9 Elements of Insanely Persuasive Sales Demos That SELL

So between 2016 and 2021, a five year span, I helped grow a SaaS company called Gong from a tiny startup doing a little less than $200,000 in annual revenue all the way to over $200 million in annual revenue and a 7.2 billion dollar valuation. Now, customers along this journey routinely told us that our sales demos were second to none. So in this video, I'm going to teach you nine lessons I learned about software demos that sell that I'll never forget. Now, as we get into this, like the video, share it with your friends and comment any questions you have below. Here's the first lesson. Show the most powerful feature first. Most salespeople don't do this, okay? They build up, they ramp up their demo, they save the best thing for last. And that's completely wrong. You want to flip that model upside down and show the most impactful feature you have upfront and as early in the demo as it makes sense to. Okay? You want your buyer's head spinning almost in a good way. Now, once they have a bunch of questions, which they will, then you can unpack it from there. But great demos are not a mystery novel, right? You're hitting them over the head with value. Okay? Number two, Solve. Exactly. Okay, so do you want an easy way to speed up customer decision making? It is to solve their pain on a one to one basis, okay? No more, no less. Don't overcomplicate your demos by showing everything you have, okay? If you're saying things like we can also, that leads to overwhelmed buyers. Most salespeople feel this need to show every piece of their product in an attempt to build value. But the more you show that doesn't align back one to one to a pain that they have, the more value you actually destroy. Your win rates drop, your deal size, your deal sizes drop, your sales cycles get pushed and become longer. Okay? Number three, Catalyze a decision. What's the point of a demo? Is it to inform your customer? Is it to educate your customer? Is it to entertain your customer? No, it's none of those. It's to catalyze a decision. Okay? So the question becomes, what's the next decision your buyer needs to make in their buying process? It might not be to to buy yet. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying the point of every SAS demo is to close the deal right then and there, but what's the next logical decision they need to make? You should demo in the context of helping them make that decision. Okay? So that could sound something like this. My goal on this demo is to get you so fired up about what we do that at the end, you are willing to sponsor a meeting with your chief marketing officer. Or if I miss the mark, you can just tell me that up front. Is that fair? Okay. So catalyze, don't inform, don't educate, don't entertain. You're there to facilitate a decision. Okay, number four, frame the problem. Okay. Every time you start a demo, start that call by summarizing the buyer's challenges and impact of those challenges that they shared with you previously. Do that before the demo and then validate it. So based on what you told me, you're going to love this. Okay? Let your buyer know they're in the right place, but the question they don't want you don't want them to be asking themselves is, what problem does this solve? Okay. So set the context of the meeting by sharing a what we've heard slide that summarizes their challenges, the impact, and now the context of the demo is, here's exactly how we're going to help with that. Okay, Number five. As you demo, orient your buyer to the screen before you really start getting into the details, most buyers a couple minutes into most software demos are thinking to themselves, what the hell am I looking at? Okay. Because you demo your product all day, and so you know exactly where everything is, what everything does, what everything is supposed to be doing. Your buyer is seeing this for the first time, most likely. And so when you flash a bunch of charts and diagrams and all that kind of stuff, they don't know what they're looking at. So before you can even attempt to persuade them, take a minute and orient them to the screen. Okay? Teach them what they're looking at. The confused mind says no. If they're confused by the demo, they're not going to buy. Okay, number six, spend 10 seconds framing the pain a feature solves before you demonstrate that feature. Okay, So a few minutes ago, remember how I said to frame the problem before the demo? This is kind of a mini version of that for each feature you show. Right? If you're demoing five features, for example, you're going to do this process five times. So every time you're about to share a feature, ask yourself, what's the pain this feature solves? And then spend 10 seconds summarizing that pain or problem statement before you actually showcase that feature. Okay? When you do that, then the feature is going to land with ease. It's going to resonate. So that's as simple as saying, earlier you said XYZ is a headache. Here's how we solve that. And then you demo. Okay? Repeat that for every feature that you show so that you're not ever at risk of showing a solution in search of a problem. Okay? That's what you want to avoid. Number seven, tell a customer story after each key feature that you demonstrate. Okay, People forget click paths, but they remember stories. So if you want your buyer to think about your demo for hours, days or weeks after you're done, then tell a customer story after each key workflow or feature that you demonstrate. Okay? That's as simple as saying, here's how XYZ customer is using that workflow to achieve Fill in the blank on the desired outcome. People remember stories like this. They forget click paths. Number eight, try to ask a question after you demonstrate each key feature. Okay? So demonstrate it. Tell the story like I just taught you and then stop and have a conversation for a minute or two before you move on to the next piece of the demo. Okay? A few questions you can test after you've demonstrated a feature are how does that compare to how you solve this today? Or is this resonating so far? Or to what extent do you see that solving whatever pain they solved or shared earlier? Or what benefits do you see showing up in your world from that workflow I just demonstrated? So you want to dismount your demo just for a minute, have a quick conversation? Try one of those questions. Finally, number nine, end your demonstration by asking them after summarizing what excited you most about what you saw here today. Okay, so after you've gone through your full demo, you want to dismount, and the last few minutes are to have a conversation about what resonated, what doesn't, or what didn't resonate. And the most effective question that I know to end a demo with is what excited you most about what you saw today? Okay. Then you can transition that conversation into discussing next steps. So, like I said, I helped grow a company called Gong from 2016 to 2021 during that five year window, from 200 grand to 200 million in annual revenue. And like I mentioned, customers routinely told us our demos were incredible, bar none, second to none. And these are nine things I learned during that incredible SaaS growth journey. So my question for you now is, which of those nine stood out the most to you? Just write the number in the comments, right? It could be one. It could be. Write whatever number was most resonant for you and I'll see you in the next video.