Make Your Demo Calls *Not* Suck

Video demo’s are like the quicksand of the Sales world——they're where I see a lot of really good sales people and founders getting stuck. 

Too often, they use the demo call to talk about all the coolest features and benefits, helping the customer understand why this product is different and better than anything else out there. 

But if you do sales long enough, you learn that people don’t care about you. They don’t care about your product. People care about themselves. 

That’s why I encourage you to use your demo’s more like a firehose—focusing in on specific points of objections or questions, that could burn down this deal—rather than a bucket of water that we douse on the deal, and hope we hit some fire. 

Here’s three things to make your demo calls worth it: 

Qualify, qualify, qualify

I like to spend the first third of the call asking as many questions as I can get away with. It confirms whether this person’s even worth giving a demo to. And it shows me specifically what they need to see in order to keep this conversation going. 

Clarify your Desired Outcome

Rarely will someone be so overwhelmed by your greatness that they’ll say “I gotta have this right now!” We should know exactly what action we want the prospect to take next, and everything in our demo is about driving that action. 

Keep it conversational

In my presentations I use as little screen share as I possibly can. Only when I have something very specific to demonstrate will I pull up the screen. As soon as I’m done, I’m back to face-to-face so I can ask questions, gauge reactions, and keep my audience engaged.