Who Actually NEEDS a Demo?

The Demo. It's the Holy Grail of a lot of software sales cycles. If we can just get people on a demo, they'll realize they need precisely what we have and buy it?

But is that really true?

I mean, your numbers will tell you.

Of the demos that you schedule, how many people are converting?

ESPECIALLY if you're focusing on giving demos at the BEGINNING of a relationship with a prospect (in the marketing funnel, or as a first meeting from a sales perspective).

When demos lead the sales and marketing funnel, you have to give a LOT of demos...to a LOT of people who are only minimally interested in what you're demonstrating. That's a LOT of time you're paying your team for that's never going to turn into revenue.

Now, I'm not saying a demo doesn't have a PLACE in the sales cycle. But WHERE is it's place? Let's explore what this looks like for our friends in B2B tech orgs.

Who NEEDS a Demo?

Often, when we have a cool technology, we want to show it off to everyone! This is the next big thing! So everyone wants to see it right?

And we go to market with that strategy.

Let's get as MANY demos as possible on the calendar.

But it doesn't actually make sense. Especially if you end up booking a lot of demos but people don't show up. Or if you end up giving a lot of demos to people who don't really care.

HUGE waste of time.

You might think it's creating "brand awareness".

But tell me this...how many things have been demonstrated to YOU, that you didn't care about, and your brain hasn't retained at all.

THAT'S👆 what's happening.

People have seen it. But they don't remember it. Because they didn't care coming into it.

So, how do we make people care?

Hint: It's not by bombarding them with ads.

Getting to Know People

What do we need to know about someone to make sure that giving them a demo makes sense?

And...GO!

Oh, you've never explored that?

This is what Discovery is all about.

Learning about people.

Getting to know them.

So you know how to serve them.

When we're focused on creating templated demos, we're not doing any of these activities. Plus, if your (good) sales reps are doing these things and THEN have to give people a generic demo, well...that breaks the experience too.

If you haven't bothered to invest in a person enough to know they could benefit from a demo, why would they bother to invest enough in you to remember it?

At the end of the day, this ISN'T about how many demo's you can give. I would actually say, the FEWER demos you give, while meeting your revenue goals, would be ideal.

A New Way to Demo

What if, heaven forbid, we ONLY gave a demo when someone requested a demo. And not because an ad they saw brought them to a landing page that allowed them to request a demo. But because, in conversation with us, they were curious enough to ask for for?

WHOA, what?

Yes!

What if, we didn't OFFER people demos freely? What if they had to ask a person for one?

We'd never do any then, Tracy!

Really? Do you know that?

You would definitely do LESS of them. But you would also ONLY do them for people who were interested in paying attention.

Plus, what if those demos were 100% LIVE?

Not pre-recorded. But a 100% live walk-though of specific functionality THAT person wanted to see.

But then fewer people could DO the demos, because they would have to know the software, inside out.

Yup, true. But you wouldn't need as many people DOING demos because less of them would be required. AND they would be well within a sales process at that point, which means, bringing in technical resources makes more sense.

Serving Intentional Demos

Here's the key principle here.

Demos are a CLOSER. Not an OPENER. Especially for complex systems.

Now, if you're selling your software B2C, sure it probably makes sense for you to have a pre-recorded demo that people can check out on your website. Showing basic functionality that everyone will use the same.

But if you're selling complex B2B solutions, foundational pieces for tech, or digital transformation platforms, how can you even create a single demo that accomplishes the level of knowledge people need to see if this is the solution to their problem (which you don't even know, because you haven't asked them yet)?

There are definitely times when a demo makes sense. And there are definitely times when it DOESN'T make sense. So make sure yours is in a place in your marketing and sales funnel that actually HELPS people move through the funnel.

And if you need some help with that, let's chat.