Product Bistro: Demo in 5 Clicks or Less

As a companion to my last post about Mitchells' Rules of Demos, there's another learning I've had about giving product demos. You will give a much better demo if you can demo your product in 5 mouse clicks or less. (Assuming your product has a GUI interface.)

I was once doing some sales training with some very talented and capable sales team members. During the training, one sales person stated that the product had so much in it they were struggling to learn everything the product did. They didn't know which buttons to click on or not when giving a product demo. "Do you begin in the configuration section? Should you jump right in to the [blah] section of the product? What do you like to do, Mitchell?" were the questions.

My response was, "You're probably giving the wrong demo if you are clicking on tons of stuff. You can give a great demo by just clicking on just a very few things." Everyone in the training session looked at me like I had asparagus sticking out of my ears and hollandaise sauce running down my head.

The principle behind my thinking is that clicking on lots of stuff means you are probably getting lost in the product details, likely giving a functional decomposition demo, and not focusing on how the customer's problems can be solved with what you have to offer.

So after some more of the hollandaise sauce dripped off my head (metaphorically speaking), on the fly I responded, "Let me demonstrate. How many clicks will you give me to demo our product?" The questioning sales person said, "Ten."

Since I like a challenge, I said, "Well, I can actually do it in zero clicks, but I'll do it in five." Everyone laughed an uncomfortable laugh, like when a lightweight wrestler says he can pin the heavyweight guy in one round. "How much time do I have?", I asked. "5 minutes", was the comeback.

I gave myself a few seconds to reset where my head was and get into presentation mode. I started out by saying, "Mr. Customer, you told me earlier that the problems you need to solve are [blah] and [blah]. Here are the five things we do that help you solve those problems. First let me set some context about how we approach the problem...". After setting the stage, giving the audience a <-- YOU ARE HERE description of what they were about to see, I used my five clicks to navigate to sections of the product that I wanted to illustrate both what we do and how we solve the two problems as well as mentioning a few other customer problems we've addressed with our product.

After concluding the demo, which took under 5 minutes, and summarizing what we saw during the demo, I asked the sales person, "How'd I do?" The response? "I give, you're right. You don't have to know what every button does, or even most of them. I get what you are saying. You are giving a different kind of demo than I was thinking about."

"Cool", I said. "Do you see how I could have given the demo with zero clicks, by just pointing to the main screen in our product?" A few sorta-believers nodded their heads.

I'm of the belief that a sales person needs to be able to give at least a basic level presentation and demo of their products. But that doesn't take knowledge of what every bell and whistle does in your product.

"Let your sales engineer be the person who knows what every button does. That's their job. They can always jump in and help, or answer those questions." Or if you are going to be taking a deep dive, let the sales engineer drive the demo, but your job is to keep on point, what I described in Mitchell's Rules of Demos.

Now I'm not saying every demo should be done in 5 or less clicks. The idea is that being able to do this helps you not focus on all the bells and whistles, but orient the demo around matching up the customer's needs with your product. And you should be able to give a zero click demo in situations where you are standing in front of your trade show booth, telling an interested party about your product.

So.... If you'd like a challenge, see if you can do it. Can you demo your product in 5 clicks? Or less?

It might take some practice. I believe in you. You can do it.