Theyâre generic, rather than personalized. They focus on the vendor and ignore the buyer. Theyâre one-way presentations, not lively conversations.
ââWe closed a $50 million funding round last year so youâre in good hands.â
âYeah, I signed Acme Corp and Wayne Enterprises. Theyâve been really happy with our service.â
You know, that sort of thing. And thatâs not to put reps on blast. The reality is, running a great demo is tough. Itâs much easier to list off features and functionality than drill down into a buyerâs underlying wants, needs, and challenges.
Other times, sales reps are working from half-baked demo scripts. Unless they have a sure-fire replacement, theyâre not going to rip up what they have and start again.
To find out what it takes to deliver world-class demos, we interviewed revenue experts at three leading sales orgs: Rattle, Gong, and GetAccept. They shared not just their demo frameworks, but also insights into why they work.
Ranjay Matharu sells sales software to salespeople. When youâre selling a sales tool (Rattle is a CRM-to-Slack automation tool) to sales and revenue operations leaders, nothing short of an exceptional demonstration will do.
Hereâs the high-level structure:
Letâs take a look at each of Rattleâs steps in more detail.
Most sales organizations split qualification and product demos into separate meetings. SDRs usually run the former and AEs handle the latter. But Ranjay does things a little differently.
âAs long as you can get the right information during discovery, I think you should do qualification and show the product,â he explains. âAsking and answering questions for 45 minutes is exhausting. Show them something. Get them excited.â
Thatâs why his demo calls include a dedicated qualification section at the top. To make sure he gets all the information he needs, Ranjay uses the SPICED framework from go-to-market consultancy, Winning by Design.
But this demo structure doesnât rely on SPICED. You can have just as productive a conversation using BANT, MEDDPICC, FAINT, or another jumble of letters.
The single most important thing is that you use your qualification questions to understand why someone is on the call. What are their pain points? What challenges are they facing? What goals and objectives do they have?
Understanding that is the secret sauce to a good demo because it reveals what buyers care about and therefore what you should show them.
Immediately after qualification, Ranjay pulls up a sales deck. Itâs his way of framing the upcoming product demo. It establishes the problem, quantifies the risks of doing nothing, and shines a spotlight on the solution.
While a useful tool, sales decks can also go really wrong. The difference between an amazing presentation and a tedious PowerPoint is razor-thin. To keep his prospects engaged, Ranjay cut all extraneous content, leaving just the essentials of a great story.
He starts with the problem.
Then he agitates the pain.
Finally, he presents the solution.
By the end of the deck, Ranjay wants his prospects chomping at the bit to see his product. Thatâs when he fires up a screen share and opens Rattle.
(When I said sales decks are tough to get right, I meant it. For some inspiration, check out Zuoraâs deckâoften called the âbest sales deck everâand this teardown by strategic narrative consultant Andy Raskin.)
Although itâs a relatively simple product, Rattle has hundredsâpossibly even thousandsâof use cases. Reps canât prepare engaging stories for all of them. Ranjayâs solution was to analyze Rattleâs product usage and rank use cases by popularity. He discovered his customers were using a handful of applications far more than others.
These became his demo use cases and he crafted a compelling way to showcase each one. All his stories follow the same rough outline.
[Problem acknowledgment] âYou mentioned that forecasting is a huge issue.â
[Product solution] âLet me show you how Rattle can solve that.â
[Buyer feedback] âCould you see yourself using this to impact accurate forecasting?â
Rattleâs sales reps know all five stories like the back of their hand. While they can reel off each one without even thinking, the trick is knowing what stories to tell.
âThe most important thing is to show the most relevant use case based on your qualification,â says Ranjay. âIf you donât, theyâre gonna tune out.â
Thatâs where everything you learned during qualification comes in. Often, reps default to features they think are cool. But what you need to do is open your demo with the use case most relevant to your buyerâeven if you personally find it boring.
Before hanging up, Ranjay always sets next steps with his buyer. For most of his deals, there are two options available:
Setting up an extended trial is Ranjayâs default. Seeing the product is one thing, he says. Experiencing it first-hand is something else entirely.
However, heâs aware that not every prospect will be bought in enough to progress to a trial. Perhaps the buyer wasnât convinced by what they saw. Maybe they need to bring in other stakeholders. In these situations, Ranjay pushes for another demo with a wider group of stakeholders.
Whether youâre building your first sales process or overhauling an existing one, these Nutshell-approved templates will give you a great head-start.
Gong doesnât really do boring. That extends to their demo scripts, too. Itâs upside-down and packed with smart psychology to educate prospects without lecturing them.
Hereâs the framework:
According to Jonathan Costet, senior growth marketing manager at the revenue intelligence platform, all great demos start with a contextual overview.
Even the best demo falls apart without context. Youâve got to establish what youâre talking about and (perhaps more importantly) why youâre talking about it.
Through the first 10 minutes, youâve got three key objectives:
Although sellers are taught to focus on benefits, Jonathan encourages people to switch their focus to losses. You see, negativity bias means people respond far more strongly to possible losses than potential gains.
One of Gongâs features is automating low-impact tasks. The benefits-focused pitch would be: âYouâll have more time to dedicate to other projects.â Good, but not that emotive. Now consider the loss-focused pitch: âYouâll stop wasting time doing repetitive tasks that are easy to automate.â
Can you feel the difference?
Context-setting isnât all that revolutionary. But Jonathanâs second act is. Most demos build to a crescendo. They start small and escalate to the buyerâs most agonizing pain point. That makes senseâŠin theory.
But thatâs not how it works in real-life.
If you start with something small and minor, your buyers will switch off. Theyâll pull up Slack or check emails on their phone. By the time you get to your big reveal, youâll have lost them.
Thatâs why Jonathan advocates for the âupside-downâ demo.
He puts his buyerâs biggest pain point right at the start.
âWe came to this framework after analyzing 67,149 sales demos,â he says. âWhile a lot of it might feel counterintuitiveâlike not ramping up your sales demoâit’s the best way to keep the conversation engaging and boost win rates.â
Rep: During our first call you told me you were struggling with [Problem #1]. Is that right?
Prospect: Yes, thatâs right.
Rep: Got it! Let me show you how our solution can help.
If you align your demo with your buyerâs pain points from the first minute, youâll be miles ahead of your competitors.
Okay, you like your logo slide. Each company name represents a big win. But your buyers probably donât care that you sold Microsoft or GE. Indeed, getting social proof wrong can be costly. According to Gong, misusing social proof tactics drops your close rate by 22%.
The point here isnât that social proof is bad. You just have to be careful about it. The trick is to tell before-and-after stories from comparable companiesâsame size, vertical, goals, and so on.
Hereâs a sample story:
Acme Corp [Customer] needed to automate low-value tasks for their sales reps and build a scalable sales process [Objective]. They rolled out our platform and built automations to handle data entry, information sharing, and research [Solution], allowing them to increase active selling time by 40% [Benefit]. Currently, their sales team is generating 25% more leads [Benefit] and 30% more revenue than before [Benefit].
The difference between this and a logo slide is immense. Before-and-after stories show the journey and improvement. They build credibility through othersâ success and convince prospects that they can achieve the same.
So drop your logos and start telling stories.
Most successful demos are around 45 minutes long. Thatâs not a lot of time to exhaustively demonstrate a product. Instead of delivering a surface-level look at everything, Jonathan suggests reps slow down and go deeper on a handful of use cases.
When demoing anything, your goal is to identify your prospectâs pain points and explore how your product or service could help. Here, Jonathan uses open-ended questions and statements to kickstart deeper discussion.
Drop general questions at any point in the demo:
Or use a feature-specific question to prompt a response to particular functionality:
Bring things back to your prospectâs objectives with goal-focused questions:
Asking probing questions during your demo allows you to home in on your buyerâs most important pain points. When you do that, you can turn a generic demo into a highly personalized experience.
The purpose of a demo isnât to get a signature. That comes later. According to analysts at Gartner, great demos achieve two key objectives:
Once youâve achieved those aims, itâs time to wrap things up. But thatâs not the end of the demo just yet. High-performing reps always set next steps. They never let a conversation peter out with a vague, âSee you later.â
Do you have your calendar in front of you? Perfect, Iâll send the invitation nowâŠdid you get it?
How does [date and time] look for you? Is there anyone else we should include at this point in the discussion?
As a next step, Iâd suggest [next step]. Does that sound good? When works best for you early next week?
Your optimal next step depends entirely on your sales process. It could be a technical discovery, executive stakeholder sync, or contract negotiations. The most important part is that you book your next step before you hang up.
Madison Simon was GetAcceptâs first sales hire. Working closely with Vice President of Growth, Dailius Wilson, she helped build GetAcceptâs sales motion. It was an intense experience.
âHe put me into the fire a lot,â Madison laughs. âBut I learned a lot through doing. He taught me a lot of his own methodologies so theyâre not processes that youâll find on Google.â
GetAcceptâs demo structure is one of those unique systems.
Check out the overview:
Composed of just three parts, it might look simple, but thereâs a lot of flexibility for reactive personalization and adaptation.
Hereâs how it works.
Before prospects make it to GetAcceptâs AEs, theyâve already gone through a basic qualification run by an SDR.
âItâs a checklist of five things to make sure theyâre qualified for a meeting,â explains Madison. It covers things like company size, decision-maker status, and tech stack integration.
The basic qualification leaves a lot of questions unanswered so Madison spends the first half of her demo calls exploring the dealâs context. She uses a custom qualification framework created by Dailius combined with a couple of tweaks of her own.
The discovery part of the call isnât just simple fact-finding. Madison uses each question as an opportunity to introduce and position GetAccept. If she asks about a pain point, sheâll hint at how her product can help solve it. If a prospect mentions timeline, sheâll assure them GetAccept has an efficient implementation strategy.
Sheâs also borrowed a particularly effective oratory technique from political speech writing.
âI dig into my prospectâs pains and their ideal state, and constantly go back and forth,â she explains. âThese are your challenges, but where would you like to be? These are your pain points, but what are your goals for this year? I constantly toggle between the pains and future states.â
Flicking between the negative status quo and the positive future amplifies both experiences. It makes the status quo feel worse and the solution seem better. Itâs incredibly effective in motivating buyers.
There are two parts to GetAcceptâs product demo: end state and explanation. In the first, Madison immediately showcases the result of implementation. Like Ranjay at Rattle, she has a handful of pre-scripted use cases and uses her earlier qualification to select the most relevant.
âWhen I send someone the pre-meeting agenda, I use our product to send it,â Madison says. âWhen I meet with them, I use what I sent them as an example. I say, âYou got this pre-meeting agenda, some information, and a video. What did you think of that? This is what your customers would experience.ââ
Itâs like jumping straight to the, âSo what?â It shines a spotlight on the benefits like internal efficiency gains and improved customer experience. When a buyerâs eyes light up, Madison doubles down with a back-end explanation, pulling up GetAccept and walking through how she made the magic happen.
Itâs a simple but impactful structure.
GetAcceptâs deals typically feature two demos. While reps try to tailor the first demo to their qualification, itâs still relatively generic. What comes next is a fully personalized product demo.
âI take their documentation, logos, and colors, and I brand the platform,â Madison explains. âI put their content in it. I will embed some videos theyâve posted. I pretend Iâm an AE at their company and run my sales process as if I were their teammate.â
To keep prospects on the hook, Madison sets them action items ahead of the second demo: collect sales collateral, send some example pieces of content, or share their brand toolkit. It makes the next stage a shared responsibility.
It also weeds out the time-wasters. If someoneâs not willing to dig out a couple of pieces of sales collateral, are they really going to convert? Probably not.
All three demo frameworks weâve talked about rely heavily on storytelling. But there arenât many reps who can spin a yarn like Stephen King. Telling good stories is hard.
Thankfully, Outreachâs Andrew Mewborn has some advice.
But before we talk about stories, letâs rewind a bit. Because great product storytelling needs great product marketing.
Take your product or serviceâs top three value propositions and identify three features associated with each value proposition. And then describe the benefits connected to each feature.
Hereâs his example for one of Outreachâs value propositions.
Your next step is to write the stories for each feature. Your goal is to illustrate the value proposition and highlight the benefits without sounding salesy.
To do that, Andrew uses a seven-sentence framework:
If youâve ever taken a creative writing course, youâll recognize steps one through six as Pixarâs fourth rule of storytelling. (Andrew added the seventh sentence himself.) If itâs good enough for WALL-E and Toy Story, itâs good enough for your sales demo.
Hereâs what the storytelling framework looks like when you fill it out for Outreachâs sequences feature.
Repeat this process for every feature and youâll end up with nine awesome product narratives. Depending on what your prospect cares about, you can chop and change which ones you use during your demo.
Are you falling off your prospects’ radars? With Nutshell’s personal email sequences, we’ll remember the follow-up for you.
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