5 steps to delivering the ultimate sales demo that converts

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A sales demo is a valuable opportunity to showcase your product and build a relationship with your prospects. Nailing down a sales demo is the key to building your pipeline, closing more deals and increasing the bottom line.

Here are five steps to help you deliver a sales demo that will engage your audience, build a strong relationship, and close the deal:

1. Structure Your Sales Demo

Orchestrate your narrative to engage the audience and communicate the relevance of your offerings:

Start With the Big Picture

Start with an agenda and clearly communicate your objective before getting to the details. By providing context, you can control the narrative, frame the audience’s challenges and confirm that the features you’ll be presenting in the sales demo will, in fact, be relevant.

You should also take this opportunity to position yourself as the expert and pique your prospects’ interest to keep them engaged throughout the sales demo.

Prioritize Your Features

Different prospects have different challenges, and you should focus the sales demo on the features that will be the most relevant to your prospect. Make sure your sales demo is value-based and focused on use cases that address the prospect’s specific pain points.

Lead with the benefits that will absolutely change their life and then map your features to their pain points and challenges. 

2. Keep Your Audience Engaged

An engaging sales demo allows you to build rapport, instill trust, and form an authentic relationship.

Speak Their Language

Note how your prospects talk about their challenges and goals (e.g., in email exchanges) so you can incorporate the verbiage in your sales demo to keep them interested.

Avoid using industry jargon and acronyms, which not only make it hard for your prospects to clearly understand your content but also distract them from grasping the true benefits of your product.

Master the Cursor

The movement of the cursor on a screen draws attention. Move the mouse in a deliberate manner to point out what you want the audience to focus on and try to avoid sudden movements that could create distractions.

3. Learn From Stage Performers

People like to be entertained. A successful sales demo is like an engaging performance on stage that captures the audience’s attention:

Tone and Gesture

Avoid talking in a monotone voice. If you aren’t enthusiastic about your own presentation, how can you expect your audience to get excited about it? 

Modulate your tone to create excitement and use hand gestures to pump up the energy to make your sales demo fun and memorable. Your energy is contagious, and if you’re confident, the audience will feel it. 

Pause and Silence

Dramatic pauses will build suspense and help the audience internalize your sales demo.

By including 3-7-second pauses in your demo, your audience can have time to think about your content and respond to it. If you give your audience time to really think about your demo, you’ll get a hint on what they’re thinking, and how you can tailor the rest of your sales demo. 

4. Manage Your Time

Structure your sales demo so that it fits into the scheduled time frame. If you go over, you’ll risk getting cut off by the prospects, make a bad first impression, and miss your chance to highlight key points. Check-in 5-10 minutes before the sales demo ends, and ask if you can go on longer by saying, “I want to be mindful of your time. We have about 5-10 minutes left in the demo. Do you have a hard stop, or can we go on a little longer?” 

Be Punctual and Flexible

Start the sales demo on time. However, if your prospects are running late, confirm how much time you have left for your demo. Modify your demo accordingly to highlight the most important features and benefits of your product.

If you notice that your audience has a lot of questions, make sure to adjust your sales demo to leave more time for Q&A so you can address your prospects’ specific concerns and potential objections.

Keep It Concise

Remember – you’re delivering a product demo; not product training! 

You should be able to communicate all the key points within a short timeframe (e.g., 15-30 minutes). Focus on the value that your product can add to your prospect’s workflow instead of showing the nuts and bolts of your product.

5. Prepare for the Unpredictable

The screen-share may stop working, your computer may crash, and the internet may go down. It pays to be prepared for unforeseeable scenarios. “Better to be safe, than sorry!”

Stay Calm and Confident

Ideally, you’ll have the opportunity to practice with colleagues and test everything before demoing prospects. However, when things don’t go as planned, remember to respond confidently, keep your audience focused, and avoid panicking – which obviously won’t help in getting your prospects to trust you and buy from you.

Arm Yourself with a Plan B

Imagine the scenarios in which things can go wrong and always have a plan B. 

For example, if your prospect can’t seem to join the conference line. Have their direct phone number next to you, so you can call him or her directly and continue the conversation.

Final Thoughts

In order to deliver an engaging and high-converting sales demo, you have to get to know your audience and personalize your demo. Avoid listing out a smorgasbord of facts about your product and tailor your sales demo to the prospect’s specific workflow, goals, and challenges. 

Use their language, and add some excitement to your tone to get your audience excited to learn about the product. Don’t forget to stay confident and composed no matter what is being thrown your way!