3 Actionable Tips SEs can Use to Create Winning Demos Today
Want to create more winning demos? As an SE, you’ve already got the basics down. But these three (slightly controversial) tips can increase your win rate even more – let’s dive in!
1. Start with a relevant story
You know that storytelling is an essential component of successful demos. But the key word here is relevant.
SaaS sales have passed the point where you can give demos by only showing your product—you need to also communicate a personalized and relevant story to your buyer. You also can’t have one master demo environment – that doesn’t work anymore. Instead, focus on creating different demos that cater to specific industries, roles, and so on.
But the most important focus should be on where they are in the customer journey. You need to have demos that respect the buyer’s understanding of your product.
Giving the same demo to someone who has just heard the term “demo creation platform” for the first time, and the person who has spent two weeks researching all the options and use cases on the market simply isn’t going to get you to close deals anymore.
2. Show cool product features
A controversial tip but one that works – show your prospects your coolest features! The reigning conventional wisdom right now goes something like this: “Never show features – show value.” And while those aimless feature-packed demos of the past don’t work either, you need to adapt to today’s buyers.
Prospects right now are often highly educated about your industry and product before they hop on their first sales call to see a demo. So the value your tech provides is probably something they’ve already thought of, and even researched on their own. Your value proposition is not the only thing prospects want to hear about on a live sales demo.
And since we now live in a world where everybody is on Zoom calls all day, they want to experience something cool once in a while! Show that to them in your demo. Your product is awesome – show it off a little.
3. A/B test your interactive demo
One great thing about the world we live in today is that we now have the capability to put a demo into a prospect’s hands and see exactly how they interact with it. But these days, using demo software like Reprise means you can share interactive demos by sending a guided product tour after a sales call, or putting one on your website for prospects to interact with when they have time.
And those demo analytics mean you can also check out how they use the product when they’re thinking about buying. We’ve long been able to see how customers use the product itself, but what customers do and what prospects do is often totally different.
You might dig into the data and find out that your prospects tend to skip right to step 5 – now you can adjust the demo script for that use case or persona accordingly and get a better experience for everyone.
This ability to test and get great data is super exciting for the presales industry – it’s going to be a game-changer. Before, we were totally reliant on improvising in the moment during demos. But now, you can create repeatability in the demo process and so you can truly scale.
