1.  Be clear on the Objective for the demonstration.
Ask your client their reasons for doing the demo?  Is it Technical Proof or Vision Generation. You must know what you want to accomplish before you begin and plan your demo with that objective in mind.

2.  Make sure your client is clear on the target audience’s needs.
What are the Critical Business Issues, Key Problems, or Objectives your customer wants to address with his viewers? The demo must address their audience’s business issues.  If your customer does not  know their audiences business issues, then you may need to start asking questions before scripting the demo.

3.  Show the “What” first, then follow with the “How”.
Remind your customer to give you the main things the software will do to help the audience address their key issues and make that the first thing in the demo.  Once they see that your software can potentially help them, then you can reveal how the capabilities in the software accomplish this.  If you spend a long time  telling a story to get to a final “pay-off” screen, you may find your audience has “checked-out” – and people have closed the demo before you reach the big benefit message.  Instead, show them right up-front what business problems the tools will help the audience address. 

4.  Show only the Specific Capabilities needed to address the customer’s problems.

This is not product training; it is a critical step in the sales process. Don’t show all of the file types you can open, nor all of the various search options, or formatting choices.  Stick with the directly relevant facts. You
can lose business by showing too much or making the demo too long.  Sales have been lost because “the software looked too complicated” in the eyes of the customer.

Follow these guidelines to increase the likelihood of achieving your goals with your demos.  When you do these four simple things, you should expect your audience to say, “Wow! That was a Great Demo!”

Best,