A recap of Sean Murphy’s presentation on the Great Demo methodology at the Cofounder Club on Wed-Apr-16-2014.
Recap of “How To Give a Great Demo” at CoFounder Club Wed-Apr-16-2014
I had a nice time at last night’s Cofounder Club. Dea Wilson, founder of Lifograph, invited me to talk about “Giving a Killer Demo.” We had a lively discussion upstairs at Procopio: starting with some introductions and then short demos by the attendees, then I gave a formal recap of the Great Demo methodology and how to apply it.
The key to a Great Demo is to “Do the Last Thing First” and get to the point immediately about the critical results that your software will deliver to the prospect. This is counter to many entrepreneur’s inclination to build up to a big finish after 15 or 30 minutes or longer.
But by starting with a illustration of the key deliverable and then demonstrating in as few steps as possible how to achieve this result, you ensure that senior decision makers are still in the room when you get to the “Ta Da!” They can ask questions about other capabilities that they are interested in or start a conversation about how they can get started.
The second most important element of a Great Demo is appropriate preparation and a specific and detailed understanding of your prospect’s situation:
- Job Title and Industry: this provides a context for understanding how they are measured, likely objectives, and what examples or illustrations may be relevant.
- Critical Business Issue: What is the major problem he/she has?
- Reasons: Why is it a problem or what is the problem due to?
- Specific Capabilities: What capabilities are needed to address the problem?
- Delta: What is the value associated with making the change?
- Date: Is there a customer critical date or event that needs to be met?

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