I thought I'd share some more product demo lessons learned as a follow up to my other two posts Product Bistro: Mitchell's Rules of Demos and Product Bistro: Demo In 5 Clicks Or Less. Doing demos well isn't easy and there's a lot that goes into doing product demos properly. I hope sharing these ideas help you in your quest to help customers.
Use recorded demos. Want to avoid the demo gremlins? Want to be able to give a demo without scheduling an SE or the demo system? Want a good scenario-based demo rather than a trip down the product functionality bunny trail? Want good demo data for your demo? Want all your sales people to give the same, consistent demo, emphasizing the proper messaging and value points? Use a recorded demo. It's that easy and it works.
I've helped create Flash demos (see this example) using voice overs for the presentation, and also recorded less formal demos, using products like Camtasia Studio and a PC headset microphone (See this Xobni example). They work very effectively and sales people love 'em. Send the customer a link and they've got a demo. No SE, no scheduling, no bad demos (if the recorded demo is appropriately done), and much, much less risk of technical glitches. After using the recorded demo, follow up with an onsite or web demo to answer specific questions not covered in the standard demo... but only when necessary. A recorded demo is probably all that's needed in many situations. And giving a customer login credentials isn't the equivalent of a recorded demo. They are just as likely to have problems or struggle finding what they are looking for, so I'd recommend not giving customers their own demo login.
I can't say enough how effective and useful recorded demos can be. They can also significantly shortening the sales cycle, and free up SEs to handle more complex or specific customer issues, rather than presenting general product demos in every customer situation. They are definitely easy to create so I'd look into it if you don't already have a recorded demo.
Use a self contained demo. If anything can go wrong in a demo, it will -- so, if you are going to give a live demo, leave as little to chance as possible. The less outside factors you have to rely on, the better. Do you need to use the customer's Internet connection? Then bring your own cables (two, one for backup) and a broadband wireless card in case you fight with the customer's proxy, firewall, or VPN connections through their network. If all else fails, have a demo slide deck you can use in case you can't connect, the server's down, your laptop decides to croak, something's messed up on the demo system, or things aren't going well and you need to retrench.
"Boy Scout" Rule of Demos - Be prepared. Bring your own projector. Invest in one of the compact projectors you can take on the plane. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a customer's conference room only to find some ancient projector that's the size of a trombone case, has really bad faded color, or one that my laptop just won't sync up with correctly. Now you spend all your time and focus acting the part of the high school AV guy trying to make some projector work, when you should be focusing on other things. Plus, everyone else in the room is distracted instead of listen to what you have to say.
If you are using a web conferencing service to deliver your demo, use your's, not the service the customer sets up. If you are presenting or giving a demo, you set it up. And make sure you use a reliable conferencing service, not one that's going to cause issues getting the meeting started. Switch to a different service if you do have issues until you find one you like and works reliably.
Lastly, carry what I call my "Swiss army knife cable kit". I have two very
small portable hard drive travel cases I carry in my backpack that have just
about every cable and connector combination you can think of in it. It's light
weight, doesn't take much room, and now I'm prepared for just about anything
short of using a flashlight to do a shadow puppet demo. (Oops. Better add a flashlight.) Just make sure you take
all your equipment and cables with you when you pack up and leave.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Same for demos. Make the demo the smoothest and easiest part of your customer meetings by knowing the demo cold. Know what works, and where there are pitfalls or dead ends. Know your product front to back. Anticipate how you'll answer questions, whether it's worth the time to traverse to the place in the product that answers the question or if you'll just tell them verbally. And most importantly, be at your best by literally talking through your demo from beginning to end, working through the rough patches where you stumble your words, repeat yourself or forget those salient value points you want to make sure come across.
There's a reason why there are mirrors in hotel rooms and its not only for adjusting your tie or fixing your hair. Stand up when you give a demo so you have better command of the room and visibility of your audience (and visa versa.) And practice standing up, just like you will when giving your demo in person. Instead of watching reruns of Myth Busters in your hotel room, practice your demo for the upcoming customer meeting.
Don't bag dive. Have you ever seen a situation like this
happen? "Hello Customer. Thanks for having us in. Okay, I think the best thing
to do is start off by showing you our product..." 
That's called bag
diving. Demos and product literature are the security blanket of selling. When unsure or uncomfortable, people love to bag dive, missing all the up
front dialogue to set the stage for the meeting. I don't want to waste a
prospects time until I know how I can laser in on helping them, and I now
know to communicate that to the customer. Before you start anything else, set the context and
objective of the meeting, reconfirm needs and problems, understand who's in the
audience and why, etc. (I talk about this a lot more in my other two posts about
demos.) So don't go for the security blanket and bag dive right into the demo.
Set yourself up for success and leave the bag diving to the competition.
The importance of good demo data. Bad demo data can quickly derail a great customer meeting, making you and your product look embarrassing. If the data isn't relevant to the scenarios your talking through, or is too fake, you are just creating another obstacle the audience must work through to get to that place where they "get" how you solve their problem.
Use data that's presentable to the customer. I can't tell you how many demos I've been in where I cringed because the demo system had embarrassing or questionable data in it, causing a "note to self" to fix the demo data right after the meeting. Software developers are famous for taking license by using questionable or unprofessional looking data in their test systems. They're just having fun and don't think that anyone outside their team would ever see the demo data. Invariably someday they are asked to show software that's under development, or the test data spills over into the demo data. Again, if it can happen, it probably will.
A demo account called "moron customer" probably isn't going to show you or your product in a positive or professional light. Even an account called "developer account" (unless your product is a development tool) might scream to the customer "this software isn't baked yet, it's still under development". You don't want the demo data detracting from the real purpose you are showing a potential customer your product.
Scripts that feed in data or reset data nightly can be a blessing and a curse. Some products need ongoing data pumped into them to show how the product works (take a security monitoring system for example.) Scripts also help bring the demo system back to a known state every night, taking out any changes someone might have made while giving a demo. You often also have to use scripts to change dates in the data (so it stays relevant). But as always seems to happen, scripts break, they don't run, or something gets whacked when the demo system is upgraded. Put your demo system under change control, so everyone knows when it's unavailable, and what changes are being made. Test the demo system after every upgrade -- It is a production system, not a develop box. And log into the demo system right before every demo to make sure everything's up and running. Double check the expected data's in the system. No sense in taking any chances.
Stop selling when the customer is sold. You can undo a lot of really hard work by over selling in a demo. If you had the customer at the login screen, then stop demoing and close the sale. We all know you're really proud of the latest doodad feature that was just added to the product but that doesn't mean everyone's got to see it. Look for the "you had me at hello" signal from the customer, make sure you've covered all the needs and questions you've identified, and wrap things up. It'll save you from a lot of bruised shins, and your sales person's commission check will thank you for it.
Who owns the demo system? Ah, just who owns the demo system? The SEs? The SE manager? Marketing? Development? IT? Far too often nobody really owns the demo system, but a bunch of people work on it. I've come to the conclusion that whoever is creating the messaging, value points and demo script for product demos owns the demo system. This might be a product manager, someone in marketing, or a variety of other roles. But the bottom line is one person should own it. Support may come many other technical resources but make sure you have a clear owner. And that person or group is also responsible for training the rest of the organization on giving demos.
One last point about the demo system. Your product release cycle needs to include the creation and updating of demo data, to appropriately demonstrate new capabilities, and it needs to include upgrading the demo system software and scripts. It should be scheduled as part of the product release process, just like collateral, training, and PR.
The best demo may be the one you never give. Believe it or not but you don't necessarily need to give a demo in order to sell your product. I've seen it happen many times. The customer has a serious enough need, customer references are very strong, the match of customer needs and your capabilities are spot on, an employee from a previous company that used your product acts as a testimonial, product reviews or analysts reports speak volumes about the greatness of your product... those are all good cases where you may not need to demo your product. So keep that in mind. You can seriously shorten the sales cycle when you can make the case for the customer to buy your product without having to do a product demo.
