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I agree LP. In my opinion prospects wish to get to the demo in the first 3-5 minutes and hate slides of the sales guy even if it is the CEO presenting. Show the product first and if they like it then, they have all the time in the earth to understand the details.

Beg, borrow or steal this book- Great Demo!: How To Create And Execute Stunning Software Demonstrations by Peter Cohan.

 Two things that really struck me in this book were:

1. Do the last Thing First - Pick the thing that will knock the socks off your prospects and do that first! Here someone summarizes it better than I could:

In Great Demo, Peter Cohan applies his own methodology for how to give a demo in how he writes a business book. Even though the book is nearly 300 pages, it gets directly to the main premise. Show your prospect the best part, the most valuable aspect, of your product right at the front of your demo. Cohan does this with the book as well by giving us the "punch line" on page 5, not page 205. Just after the Introduction, the author gives us the "answer" to effective software demonstrations - "Do The Last Thing First." Show them that part of the killer demo that's meant to knock their socks off; that part traditionally following the grand build up like a symphony musical. Just skip the prelude, build up and all that other stuff and show the customer what they really want to see. Then you have their attention to fill in the details because you've proven (hopefully) up front that you are relevant and worth their time. It is interesting to observe how many proven advertising schemes already have this grab `em-up-front tactic built in. This can be seen in some television and magazine ads, most trade show tables, and yes even SPAM. Great Demo addresses this human need for immediate resolution - why is this worth my time at all? - in the board room during demos.

2. Tell them what you are going to show them, show them and tell them what they just saw

Giving good demos is a great Art but is something that you can master very quickly!

In general, I've observed that Indian startups are bad at giving Demos. I've seen in 3 Headstarts, countless Startup Saturdays and last at the Nasscom Product Conclave. I also think that it all boils down to lack of preparation and not getting feedback. Even Steve Jobs apparently puts in weeks of preparation for his keynotes!

I'd agree with Peter's point of the last thing first. It doesn't have to be the "last thing". It is the aha moment of a product. This needs to be the first for it to be the hook. I'd also add that enthusiasm on stage matters a lot. Just be enthusiastic, smile and be expressive with gestures and people connect a lot.

In Jan, I had sent out a mail to all the products that were shortlisted for Headstart Jan giving them some tips on how to demo. It was a big hit and in the end we put it up on the Headstart Blog and my own blog for wider circulation. It links to some resources on the web and then gives some pointers. Here is a link.

http://adityamishra.in/2009/01/tips-for-demo/

Suresh, Nari and Aditya: Thanks for igniting session with your valuable input. Yes, we need training on how to give impressive demo and we need lots and lots of opportunities to demonstrate. Then, we will be great in showing our value to the world.

The tips could not come at a better time. I'm presenting my solution to a potential customer tomorrow and I have already changed my strategy.

Will keep you guys posted on the results of tomorrows demo.

The most important challenge tomorrow is getting access passes for the venue and my demo kit as its a tightly secured area. It requires a few approvals before I can get these through. Lobbying hard for approvals from authorities today.

One good thing to have is some friends inside the organisation, make sure you dont focus all your energy on entertaining the big bosses. Its equally important to be friends with the system administrator or the team leads in the organisation.

1. Demo is to give time to user to decide how soon he can integrate to his process

2. Intention is to keep his thought process consistent to your processes

3. Due to heavy poverty. demo providers fall short in india

4. Understanding clients time constraints and his motivation to take responsibility for something new.

5. So rule should be given an intergration demo  instead of product or service or just demo

6. every demo should be given on a FOS service for the SAAP provider any achievment will be charged at undersigned limits incase of success.

from gyaan sagar industries 

industry limitas range from maximum in recruitment(90 days) to real-time

3-month (2 salaries from client as investment) 1 month to understand relations

focus on the dvuaa of the demo and it will turn to dvaa {(problem getting all stakeholders to have common dvuaa) by adminstering your dvaa properly. 

Having the same problem... but understanding of above will surely help..... let me know

build experiance of stakholders along a time based on experiance or you will get a reality check displaying neguitive performance

so ... what i get is if the experiance is what the expectation was... then you need tiome to plan an experiance... which means tigt scheduling... read my reply to this combine it whith this response

value your experiance through your thoughts to add to our db

gautam

Let me know if my posts were igniting or ignored

Define your

1. Intention

2. Purpose

3. id, ego, me or self

4.  stake  holder will benifit from your actions

if the result in point 5. that you can fight for then the client should be yours soon

your advantages are currently your disadvantages

count your strengths properly

Have given my gyaan to all posts I though I could help in

To give a link to whose input i am refrenig to is not dispayed

So no one will know who I am talking to, but fit it togeather if you have the chance

I will add to it, let me know if the discussion was kindeled or i was on the wrong page

If anyone knows Avinash the web admin pls ask him to show some kind of acceptance of connection

... will be back...

Sorry to say this, you are off track Gautam!

My poor brain is not able to follow your posts. Also the group here would appreciate if you can post a comment and wait for others to respond. At times it is ok to post an immediate follow-up post, that is fine. But, 5 continuous post doesn't help! Unless you are doing a white paper like series like what 'Nari Kannan' did on the topic of VC.

Take Care!

OK. Noted

1. Used within a topic created by one person people post their replies.

2. When A topic has been entered with multiple perspectives by users

3. Then one clicks the link under that post to reply to that section it self.

4. I replied to the ones i thought i could contribute, but they all lined up togeather.

... so the five posts togeather are for various people in thediscussion....

tell me what you dont get... I will explain...

I had to stick to the traditional way of demos since the customer insisted that I give a overview first. But following everyones advice here, I kept it quite short.

The result was quite good but need to better my demo and think on how I could counter some of the last minute technical glitches. I think I need to buy some more gear to support the demo and create some fallback plans incase of such technical problems onsite.

This was my first product demo for a large enterprise and I think I did pretty well for that :) Thanks to everyone on the forum for their tips, please keep them coming.

Biju,

I am really happy that you took time to come back and update us. Excellent community spirit. Thanks a lot.

Suresh

In my experience of doing hundreds of demos and presentations in multiple companies, one thing I have learned is that "Read and absorb all advice but tailor a best approach on your own".

Motherhood and Apple Pie advice is good to listen to but reality intrudes quite often! One of the major mistakes all advice books and columnists make is that they assume that the audience is homogeneous!

It rarely never is!

In Technology Demos and Presentations, you will always have technical guys and business/operational guys.

If you start out with the jazz, the best demo aspects, etc, there will be two technical guys piping up and asking some fundamental technology questions like "can you describe the underlying architecture".

If you start with the technology end, you would have lost the business guys who are sitting there thinking" what does it have to do with me? I just  need the #$#$#%g reports!"

That's where a round of introductions if possible all around the room is good. You can get a sense of how you want to tilt the demo/presentation. If everybody is business folks, start with the jazz, end results stuff. If you think there are too many of the nuts and bolts people, start with the background stuff and then go to the demo.

Also what is being demoed varies from simple consumer oriented stuff to deep enterprise software. So the Steve Jobs approach of making a whole show of the presentation itself works if he presenting the latest thinnest apple mac in the world or a new ipod variant. If it is SOA middleware software, then the approach may need to be different.

Who said all of this stuff was easy?  

Thank all of you for adding value to this thread. Nari, you are right on the technology vs operation people thinking. Sometime, I find it little easier to give demo to the operation team.

Technology people sometime ask things like where the files are stored while the operation people ask things like how it is secured, communicated, accessed or tracked. Sometime you see technology person who can understand the business process very well. Then giving demo will be lot easier.

I have seen cases where the people say "it is like that and it is like this and why do I need your tool etc.," after seeing just 5% of the tool. Hence it is vital to develop patience and show the demo to the end. Then you will see the change in behavior or response of the people.

How do you respond to these behaviours?

The prospect explain the need at a very high level. You have a very comprehensive solution and it will take a very long time to show all. You feel that the need is little vague and too generalized and you want to discuss further to know more about their priorities and requirements in details. But the prospect say that just show me the demo, I will pick what I want.

Completely agree with Nari on this. The post I had written was for a on stage/in booth demo at a conference. When you're in front of a customer, the dynamics completely change. There is the usual technical vs business divide and sometimes even different parts of the business. Furthermore, questions can go deeper and the audience is well informed - maybe they've even seen your competition or use a similar software already.

I think that the first thing that one needs to be clear about is the intention of the demo. If you're on stage, the intention is to create a buzz. If you're in booth the intention is to generate leads. If you're in front of a qualified customer, the intention is to uncover the details of their needs through their questions and objections and to establish a functionality match.

Second, one needs to know in advance who would be there in the meeting and their relative importance to the decision. Thereafter, one needs to communicate the agenda that caters to the more important people first. So if its the business people who matter more (usually the case), demo the front end first and take questions. People from tech will ask questions and should be answered in brief before assuring them that the demo will turn to those parts later. Do note the question in a notepad so that they see it.

Third, get to the Aha moment quickly. This doesn't change no matter where the demo is. In a customer demo, people have come to actually see that the "aha" is indeed there. It is this promise of the product that got you the meeting in the first place!

Fourth, ask the customer for the conference room some time before the actual demo. This time is useful for setup and a mock run. Some times the client people will walk in as well even though meeting hasn't started and they would need to be engaged. For example, in a meeting earlier this week we booked the room an hour before the demo. This allowed us to test the link, the webex set up etc. We had a few anxious moments as a server crashed and we lost the webex session minutes before the scheduled start. Server restart and starting a new webex session took a bit of time but in all we were ready before most of the people got together. To add to all this the client CIO walked in during the set up time and one of us had to engage him while others carried out the set up.

Fifth, address the questions that were not completely answered but written down for detailed answer later.

Finally, do have a closing note at the end of the demo. This usually consists of your summary of questions and objections that the customer raised and a question to them about what is important or a priortisation. Once the customer responds, the important aspects need to be addressed - we'll give you details on mail, its in next version, its not really important because the same issue is addressed differently, its there but we didn't explain well etc. And then the next steps need to be decided. I know that this step sounds very obvious but I've seen and heard many cases, where the vendor ended up spinning wheels and going nowhere because he didn't realise at the end of the demo that he had already lost the customer or that he didn't understand what was important for the customer.

Having said all this, nothing works better than actually getting in front of the customers a few times and learning how it works for your product/offering.

@Lakshman

You probably have a prospect who needs to be educated rather than be shown the demo. Ask him what benefits he wants to achieve and help him understand how certain features of your product would help him in achieving his target. That becomes the promise of the Aha moment. Also ask him who are the likely users and if you could take in their views to make sure that the time they are investing into the demo is well utilised. Again ask the users what they want. A crucial thing to note is that benefit is a broad term and means different things for different people. Benefit for a CXO could mean something in money terms over a few years while for the user it could mean getting rid of some of everyday frustrations.

"needs to be educated rather than be shown the demo" - Yes, I agree we call it consultative selling. It works very well if we speak to the right person who will directly benefit (who is not a technologist). Educating the IT people on the new kind of enterprise solution, doesn't work very well all the time.

As I have already mentioned, some IT people are extremely good.