Your Product Demo Isn’t Working. Here’s How to Fix It.

“Click here for a Product Demo!” reads your carefully placed, “call to action” on your website. You've set the stage to get in front of your customers and prospects with your killer app. You look forward to the moment to perform, when seeing becomes believing, and when customers can relate to what  you can do for them. 

Given how critical this moment is, why are we so bad at demonstrating our products? 

At Kasvaa, we have worked with hundreds of companies to create demos that convert to sales and have witnessed countless other demos - the good, the bad, the ugly. Here are a few of the lessons that we have learned from the land of ineffective demos that don’t work and frequently repel prospects.

It’s not about you

How many demos have you experienced that start with a company history? They show pictures of their offices or talk at length about their great support team. 

The problem? No one cares. 

Apple was started in Steve Jobs’ garage in Cupertino, CA. Does that inform your decision to buy your next phone or tablet? No, you are attracted to the products.

Customers have this funny way of only caring about their own problems. Why should they care about anything else? They are shilling out the gold so the “golden rule” applies here. (The one who has the gold, rules). 

Every detail, even the seemingly insignificant ones, should be oriented around the customer.

I sat in a demo where the salesperson had all the example customer accounts in the demo named after different WWE wrestling personalities. Presumably, the salesperson liked wrestling. Well I don’t care about wrestling (no offense if you do!) and I was the one buying. Wouldn’t he have been more effective if he asked me the names of my actual customers and filled them in for the example accounts? Then I would have begun to feel the software filling into my life instead of the salesperson’s.

This is the difference between buying and using. 

Your goal as a salesperson is to make the customer use the product.

A Foot Locker executive once told me that we are 24% more likely to buy a pair of shoes when the salesperson puts them in our hand and you are 68% more likely to buy when you try them on. The point is you need the customer to walk and settle into the product; to imagine their life with it.

Think of the classic demo: the car test drive. Who drives the car during the test drive? Obviously, not the salesperson! 

When we talk about buying, we talk about money... And money is stressful. That’s why a good car salesperson will ask about needs. 

“How do you plan to use the car?,” is the key question for the car salesperson. If you are a person who takes a lot of work calls from the road, they should highlight the Bluetooth and low ambient noise on calls. If you like music, they should let you crank the radio. Do you like horsepower? Punch it on the freeway. 

Each test drive should be as unique as the driver.

Why should your demo be any different? Let the customer drive. 

So how do you get your customer to drive? 

The key is not to focus on yourself, but on them. In fact, don’t even focus on your product at all. 

It’s not even about your product!

Wait, how can a product demo not be about the product? This point seems hard to process so let me say it again:

Your product demo is not about your product. 

Think of the product demo as a story. Who is the main character in any great story? It’s someone we care about because we can relate to their challenges and dreams. In your Demo Story, the main character is the person that the customer cares most about: themselves. 

But, wait, I don’t know my customer. I just know they want a demo so I need to show them the product, right? 

Wrong.

Customers need is to be understood. Show them that you understand their issues and challenges and then show them how to reach the “promised land” with your product. 

The reason that most demos fail to convert is because customers are unsure whether the product will solve their pain. 

“If you know what their primary concerns are, you can show them just enough of your product that aligns with their immediate problems and get a better result” writes, Rob Falcone in Just F*ing Demo!

Think of the famous “Got Milk” ads from the California Milk Processor Board. The product was barely shown. In fact, it was the absence of the product (milk) that was highlighted, focusing on the customer’s pain of not having a refreshing drink after a chocolate chip cookie.

Often inexperienced salespeople will spend the entire demo focused on product features and leave the customer begging for the exits. Further, most demos today are done over video conference, which creates an arms-length environment whereby a customer can easily shift attention elsewhere without the presenter being aware.

Again, the key is to focus on the pain of the customer, not your product. 

Focus on “jobs to be done” not features 

Let’s return to the “test drive” example above. 

Think of the last test drive you went on – did the salesperson talk about features  and small talk while you were driving? Most likely.

What they should be asking is, “What do you want to do with this car?”

I recently bought a Jeep Wagoneer. When I showed up on the lot, my thoughts shifted to the opening credit sequence of The Great Outdoors, the 1988 John Hughes’ comedy about a family vacation to the woods of Wisconsin. John Candy’s character drives his family through bucolic forests, blasting Yakety Yak by the Coasters. He’s driving a Jeep Grand Wagoneer. That’s what I wanted. I didn’t want the car. I yearned to listen to Doo Wop music with my kids and wife while driving through  the forest. 

So I took my whole family to test drive the car and I noticed something that sealed the deal on the car. My family piled in the car, with my wife grabbing shotgun, my oldest daughter right behind me and my youngest daughter filling out the back third row. After buckling in, she proclaimed, “I get this whole row!” As she said the words, my mind swept back to a recent road trip with my two kids crammed next to each other between our luggage. They were fighting over the space and testing my nerves somewhere on the California Central Coast. The third row! This would solve my family problem! They would never fight again! Think of the serene drives that awaited us. 

While the promise of perfect harmony may have been an illusion, I still bought the car. I did so because it helped me solve my “job to be done.” My job was to take my family on peaceful road trips. Someone else looking at the same car might have looked at the car as an offroad vehicle; a completely different reason to buy the car. Therefore, the job of the salesperson is to uncover these buyer objectives by using detailed questions.

The easiest fix to your demo is to just listen more and talk less. 

The sales support software company, Gong found that the optimal ratio of listen-to-talk is 43:57. We should be listening most of the time!

So before you dive into features, find out why the customer is sitting in front of you. Then you can focus and tailor the discussion to the pain the customer has instead of just guessing.

Speak like a (confident) human

Now that you have mastered the art of discovery and listening, let’s take a final moment to focus on style. 

It’s important to speak in a way that shows that you are your customer's peer. Don’t blow your demo with a funky salesperson voice or by using phrases that you would never use in normal conversation. Here is sales guru, Mike Weinberg in New Sales Simplified, 

“Sometimes you can detect a salesperson just by listening to the tone and cadence of the individual’s voice. This type of salesperson can cause a prospect to react like an annoyed skunk raising its tail….Practice speaking in a normal, friendly, casual, confident voice. If you can master a natural demeanor, then there’s hope your prospects will actually listen rather than shut their ears at the first sound of the sales voice.” 

Confidence goes a long way. When you know you have something of value to offer, you will feel empowered and demonstrate your product with authority and grace. 

But what happens when something goes wrong? 

Well before you demo you should seek to control the environment as much as possible. Practice multiple times and make sure it all flows and all links are functioning. 

Inevitably, though, Murphy rears his head and something goes wrong. 

This is where your confidence needs to kick in. 

I have seen so many demos implode at the first sign of technical trouble. A link doesn’t work or takes too long to load. The salesperson starts to freak out, because if the demo doesn’t work in a controlled environment, no one will ever buy it. 

Wrong. 

Think back to Point #2 above. The star in the story is not your product, it’s your customer. And the story is about their pain and you can help them solve it.

Even when something goes wrong in the demo, it does not mean your product cannot give the customer progress in solving their problems. 

If the demo is sliding off the rails, simply pause the screen share and say, “It looks like I need to adjust a few things. We’ll figure this out. In the meantime, let me jot down a few more aspects of your work that are challenging you so we can make sure to address this on a subsequent call”

If you need to reschedule the demo, that’s fine! If you adequately hear the customer’s challenges, you will have demonstrated that solving their problem is your primary concern. And that is effective communication. 

Summary and Next Steps

The keys of this article are simple. Listen to your customer’s pain and then show them how your product will give them progress against their challenges. 

• Every detail, even the seemingly insignificant ones, should be oriented around the customer.

• Show them that you understand their issues and challenges and show them how to reach the “promised land” with your product.

• The easiest fix to your demo is to just listen more and talk less. 

• Prove that solving their problem is your primary concern.

I hope you can put this to work in your demos today. 

Kasvaa Consulting specializes in helping companies connect with their customers. If your demo can benefit from an improvement, schedule a call with us here. 

Onward,

Stephen Lehtonen