In my view, a demo should talk directly to the persona you are dealing with. This means you need to tailor the flow to address that persona’s key challenges, needs, and the situation they live in.

I am not a big fan of super-scripted demos. Every salesperson or sales engineer will have their own way of presenting the story, so I like to focus more on the key value proposition I want to make sure it gets clearly articulated at different points.

Some may see a product demo as the opportunity to tell the prospect everything that there is to know about the product they are pitching, and that’s when you get into an hour-long boring session where the prospect just says “ok thank you for the demo, we’ll be in touch” and you never hear from them again! A good demo will focus on what is important for that prospect and the personas represented in the meeting while pulling them into the story and facilitate a conversation.

When thinking about demo flow, make sure to:

• Build a story: what is this demo about? Who is the main character, what are the challenges we are trying to solve, and what is the end result?
• Create story hooks: these are moments you want to pause and ask the prospect about their opinion or to give them a moment to talk about their own challenges and how they related to what was shown.
• Don’t boil the ocean: it is better to have them wanting to see more details about a specific product area than trying to show every little feature.
• Make it about them: a demo disconnected from the prospect’s reality will fall flat. If you can’t use data that is related to the prospect’s own industry or situation, make sure to address their needs and situation by drawing parallels and similar examples.