One of the most underrated parts of the sales process is the demo.

Throwing s**t against the wall and seeing what sticks, hoping one of your features will be compelling enough to move them forward in the process, does not work.

This is why prospects ghost. Never to be heard from again.

You’re not in the business of selling a product. You’re in the business of solving a problem. You solve problems by first identifying where the source of pain is coming from. This the goal of the discovery (qualification) call. Do not feature dump.

If you want to close deals with predictability, it’s imperative you master the psychology of the demo.

In this issue I’m going to discuss how to structure your demo, what slides to include and how to get them to the next step.

Selling is Defined as: Identifying Pain And Empowering People to Take Action.

Let’s dive right in. Here is the cadence (flow) of what a deck should look like.

Slide 1: Your Logo + Their Logo

• Underneath your logo put your one sentence value prop

Slide 2: Current Situation

• This slide is to itemize the challenges, pain points and use cases they are looking to solve for as conveyed on the discovery. It’s the current way they’re handling the situation now.
• I frequently see founders add their bios and talk about themselves here. Don’t do this. No one cares. Unless they ask you what your background is and why you started the company than you can share that info. Prospects are interested in one thing - “How can you solve my problems, and how quickly.” That’s it.

Slide 3: Key Objectives

• You itemize what their ideal situation looks like when it comes to managing the workflow. What are their goals? Anything they’d like to improve would go on this slide.

Slide 4: Demo Layout