Product Demos That Sell: How to Deliver Winning SaaS Demos

by Steli Efti

demos conducted without discovering need win 73% less often in a competitive opportunity, whereas companies that tie back their demos to specific pain points are 35% more likely to win the deal.

"I want to make sure that we don't waste any of your time on a demo that doesn't answer your questions and provide you with the insights you need to make an informed decision. That's why I'm going to ask you a few questions about your interest in our software."

Ideally you want to create your own list of questions that work best for your sales needs, but here are some questions to get you started: •Why is the prospect interested in your solution? •Which objectives do they hope your product will help them achieve? •Which problems do they hope your product will help them solve? •How are they currently trying to achieve this? •What do they like most about their current approach? •What do they dislike most about their current approach? •What do they want improved? •Have they used a similar product in the past (or are they currently)? •What other products are they evaluating? •Who are the stakeholders involved in the deal? •How do they feel about your product? What are their individual objectives, objections, wants, and needs? •How are they evaluating your solution, which KPIs do they want your product to push?

Open-ended questions: These are questions which require an answer that's more than just a “yes” or a “no”. The majority of your qualifying questions should be open-ended, as they tend to elicit the most insightful responses.

Closed questions: Closed questions are questions that can be answered with either a “yes” or a “no”. During the qualification stage, they are most useful when you want to make sure that you've understood a prospect's statement correctly. Use them infrequently.

Why questions: Asking “why” will reveal a prospect's beliefs and motivations. If a prospect tells you that they need to be able to split test email campaigns, ask them why that's important to them. This might yield insights into critical business issues...

If you're demoing to end-users: •What's their workweek like? •What do they spend time on? •What are the processes they repeatedly go through? •Where are they frustrated with these processes? •What results do they want from a tool?

A problem that's especially common among so-called "veteran" sales professionals is that they accept these answers.

Developing your analysis and assessment skills is one of the most important things you can do to become more successful in sales.

“If it was completely up to you, what three things would you change about your existing system?” Then ask, “What are the three best things about your existing system?” If appropriate, ask, “What are the three things you’d like demonstrated when I come back?”

For substantial deals where you have plenty of insights into the prospects’ wants and needs, you can even create a matrix to map their needs against your features. Just rate how important each feature is for your prospect on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 = completely irrelevant, 10 = they absolutely want this and no deal will happen if this isn't fulfilled).

Qualifying is as much about learning which features you should skip, as it is about which features you should demonstrate. If a feature isn't relevant to a prospect's objectives, don't demo it.

You want to create a vision of how your solution will make their lives better, and in order to do so, you need to know what they most care about.

Once you’ve decided whether a prospect is a fit, look at it from their point of view. Why should they make time in their busy schedule for this demo? What’s in it for them? Why should they do it now? Why should they dedicate their time to you and not another vendor?

“You should buy from us because you need X, Y, and Z, and we’re the best in the world to do these things. This is going to be a real game changer for you. So there’s two ways we can proceed from here: 1) you can do this yourself and figure it out, and I’m pretty confident you’ll become a customer or 2) I’ll connect you to Kevin (the guy who has helped companies like yours to achieve X, Y and Z even faster with our software), because a 30-minute call with him will get you these results within the next five days.”

If a prospect resists at this point, ask them why. One of the most common objections is about time: they don’t want to spend half an hour on a demo.

"Rather than spending hours trying out our software and reading documentation, just spend 30 minutes attending a demo, getting answers to your questions and having a true expert help you customize the product to your specific needs and workflow."

Another common reason why people don’t want to attend a demo is that they simply don’t see the value in it. Sell them on it by clearly spelling out the value. “We’ve found that people who try our software are 35% more likely to succeed with our solution when they join a 30-minute, one-on-one demo. It’s the fastest way to figure out if our product can help you, get answers to any questions you have and start using our software in a way that’s optimized for your workflow. It’ll help you get the most out of this trial.”

Thorough preparation will help you create and deliver effective product demonstrations and improve your close rates.

Know your demo tools

Hardware

It's good to have a few lines for different scenarios prepared. There's no bonus points for being brilliant on the spot.

Do the same with your demos: experiment with different ways of presenting certain features and see what gets your prospects excited about your software.

If you can, use the kind of data your prospect would be using. This will help them make the connection between your product and their actual work routines.

Open the browser tabs, app windows, or pages you'll show your audience during the demo before the demo starts.

Decide in advance the three things you want your demo audience to remember about your product.

Before you go into a pitch, think about the three most important things you want your prospect to realize and remember about your offer.

When you’re demoing a feature, always give your prospects the big picture first. They should never watch you demo something and be unsure of its purpose.

“You’ve said that you need a better way of managing your sales pipeline, because right now it’s a mess from always manually scheduling these tasks. We’ve solved this problem for you—I can show you how to automate your pipeline management, so you won’t have to deal with manual task reminders anymore. Does that sound interesting to you?”

By doing this, you achieve three things: •You give them context for what you’re about to show them, and help them understand how they will benefit from this. •You’ve engaged them by making them speak. •You’ve confirmed that the feature you’ll demonstrate is actually relevant to them, ensuring you make the best use of the time you have with your prospect.

Reveal your capabilities in layers, in accord with the customer’s level of interest…. First, show the route to achieve the desired result with the fewest number of mouse clicks (the “Do It” pathway). This proves your capabilities and helps build a vision in your customer’s minds: they can visualize themselves using your software. Then, as your customer asks questions, you can drive deeper to show more relevant breadth of the Specific Capabilities desired (the “Peel Back the Layers” pathways). Note that the highest-ranking audience members may only need to see the “Do It” to be convinced.—Peter Cohan, strategy consultant, angel investor, and author

When you’re demoing a product, you always want to demonstrate value, not features or functionalities. Nobody cares about the features of your software—the only thing they care about is what it’ll do for them.

Start with a killer feature of your product that serves an important need for your prospect. Based upon the qualification process, you know what their pain points are, you know where they're itching.

Scratch that itch. Show them how your product resolves a major frustration or helps them achieve their objectives faster, with less effort, and more fun.

Don’t forget to paint a vivid picture in their imagination of how your product can make their lives easier and help them do their jobs better.

A real demo should start with one of the specific problems or challenges the customer or prospect said they are having. They sound more like this: ‘During our previous conversation you stated your team was having a difficult time sharing documents and collaborating was difficult. In this part of the demo we want to show you how you would be able to share documents easier and increase collaboration without breaking your current file structure and maintaining federal compliance.’—

It's important that this clearly relates to one of their main priorities. It shouldn't be a minor feature or small optimization. This is even more important if you're demoing, not to an end-user, but to someone in a managerial position. They want to see how your software can affect the big picture.

Start off by talking about something in big, general terms before you drill down into specifics. Show them what your software can do for them, then ask them: “Would you like to see how this works, or do you want to move on to the next item?”

If you've noticed while qualifying a prospect that they use certain words and phrases, use those same words and phrases later. Check out their website and see the wording they use on there. Look at previous email exchanges and study the terminology they use. Make an effort to speak their language.

Never interrupt a prospect who is asking a question.

Sales rep: “I love that you ask that question, because that’s one of the things our customers really like about our software. Now tell me, how do you want your software to handle lead assignments?” Prospect: “We’ve had this semi-automated system, and it really messed up our numbers. We found that this is one of the areas where it’s really worth manually reviewing and assigning each lead.” Sales rep: “Absolutely, you can do that with our software.”

If your software has different options for handling a certain workflow, then it’s best to first inquire what the prospect prefers. Many times your product is flexible enough to adapt to their preferred workflow, but if you make assumptions and tout one way as superior, it’s hard to step back from that.

Flipping questions is a great way to learn more about the underlying reasons for why a prospect...

"That's an interesting question. I have an idea what the answer will be, but I'm not 100% certain. Let me write this question down so I can follow up with you in a day or two about this."

Let’s say you’ve identified a problem they have, and you have the solution. What you want to do is not just show it to them, but first put it in context.

Sales rep: “So, currently your company is losing out on sales opportunities because leads are falling through the cracks. You’ve got tasks and notes and reminders in your system for hundreds of leads, and it’s just a big mess right now. None of your reps are able to consistently complete the tasks on time and follow up as planned with every lead. That sounds like you’re losing out on a lot of potential deals, right?”

you want to highlight the highlights and mark what’s memorable to ensure you have their attention when it matters the most.

When you reach that critical moment when you really want your prospect to listen, use the prospect’s name (if it’s a one-on-one demo) and pause for a second.

Tell them this is the most important thing you'll tell them today, make sure they’re listenin...

"I see this is an issue that we'll have to deal with at some point. Let me write it down so I can follow up with you after discussing this with the right person in our company."