Just F*ing Demo!: Tactics for Leading Kickass Product Demos by Jim Falcone
INTRODUCTION
- Stop trying to deliver the perfect demo for [your] product and started trying to deliver the perfect demo for [your] audience
- [You mainly want to a deliver solution-centered,] “center-of-mass” demos. [However,] there is also a place for more nuanced demos for end users, what I call “button pushing demos.”
1. HELP SET A GREAT AGENDA: YOU-THEY-YOU
- A good agenda is the key to all good product demos. You are leading them down the path of [what YOU need to cover] as it relates to [what THEY say they need to learn] so that [YOU get what you want].
2. THE 5 MINUTE DISCOVERY
- Before determining what YOU are going to demo or what YOU want from the conversation, you first need to uncover what THEY care about.
- The 5 Minute Discovery, which consists of asking questions that get you these critical pieces of information:
- Present: What are the challenges they’ve been facing?
- Future: What are the outcomes they are looking to drive?
- Preference: Do they have any specific requirements on how they get there? How do they judge the effectiveness of a solution for delivering on those?
- Five minutes of discovery can be enough to get you a great first step but it’s NOT enough. You will need to gather more information, specifically on the pain points the audience is looking to solve and the economic value of doing so, over the coming days / weeks / months.
3. FAST FORWARD TO THE OUTCOMES YOU CREATE
- Anyone interested in your product is not interested because of your state-of-the-art features; they’re interested because of the outcome it creates.
- I begin my demos at the end. You can show, in stark contrast, the outcomes (the challenge / solution or goal / accomplishments) that your product makes possible.
4. MACRO TO MICRO: DEMO USING IMAGINARY BUCKETS
- Take great care in being very deliberate about letting them know what you are showing, and why it matters based on what THEY care about.
- Pick out only the features of your product that would help solve the problems you learned in discovery and put them into the imaginary buckets, with the high-level features going into the largest bucket, and the more nuanced features being placed in the smaller buckets.
- As you arrive at each bucket, you will:
- Tell the audience what is in the bucket you are about to show them
- Show them the contents of the bucket
- Summarize why you put the contents in the bucket for them
5. LET’S GET IN THE WEEDS-DEMO TACTICS
- Manage the time during your demo by shifting and removing buckets.
- Great demos are conversations that uncover the audience’s challenges and goals, and highlight how your product can help achieve them.
- Three types of questions:
- Open-ended questions that get the audience talking
- Point questions to maximize effect: It seems that you guys do not have this ability today, is that accurate? And your team feels it is costing you time and money?
- Response questions (when the audience asks you a question): ex: Well, tell me, are there specific locations you’d like to push content to?
- Minimize Clicks
- To your audience, features that are complex appear… complex and overwhelming
- Pre-load screens that take multiple clicks to reach
- You vs We: Don’t say things like: “We can… “ or “This feature will… “ or “What our product does here is…” Instead, walk through your demo showcasing how your audience can use it to create their desired outcomes, with words such as: “Using our product, you can…” or “This feature will allow you to…” or “You would simply…” or “Our current clients achieve this by…”
- Use Their Vernacular
- Competitive Differentiation
- In nearly every demo, you will be asked “ How are you guys different than [insert competitor]. °
- When attempting to competitively differentiate, always go back to the THEY in YOU-THEY-YOU.
- “What I’ve heard from folks in the market is that the main difference between us is [insert difference]; in spelling out the differences, I’ll pivot back to the components of my product that: (a) Create the outcomes the audience is looking for (b) Which are truly differentiated from the competition (c) Which I can back up with proof in the form of references or case studies (d) Which I can use to start asking trap setting questions about my competitors in these same areas.
- Take notes (visibly)
- I make it a point to leave a beat of silence after my audience finishes speaking.
6. CLOSING THE DEMO
- YOU: Quickly summarizing what you showed
- THEY: Asking if they learned what they needed to
- YOU: Suggesting the next step
7. LOVE WHAT YOU DO
- People are [not only] buying the outcome your product creates, but also very much buying YOU.