How to Conduct Software Demonstrations

Sellers - stop giving webinars and start running Demos. So many AEs run demos like webinars. One-sided, feature dumps that lose the prospect fast. Great demos aren’t a presentation; they’re a conversation. It makes the prospect feel like they’re already solving their problem. Here’s how to use psychology to make that happen: 1️⃣ Spark Curiosity – People pay attention when there’s a knowledge gap. Instead of jumping into features, start with a question: “How are you handling [pain point] today?” or “What happens when [problem] breaks?” This gets them thinking and wanting a solution. I call this “setting the table”. Start with a pain recap, dig deeper, then tell them what you’re going to show them to solve it. 2️⃣ Make Them Own It – The endowment effect says people value things more when they feel ownership. Instead of just clicking through, ask: “If this were your dashboard, what’s the first thing you’d check?” Now they’re imagining using it before they even buy. These are 🥷 3️⃣ Pain First, Solution Second – Loss aversion is real. Reinforce the pain before showing the fix: “This takes your team 3 hours right now. What if it took 3 minutes?” That contrast hits harder than any feature list. 4️⃣ Drive Engagement & Validate Value – Demos shouldn’t be passive. Ask questions that make them process the impact: “How would this fit into your workflow?” “On a scale of 1-10, how valuable is this for your team?” “What’s the biggest impact you see?” If they say it, they believe it. 5️⃣Social Proof Wins – Nobody wants to be the only one taking a risk. Drop in proof: “[Big name company] had this exact problem. Now they [outcome].” Makes buying feel inevitable. 6️⃣ Themes – People won’t remember every feature, integration, or workflow you show. In fact they’ll probably forget more than 70% of the whole demo. That’s why you need to reinforce themes. Bring up 10+ times how this will save them time. They’ll remember that. A great demo isn’t a lecture. It’s a two-way engaging conversation that makes the prospect feel like they’re already using your product. Do that, and you’ll close more deals.

How are you approaching demos? 🗣 I still remember my early years of showing a demo. I was so excited about the cool features that I would spend the whole hour showing them off to the prospect. I talked a lot, and everyone else was quiet. My young self, thought…, “They’re taking it all in!” SCORE…Days turned into months and crickets….no callbacks or replies from the prospect…Through these hard lessons, I have learned some best practices to make them more effective. Here are some: ✅ Take an outside in perspective. The demo is about your prospect, NOT your product. ✅Start the demo discussion summarizing the challenges your buyers shared with you; the impact if these challenges are not addressed; validate if anything has changed since the last conversation ✅ Summarize the solution they’re looking for, based on your collaborative discussion; validate that nothing has changed ✅ Show the demo and overall align it to their pains and business outcomes. In other word customize it. Sometimes it may not be possible to customize the product itself—customize the talk track! ✅ Focus on 3-4 areas and speak their language as they’re showing them; refer to the previous conversations you’ve had with them ✅ As you’re showing the demo, share a relevant customer story of how they used your solution and the impact ✅ Have questions ready to engage your audience ✅ Make it interactive; be flexible and adjust based on the questions you’re getting asked ✅ Read the non-verbal cues and adjust accordingly. If they look like they’re going to fall asleep, your message is not resonating. Course-correct! ✅ Make your demos short and have your prospect guide you on how much detail they want you to get into ✅ Make time for next steps ✅ Don’t forget to test your demo prior to meeting. Very awkward when it doesn’t work! #sales ; #quota; #deals

8 elements of insanely persuasive SaaS sales demos: 1. Summarize the problem. The best demos don't start with a demo. The best demos start with the problem. Summarize what you learned in your discovery call. Then ask: "What context would you add?" Get them talking. Get them to validate the problem. But most importantly: Frame the problem the demo will solve. Don't be a solution in search of a problem. 2. Educate them on your "concept." Create a bridge between the problem and solution. If you're selling something that's well-understood, skip this part. If you're not? Spend 2 minutes getting your buyer up to speed on what your company does and how it works. Do this right after the summary slide. Do this right before the demo. If you don't? They'll be lost as you click around. 3. Start your demo with the top feature. Don't save the best thing for last. Too many reps try to do a "build up" demo. By the time they get to the important part? The exec has already left the room. Hit them over the head with value upfront. Start with the eye-popper. 4. Solve exactly. No more. No less. What do I mean? Leave off every part of your product that doesn't solve their problem. Features must earn a "starting spot" in your demo. If it doesn't solve, it gets benched. Get comfortable with showing less. 5. Ask thoughtful questions. You want to build engagement during your demo. But skip these questions: - does that make sense? - what questions do you have? Weak. Use these instead: - how does that compare to what you do today? - to what extent do you see that solving [x]? - what about this is resonating so far? Much better. 6. Frame the pain every time you transition. Ironclad rule to live by: Every time you transition from one feature to another, reframe the pain. You can't do this too often. Summarize the pain that next feature solves. If you don't? You risk that next feature being a solution in search of a problem. Focus on pain relief. Keep bringing your buyer back to that. Then solve. Repeat. 7. Facilitate a conversation at the end. The best demos have this in common: The last 5-10 minutes involves a rich discussion. Your buyer's head is swirling with possibility. (If you did it right). Have a conversation with them. Ask this to get it going: "What excited you most about what you saw today?" 8. Manage your time for next steps. The goal of a demo is not to educate. The goal of a demo is not to inform. The goal of a demo is not to entertain. What is it then? the goal of a demo is to catalyze a decision. What decision were you hoping to empower your buyer to make? Talk about that at the end. Schedule the next step accordingly. If you don't? You just spent 45 minutes on a dog-and-pony show. P.S. If you REALLY want to double your demo close rates, you need effective questions. Here's a list of 39 questions that sell I collected over a 12 year period: https://go.pclub.io/list

Your demo is the reason you're losing deals And it has nothing to do with your product. After sitting through 200+ sales demos last year, I've identified the pattern that separates winning presentations from forgettable ones. It's not about features. It's not about benefits. It's about sequence. Most demos follow this deadly structure: 1️⃣ Company overview 2️⃣ Product walkthrough 3️⃣ Feature deep-dive 4️⃣ Pricing discussion 5️⃣ Next steps This is exactly backwards. Your prospect doesn't care about your company story. They care about their problem. They don't want to see every feature. They want to see outcomes. Here's the demo structure that actually converts: ↳ Start with their outcome  "Based on our conversation, you mentioned needing to reduce customer churn by 15% this year. Let me show you exactly how this would work for your situation." ↳ Show their scenario Use their data, their use case, their terminology. Make it feel like they're already using your solution. ↳ Focus on 2-3 key capabilities The ones that directly impact their stated priorities. Skip everything else. ↳ Handle objections proactively Address the concerns they mentioned in discovery before they have to ask. ↳ End with clear next steps Not "Do you have any questions?" but "Based on what you've seen, what would need to happen for you to move forward?" The best demos don't feel like demos. They feel like problem-solving sessions where your product happens to be the solution. Subscribe to our Innovative Seller channel where we post bi-weekly videos on sales strategies like this 👇

This demo structure won’t work for everyone. But it increased our conversion rate by 57% so steal it if you want. WARNING: dense post ahead We used to think a great demo needed to cover everything. That just made people zone out. So we rebuilt our demo. Now the average one takes 15 minutes, and it outperforms every version we’ve tried. Here’s our EXACT structure (minute by minute): 0:00 - Set the stage (reframe the demo around them, not us) 1/ Recap what they told us in discovery. → “So you’re looking to pull transcripts into your product from Zoom and Google Meet?” 2/ Confirm outcomes. Not features. → “So your goal is speed to market…does that sound right?” Why it works: You earn permission to skip 90% of the product and go deep on the pain that matters. ----- 2:00 - Make it interactive early (get them talking before you start demoing) 1/ Ask them to name the meeting bot. Literally. → “Want to give your bot a name real quick?” 2/ Customize the demo with their name, brand, or use case. Why this works: Now they’re not watching a product. They’re watching their product. ----- 4:00 - Show just enough (curiosity > coverage) 1/ Walk through 3 endpoints: → Create Bot → Get Transcript → Get Recording 2/ Go slow. Circle key parts. Pause often. → “Does this make sense?” Why this works: By showing less, they ask more. Now they’re pulling the demo forward. ----- 10:00 - Qualify without sounding salesy (no “next steps” slide. just conversation.) 1/ Ask soft-close questions → “Do you have any questions on how you’d use this API?” → “Does it all make sense from a technical perspective what you need to do integrate?” → “Does it all make sense from a product perspective what the user experience will be like?” Why this works: This surfaces objections early and builds confidence. No pitch needed. ----- 13:00 - Stop while they want more (end demo early. let them lead the next move.) 1/ Don’t push a timeline. Let them drive. → “Happy to go deeper — what’s most useful from here?” Why it works: People are more likely to lean in when they’re not being sold to. We found they usually ask for a trial or a security doc at this point. ----- Bonus details that really matter: - The bot joins the call in real-time. That moment always lands. - We preload a Postman collection but only walk through 3 endpoints. The other endpoints sit like easter eggs on the side. - We don’t send a follow-up deck. We send the docs and let them give it a go. If you’re demoing to prove how much you’ve built, you’ll lose. We demo to prove how much we’ve understood. This structure won’t work for every product, but the principles should stay the same.

A bad demo is 30 minutes of you talking and over slides explaining the nuances of your architecture and product capabilities. You ask "any questions?" every few minutes, and your prospective user says, "No, no, this is great..." and goes back to reading their email. An analogy I've found really helpful when coaching teams to execute effective demos: "The Masked Magician." If you've never seen the show, basically a magician shows you a magic trick, then teaches you how he does it. That's the best way to do a demo. The goal of a demo is to teach a prospect about their potential with your product. Learning is all about helping people attach new information to things they already know. That's why analogies are so powerful. We connect something we're learning to something we know. If you show them the magic trick, they then have something to attach their understanding to when you explain how your product works. Format I recommend: 1. Set the stage at a VERY high level (60 seconds) "You have problem X, we make product Y that has these core components...watch closely and I'll show you what your future could be" 2. Do the magic trick. (2 minutes). Show a complete application. Tell a story. Don't show someone your empty dashboard and read them the settings tab. 3. THEN explain how you did the magic trick. (1-2 minutes). "The way we make XYZ work so well is we built ABC..." 4. Questions, checking for understanding. (20 minutes, rest of the call) The goal is to now help the customer imagine what their version of this magic trick would be. "How could you use this thing to solve problems that matter to you in your business."

“Customer Fill In” – A Truly Terrific Demo Tip!   I was watching demos that highlighted vendors’ customer-facing intake forms/portals and noted some poor practices. Each vendor claimed that end-customers “can complete the process in five minutes or less,” but:   -       They turned the 5-minute workflow into 15-30 minutes…! -       They used obviously fake demo data. -       They covered many options, often exhaustively! -       It was obvious that the demonstrators had presented the same demo pathway dozens of times (it sounded like the presenters were boring THEMSELVES!). -       The prospects were largely silent through the entire demos. -       And the vendors NEVER asked prospects to provide input into the workflows…   This last item really struck me as a MAJOR error! Our objective is to turn demos into CONVERSATIONS.   Here’s a truly terrific tip for these situations: Invite your prospect to be the end-customer and fill in the form!   Let’s say your software offers an intake portal for consumers who want a loan. You say to your prospect, “OK, let’s have YOU play the part of your customer. YOU tell me what to enter on each screen…”   Advantages?   -       You and your prospect COMPLETE the intake form in five minutes (proving your original claim). -       Your prospect gains a first-hand vision of how the process works. -       Your prospect THINKS about the options and asks relevant questions. -       And your prospect is fully engaged throughout the process!   This approach is called “Customer Fill In.”   Any time there is an option to choose from (and you don’t care about the choice), invite your PROSPECT to make the choice. They’ll be engaged, taking ownership of the process and the result. Delightful!   https://lnkd.in/gNBs5GTb

Every demo ends with "this is exactly what we need!" Their conversion rate is 2%. They finally figured out what they're doing wrong: The demo trap looks like this: - "Perfect solution!" - "Exactly what we need!" - "When can we start?" - *crickets* Your prospects aren't lying. In that moment, they genuinely believe they'll buy. But you're selling to the wrong part of their brain. The excited brain during demos: - Imagines perfect implementation - Sees immediate value - Pictures easy adoption - Dreams of outcomes The real brain after demos: - Remembers past software failures - Counts implementation hours - Fears team resistance - Doubts everything Most demos sell the dream. But dreams don't survive first meetings with reality. What actually works: Don't sell features. Sell the first 30 days: - Exact implementation steps - Real time commitments - Specific team impact - Clear first wins Plot the path to Monday morning, not the future. Your product isn't competing with the fear of "one more failed tool." Not other products. Instead of selling dreams, sell Mondays. Because right now: 98% of your prospects actually need your product, but can't see past implementation fear The best demo is about day one, not about your features.

Most bad demos start with appetizers. Here’s what I mean: → “Let me show you how to create a workspace…” → “This is the dashboard…” → “This feature lets you…” Prospects didn’t book the demo for a tour. They came for a solution. Serve the steak first. Show the feature that solves their top pain — immediately. Then work backwards. Example: I coached an AE selling a project management tool. Before, they’d start every demo by showing how to create a project from scratch. Instead, we flipped it: → Prospect said their team missed deadlines because no one had visibility. → So he started the demo by pulling up the calendar view with live team activity and deadline alerts. “Here’s what your VP of Ops would see every morning — total clarity in 10 seconds.” That one change? 31% improvement in close rate. The intro isn’t where you warm up. It’s where you win trust.

Spent 40 min with one of the best founders I know yesterday (he’s personally selling all their deals himself right now). Entire convo focused on what to SAY during a demo (most sellers actually have no idea): 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “we can do this… and we can do this… and we can do this… any questions?... and we can do this…” Great demos use features and functionality as *validation* that the platform can deliver the customer’s desired results (and solve the challenges currently blocking them). You want the customer thinking about buying the result, and the solution to the problem, not the features themselves. To do this effectively, before you talk about any feature, you want to contextualize it with the outcomes and challenges that matter to the customer (that you learned in discovery). For example, 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “so of course the main thing you guys are working towards is [outcome] and one of the biggest issues is that right now [challenge] so what I want to show you is how we [solve challenge] that should directly result in [outcome]” 𝐎𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “another thing I want to show you as we think about the issue the team is having with [challenge] is how we [solve challenge] which immediately start to free up your reps to be able to do more [whatever] which should then translate directly into more [outcome]” Think of yourself like a teacher. You’re helping the customer learn the relationship between your functionality and the results they want/the challenges they want to solve. Anything you swear by that helps you lead more impactful and engaging demos that I might be interested in?