You have an exciting new software product that is the perfect solution for the market. You’ve set up a great marketing campaign and created a way for people to find you and become aware of your solution. Maybe you’ve got a funnel set up to make sure that you’re converting leads off of your website.
You have studied well and you know your target customers and their industry. You know that your product will solve their pain points, save them tons of time and money, and help them reach their goals. So you schedule a demo and plan to give your best presentation of your software.
This is it! You are going to close the deal.
You go all in and break down your product — every feature and every function that it’s going to perform. Half-way through the presentation, you can already feel the customer disconnecting. And in the end, they quickly send you off with a promise to get back to you.
You know what that means. There’s no deal.
So why is it that you are not selling even after giving a detailed product demo? Why do you struggle to sell a software solution even when it’s just the perfect solution for your prospects? What is it that differentiates a great demo that ends with a sale from a bad demo?
Well, you are not alone.
Many people struggle with the demo part of the sales process. And what usually happens is that many people show up at a demo and just ‘throw up their product’ all over the prospect. It’s called the feature dump.
And it’s not a good scene.
It feels bad when you’re doing it, and it’s overwhelming and uncomfortable for the prospects who have to sit through it. It’s no wonder no one wants to attend product demos anymore — even with the promise of free lunch!
So how do you create a great demo?
You have invested so much time and effort developing an amazing product, and then marketing it and creating awareness. So why not invest the same amount of time and effort in the sales process?
We know that the most important part of the software sales process is the demo. It’s what determines whether you get a deal or you don’t. So it has to be just right.
A great demo should be able to play up your buyers’ pain points and draw out their emotions so that they recognize that they need your solution in their business NOW.
So, how do you create such a demo that makes your prospects want to buy your software immediately?
A great demo is a combination of three critical parts. And that is structure, content, and delivery. You have to balance these three parts to create a successful demo. If any one of them is missing, your demo will be off.
If you only have structure and content, but no delivery, your demo is going to be pretty boring. If you have structure and delivery, but you have no content, it’s going to be very empty and ineffective. And if you only have content and delivery, but no structure, your demo will be a mess.
But if you rightly combine these three components, you are going to deliver a powerful product demo that will keep your buyers engaged, and hopefully, willing to buy at the end of the demo. This will significantly improve your close rate, driving your revenues skyward.
How to Structure an Effective Sales Demo
Here are key things that you need to remember when preparing your sales demo:
- Do your homework
Before you invite your prospects for a sales demo, you need to have done the research ahead of time. You need to thoroughly understand your prospects and their industry; their needs and challenges that your product solves, as well as the key stakeholders that you need to address in your sales pitch.
This will help you tremendously in structuring your demo in such a way that it’s relevant and tailor-made to their specific needs.
- Focus on your prospects
A lot of SaaS salespeople fall into a very common trap when doing a demo: they talk about themselves and their company way too much and forget to address the buyers’ specific issues. Others focus on describing every feature and showing every part of their software to the buyers.
That’s the wrong way to do a demo.
The truth is buyers don’t care how many awards you have won or how much you have grown as a company. They are interested in solutions.
So the best way to structure your demo is to be customer-focused. Your demo should focus on providing solutions to your prospect’s pain points and business needs. That’s why discovery is a very important step in preparing your sales demo.
- Twist the knife!
So you have done the discovery and you know your prospect inside out. With that knowledge, you then structure your demo in a way that emphasizes those problems, how they are negatively affecting their business, and how your product is the solution they’ve been looking for.
And sometimes you have to make them aware of pain points that they didn’t even know they had!
Then don’t forget to “twist the knife”. Be sure to make them feel how bad the pain points are and how much they are losing every day by not solving those problems. Once you’ve made them super aware and emotional about their pain, you can then be the hero with your solution.
Don’t be surprised if they’re just about ready to buy before you even show the product. If you’ve effectively twisted the knife and offered the solution, the buyer will likely be very eager to take your solution at this point.
Conclusion
Most buyers don’t want to sit through a pushy and salesy software demo. Also, buyers do their research and they are increasingly more informed about technology and other trends in the industry. So it’s important that your demo is properly structured, has relevant and useful content, and is delivered in a way that keeps them engaged and helps them see the value in your product.
If you do your homework and give customer-focused solution-driven demos, you will definitely double or even triple your demo close rate.
