Brian LaMannaAE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 7x President’s Club

Stop losing control of your demos

9 Feb 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:23

In this short instructional video, Brian LaManna shares three practical tactics to keep sales demos and executive presentations under control and focused on the prospect’s goals. He first advises setting the stage early by explicitly stating that the demo will concentrate on the prospect’s top priority outcomes, thereby limiting scope. Second, he recommends a "reversing" technique: when a prospect asks to see a random feature, the presenter asks what the prospect hopes to achieve with that feature, turning the request into a discovery question that can be tailored to the prospect’s needs. Third, he suggests a quid‑pro‑quo approach, offering a quick look at a requested item in exchange for a commitment to discuss next steps within a set time frame. The video ends with a call for viewers to share their own methods for maintaining demo control.

Chapters

I used to lose control of some of my demos. They would ask can we just jump into the demo? Or Brian, can you click on that tab right there real quick? Before you know it, you're bouncing around features, harbor touring without tying anything back to their goals. It turns into a product walkthrough instead of a solution focused conversation so here's a few ways that I keep control. Number one is setting the stage early. At the start, I explain why we'll focus on only the areas that solve their top priority and I'll share something like hey, the best part about our solution is how much it can do. But that's also the worst part. I'm going to focus most today on how you'd use it to solve XYZ outcome. The second way is by leveraging reversing. So when they ask to see a random feature, I don't just say no, but I want to learn more. First I'll say something like hey, I'm happy to dive into that. Quick question, what are you hoping to see there that will help me tailor this for you? Third, the quid pro quo. Match any small give with a get on the receiving end. I'll share something like no problem. We can jump into that knowing we have just 15 minutes left. Is it cool if we carve out time to discuss next steps following that? Would love to hear from you in the comments. Any way you've learned to keep control in your demo and executive presentations, let me know.