the underlying reasons or motives for their answers. The goal is to uncover information that will help you pick the key features and benefits to showcase during the demonstration of a product or service.

Cirrus Insight. Man prequalifies his lead.

2. Good sales calls can book the demo!

Not every prospect wants a demo. Some prefer to try it on their own and learn at their own pace. Others might prefer not to interact with salespeople. But if they're a fit, it's in your best interest to prepare personalized product demos to increase the likelihood that they'll become a paying customer.

It's not enough to invite prospects to a demo. It's not enough to just offer them a demo or ask them to attend. You actually have to deliver a compelling pitch and apply salesmanship so they'll commit to try the product.

So once you've prequalified your prospect, you need to sell them the idea of getting a demo:

"The next logical step is to give you a quick demo of our app. It's the most straightforward way for you to find out if it fits your needs and save yourself the time trying to figure it out on your own. From my experience, if we run a demo together, we'll be able to figure out how best to optimize it for your workflow, and answer any questions to make a decision if it's right for you very quickly."
-Steli Efti, CEO, Close.io

Booking the Next Product Demo

Keep the process moving forward and book the demo right there on the call. The best way to achieve that is by continuing your pitch from above with this:

"30 minutes is enough to cover everything and answer all your questions. How about early next week, would you have half an hour on Monday or Tuesday?"

Confirming the Appointment is Also Part of the Sales Process

Things happen. Prospects are busy, and a demo booked a week ago can quickly be forgotten. It's not their job to remember your demo. It's your job to make sure they get there.

Once you've booked the meeting, send through a calendar invite, ideally when you're still on the call, so you can check that they received it and confirm it. Then schedule your calendar to email a reminder a day before the booked date or the morning of, confirming their attendance.

This may sound obvious, but many sales reps make this mistake and don't send confirmation emails after setting an appointment. Don't be one of them. You want the opportunity to prove that your product can solve their problems.

You can send a simple email along the lines of:

"Looking forward to our meeting tomorrow at 3 pm. Join me at this link: demolink.com/123.
If anything changes, you can reach me here or on my mobile at 123-456-789."

Cirrus Insight. Screenshot of Charlie platform.

A Product Demo Requires Pre-Meeting Housekeeping

With all the information and research at hand, you're ready to start the meeting. So fire up your screen sharing tool, send over the link, and go for it, right?

Not so fast! Don't forget these crucial housekeeping tasks first to ensure your meeting runs without any hiccups, interruptions, and unnecessary distractions. You want an engaging product demo.

1. Optimize your desktop

The prospect shouldn't see your desktop notifications, previews of incoming emails, Facebook messages, or any other notifications popping up on the screen while you talk. It's unprofessional and highly distracting for both of you, and it can be embarrassing (depending on the notification).

To turn off notifications on your Mac, follow the steps below:

Alt + Click on the side menu icon:

When notifications are OFF, the icon will be faded, like this:

Don't worry, you can turn them back on by repeating Alt + Click again later.

Close all open applications apart from those you need for the demo.
They don't need to see this:

Toolbar on Mac Laptop.

Hide your Dock [Mac]. Right click on this line, and then click 'Turn Hiding On':

2. Optimize your Browser

For a successful product demo, hide the Bookmarks bar and browser add-on icons. The prospect doesn't have to know what sites you visit the most.

Close all tabs that you don't need, so you don't flick between the 23 tabs you have open and get lost. The end result should look something like this.

3. Prepare your Product for the Demo

You should have a preset demo account set up with dummy data that you can always reset and customize for each prospect.

Your demo content can literally make or break the deal. Your prospects want to know that your product is built for them and what it might look like in their hands. This is your chance to show them what a successful user of your app looks like, so make sure your content looks the part.

Spend 5 – 10 minutes customizing your app to your prospect's needs. This can be anything from adding some of their information and pictures to their customers. Whatever you choose, it should be meaningful to them.

Avoid the famous death by spinner. Make sure you have everything ready and loaded. There's nothing worse than trying to stall for time while the page load is stalling. In such a situation, 5 seconds quickly feels like 5 minutes, and your prospect will start losing trust.

As a final piece of advice, enter Fullscreen Mode so that nothing but your demo is front and center. You can then use your product in front of your prospect without any hindrances.

REMEMBER: Some screen sharing tools let you share specific windows instead of your entire desktop, which is preferable. However, if you need to switch between windows or applications to show off your product, you'll have to share your entire desktop.

PRO TIP: If you're on Mac, Bartender (free trial) lets you organize and hide your menubar apps. HiddenMe (free) hides your desktop icons in one click. With these two tools, your screen will look cleaner than ever.

SUPER PRO TIP: Set up multiple Browser People profiles so you can always keep a sanitized demo environment two clicks away. This way, you can create a profile with all your demo accounts set up, avoid unnecessary logins, and keep your prospect engaged.

Cirrus Insight. Example of multiple browser profiles.

4. Show your product and deliver the demo!

If you keep your demo short and to the point, you should be finished within 30 minutes. Any longer than that, and prospects will start to lose interest. Product demos are a great tool, but if they're too long, they might do more harm than good.

To keep your prospect engaged throughout the sales process, you need to break it into these parts. We have prepared the approximate time you should allocate for each section until the end of your demo.

Meet & Recap – 2 Minutes
Discovery – 4 Minutes
Product demo – 15 minutes
Q&A – 5 minutes
Closing / Next Steps – 4 minutes

Let's look at some of these in detail.

Meet & Recap

Before you dive into the demo, welcome your guests and confirm who is attending:

"How many people will attend this demo? Great, what are your names, roles, and involvement here?"

Even though you were scheduled to meet only with one person, other people might have joined the demo, too. The person's manager, someone from IT, or even the CEO may have decided to attend. Knowing who else is present will help you consider their angle and motivators and tailor the demo to match.

Confirm the timeframe

"I know we booked from 3:30 to 4 today, but does anyone have any hard stops before then?"

Confirm your meeting timeframe and ask if there are any hard stops beforehand. Even if you've booked between 3:30 and 4 pm, your main stakeholder might have another meeting on the other side of town at 4 pm, so they really have to leave at 3:50. You need to know this and adjust the agenda; otherwise, they'll leave halfway through your demo.

Discovery

Demos conducted without discovery win 73% less often.

So, recap any previous discussions, pain points, and problems they mentioned, and then transition into discovery. Running a good discovery is key to a good demo. It can reveal their key points of friction, what features to show and what to skip, and even the best way to close the deal. Any dedicated sales expert will tell you the same.

We always start by asking the client about their needs, and then we structure the demo to highlight key features based on those needs. They love that instead of listening to a boring, pre-recorded product demo, they get a customized demo that actually addresses their problems. (Rasmus Burkal, CEO, Pipetop)

Start by asking:

"To ensure you get the most out of this, could you please answer a few questions so I can customize the demo to your specific needs?"

The questions you ask depend on what you already know about this prospect, but below are some of the things you should find out.

What benefits do they hope your product will bring them?
What problems do they hope your product will help them solve?
What do they like most about their current approach?
What do they dislike most about their current approach?
Have they ever looked at something similar?
Is there something in particular they really want you to cover?

Again, don't forget to probe their answers to go deeper and uncover the underlying reasons, rather than stopping at the surface.

"That's interesting… can you give me an example of that? Oh really, why do you think that is?"

Presenting the Product Demo

When it's finally time to step up to the plate and deliver, keep these points in mind:

Demos are sales tools, not training tools.

This is not the time to show them a step-by-step best practice walkthrough on using your app. It's the time to give the Steve Jobs keynote presentation that shows the benefits of a product and makes them go, "I want that." Don't focus on the details! You're still selling here. Focus on moving the sales process forward.

Demonstrate value, not features.

Show them what they can accomplish when they use product features. Don't show them how your features work. Show them how it can change their life.

Highlight their world before your product, and their world after it.

Your discovery process should uncover their 'before' state. You will know what they are unhappy about, their existing pain points, and their goals. Talk about the pain of their current state, and then channel it into their desired 'after' state, where your product is their savior. Reminding prospects of where they are makes where they could be much more desirable, highlighting your product value.

Present the product from their perspective.

Put your product in context. Instead of running through every feature, paint a picture of how it would work for the prospect.

A product demonstration should never be a tour of a product's features and functions. Instead, it should tell the customer's story, with the product playing a key role. (Geoffrey James, Contributing Editor, Inc.com).

Use active verbs like "imagine" or phrases such as "think about it" or "here's how it works" to get the prospect thinking about your product. For instance, instead of saying:

"Through this menu here, you can access options to set inventory, delivery destinations, etc. This next menu allows you to insert individual records…"

Say:

"Imagine one of your employees is picking and packing items in the warehouse. She's running out of time with this particular big order, but can't locate certain items. A quick search through the system (like so…[demonstrate]) helps them to locate the missing item. With a single click ([demonstrate]), she could also notify others of an error, request reshelving, etc."

Get them involved.

Don't reduce the prospect's role to 'audience'. It should be a two-way interaction, so get them involved in the software demo. Even though they might not be able to use it yet, make sure they experience what it would be like if they used it.

Ask them to give you examples of data to input.
Inquire about their operations and perform actions matching what they say.

A demonstration should be a customized case study to meet their needs, only showing the features you need to solve their pain. The likelihood of the sale diminishes with every irrelevant feature shown! (Andy Farquharson, Managing Director, Sellx)

That's an amazing enterprise sales strategy right there.

Don't expect them to connect the dots between their problems and your features.

Now that you've completed the discovery phase, use this information to customize your demo. Research shows that demos that address specific pain points and articulate the solution's value are 35% more likely to result in closed deals.

You need to match up what you show them with their specific pain points, verbalize that connection, and get them to articulate it back to you.

"After showing them a feature, get them thinking of themselves using it by asking how they might use it: 'How might you use that feature at your company?' Get the prospect to sell you on how they would use, and why they would need your solution."
– Startup Sales Bootcamp (free course)

Nail your 'wow' moment.

No matter what product you're offering, there's always a moment when the full value of your product is realized. Instinctively, you'll know what it is. It's that selling point you've been dying to show them since the moment you met. You want to make sure you've got their full attention for full effect. If you give an online product demonstration, chances are they're not paying 100% attention 100% of the time. They get distracted, they check emails, they're multitasking. You can mention their name, or literally tell them: "Now Alex, I need your full attention here."

Manage the energy and their attention.

Did you know that the average human's attention span is approximately 10 minutes? That's only if they're interested in the topic. And so, the further you go into the presentation, the less attention the prospect will pay to you. Luckily, you can use various techniques to overcome this.

Hook them in with a strong starting message. Show a striking statistic, offer a powerful insight, or ask them a question that would make them stop and think before giving the answer.
Follow with the most important features/benefits. Start presenting features or benefits related to their main pain points right after the hook. Only after you've covered those will you move to other features you believe they should know about, too.
Reset their attention every couple of minutes. Successful public speakers know that to keep the audience listening, they have to reset their attention from time to time.

In longer presentations, this should happen every 10 minutes. But since you're only delivering a 15-minute presentation, include one or two reset moments every few minutes.

Here are some of the best ways to reset the audience's attention.

Tell a story. Share a case study, or reveal how other customers made the leap and the results they got.
Say something humorous. Or include an out-of-place slide that lightens the mood.
Offer a striking statement. Make it relate to their company, market, or situation.
Ask a question. Get prospects to take an active part in the presentation.

PRO TIP: When you're moving your mouse around, you want them to follow along so you know exactly what you're doing. But sometimes the connection lags, their attention moves elsewhere, or it just doesn't stand out on the screen enough. Download Mouseposé for Mac ($9.99 from the Mac App Store) or PointerFocus for Windows (free) to make it simple for them to follow along.

Cirrus Insight. Men shake hands to close deal.

5. Show the value of a product when you close the demo

Product demos usually end in one of 3 ways.

A sale
A no, with a good reason.
An agreed-upon agenda moving forward.

If it ends with uncertainty on what happens next or a "maybe," you've fallen short.

When you get a "maybe," you're letting your prospect off the hook for making a decision that can benefit their business, while also losing valuable time you could be spending with a prospect who will give you a decision. (Juliana Crispo, Startup Sales Bootcamp)

Here's how to avoid that.

Ask questions to reveal any objections/unanswered questions.

Ask the prospect for their impressions about the value your product brings. Find out if the demo was enough for them to make a decision and envision how their product helps their business. Inquire about the next steps they'd like to take. You can use something like the two examples below. Hats off to the Startup Sales Bootcamp for this one.

"Glad I could demo this for you. We understand that our product isn't right for everyone, but on a scale of 1 – not solving my needs, to 10 – there couldn't be a more perfect fit, sign me up! How would you rate the product?" "What do you need to see today that would make it a 10?" "Is this what you were after?" "Okay, great, so what happens next?"

Hopefully, this reveals any unanswered questions to get you over the line.

We spend 5 minutes preparing unique closing objections and answers for each client. This helps us overcome their objections at the critical phase of the call and close them right then and there. Being unprepared to tackle each client's objections is an absolute no-no in modern selling. (James Pember, CEO, Sparta)

Ask for the sale

"So if I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like this is something you'd love to get started with? Great, when would you like to start?"

"Based on what we've gone over, is this what you'd like to go with?"

"If we can agree on price and terms, would you like to proceed with this?"

Agree on next steps

Not every prospect will be ready to buy right away. That's fine, but you need to stay in control. If they say that more steps are required, be careful to avoid the "we'll discuss it internally and let you know" zone. To make sure that doesn't happen, just set up the next steps:

"So you need to talk to your manager first? When do you think you can do that? Great, so when we speak on Tuesday, would you be in a position to make a decision? If not, what else has to happen?"

Keep on going until you've covered all the steps and they are ready to make a decision. Note the steps and dates down, as you'll send these through later as the mutually agreed-upon agenda.

Once you've uncovered all the steps in their buying process, take back control and let them know what will happen next.

"Great, so I'll send you a brief email summary of our conversation, and the actions we both have to take to progress – everything that we've agreed upon here."

They'll be more than happy to hear you'll do the meeting summary for them, so they have notes to refer back to later. It also sets the stage for a sales process to refer to later if any issues arise.

6. Post-presentation follow-up

Now that you've agreed on the next steps, follow up quickly by sending them an email summarizing the meeting and outlining the agreed-upon agenda.

Cirrus Insight. Example follow-up email.

Prospects will expect you to follow up with them in one way or another. If you promised to deliver additional materials or information, they'll wait for those too. Include any information you agreed to submit, like product specifications, pricing sheet, and case studies. You can use Attach to track their engagement with those documents.

Act while everything is still fresh in the prospect's memory. If you had follow-up tasks you had to complete, do them immediately. If there were any questions you couldn't ask during the demo, find the answer and send it over. If this is to be the start of your relationship, this is your chance to gain their trust and show that you're a partner who delivers on your promises. Thanks to the law of reciprocity, they will feel obliged to do the same.

Work towards completing the steps in the agenda, increasing the level of communication at every step towards the close.

What if there's still no response?

Regardless of your initial follow-up, you might still not get a decision. In such a case, keep following up. Send prospective customers follow-up emails every couple of days or weeks to continue the sales process.

The general rule is that you shouldn't email the customer too often. Once a week or once a fortnight should be enough.

Good Luck with Your Product Demo and Sales Efforts

Considering that demos have the second biggest positive impact on a sale, a solid demo playbook is a must-have in your sales process. Take this guide, turn it into your own, and start crushing your demos like the best sales engineers on the planet.

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