Gabe Sumner shares five tips for product demos that actually work: start with a question, pick one takeaway, show don't tell, use contrast between pain and solution, and connect steps with a causal narrative. A demo resolves doubt by showing what's possible.
Gabe Sumner
July 14, 2022
Hi, my name is Gabe Sumner, and today we'll learn about product demos. What are they, why do we need them? And what are five practical tips we can use to build better demos? And by the end of this video, you'll see how these five tips can be used to outline your next demo. This is Salesforce on Salesforce, an inside look at how we run our marketing, sales service and IT businesses, with helpful how to tips that you can use for your business. In this series, you'll hear lessons and see examples about how we do things here at Salesforce. Let's get started. So what's a product demo and why do we need them? A product demo is where we show audiences what our products make possible. And why is showing so important? Well, it's because seeing is believing. In many cases, audiences have already been told about our products, either through a presentation or through our content, but they still have questions like and can you give an example? Or how does it work? These questions are often rooted in doubt and confusion. And what we're doing in a product demo is resolving that doubt and confusion by showing audiences exactly what we're talking about and hopefully inspiring them with a credible vision. But easier said than done, right? How do we build better product demos? Every great product demo enables its audience to experience the journey the product makes possible. But at the beginning of this process, it's not always easy to see what that journey is. So here are five practical tips for tackling your next demo. And by the time we get to the end, you'll have an outline in the form of a downloadable template that you can use to create your next demo. So here we go. Tip number one. Start with the question. At the heart of every great demo is a great question. But what makes a question great? Well, great questions are evocative, which means the question alone invites us to imagine and wonder. Want an example? Of course you do. What if your most common business process took half as many steps? Now, this question makes me wonder, what is our most common business process? And what would that mean if it took half as many steps? And from there, I can begin to imagine a story, which is why these questions are so useful. Early into this process, we can brainstorm these questions by the way dozen and then test them. And once we've located a great evocative question, everything else gets a lot easier, which is why I always start with the question. Tip number two, focus your takeaway. Great demos deliver clear takeaways, but doing this requires focus. So how do we do that? Well, first we need to resist the temptation to show everything. What an example. In this demo, I'm going to show you how the Salesforce platform platform enables you to build, automate and secure using low code. So what's wrong with this? Well, this takeaway is really three takeaways. Build, automate and secure. Now, remember, inside a demo, we're addressing doubt and confusion, and it's going to be very challenging to do this for three different takeaways. So let's try being more focused. In this demo, I'll show you how Salesforce Flow enables you to use automation to make your business processes more efficient. Now, notice I'm now focused on just automation, which makes me much more confident I can earn this takeaway. So my advice, set yourself and your audience up for success and focus your takeaway. Tip number three, show don't tell. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a great demo provides that picture. But how do we envision these screens and interactions? Well, I use the phrase here you're looking at. For example, here you're looking at a mortgage application that one of our customers just submitted. Notice that I'm immediately acknowledging what the audience is seeing, and I'm using that visualization to set the context and use case the demo will explore. Now, if you're having trouble envisioning this screen, go back to tips one and two. Start with the question focus your takeaway. Keep making them more and more specific until you can see the movie in your mind. Remember, seeing is believing. And this experience is only possible if we show don't tell. Tip number four. High highs require low lows. Great demos show a journey, but there can be no journey without contrast. We need to go from somewhere to somewhere, which means we need to envision life without our products and then show audiences the contrast our products make possible. Let's return to our example. Here you're looking at a mortg application that one of our customers just submitted. But the challenge is that we're now processing thousands of these applications every day, and each involves dozens of manual steps. And as a result of this inefficiency, our customer satisfaction scores are plummeting. Skip to the end. Until finally, we've cut the number of steps involved in processing one of these applications in half. And as you can see, our satisfaction scores have never been higher. Notice the contrast between these two points. And this is important because our demo's finish will only be as delightful as our beginning was painful. High highs require low lows. Tip number five. Show the journey. Every great demo shows its audience how the product helps them get from challenge to solution. But how do we bridge these two points? Well, there are three magic words I use to get from problem to solution. Here they are because therefore and but so what makes these words so special? Well, by starting each sentence with these words, we're forcing ourselves to acknowledge what just happened before showing the next step. For example, our business process is inefficient, and because of that, our satisfaction scores are plummeting and therefore we'll use Salesforce Flow to create a new workflow. And because of that, we've eliminated many of these steps with automation. But notice and therefore, until finally you get the general idea here, the point here is not to literally say these words in your talk track. Rather, the point is to connect each of the steps in your demo. Because it's this connectivity that enables the audience to experience a cohesive journey. That's why we show the journey. So what's next and where can we learn more? Now, I promised you that these five tips would reveal a template that you could use to outline your next demo. And this is that template. Every demo I build begins here. And that's because this simple fill in the blank style template forces me to confront each of the five tips I just shared. Now, it starts with the question my demo will explore. Then it continues with a focused takeaway. And I keep making these two sentences more and more specific until I can show don't tell by describing that first screen that will establish my demo's context and use case. From there, it's time to identify the journey our products make possible, keeping in mind that high highs require low lows and the final step. But the most important step is to show the journey using the words because therefore and but to build a cohesive narrative when creating a new product demo. Start with this template and start with these five tips and you'll be well on your way to creating a product demo that shows audiences what your products make possible. Now, if you enjoyed this episode, please view our other episodes in this series and be sure to check out the blog and trailhead quick look found in the description below. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
