Key Elements of Persuasive Sales Demos

From 2017 to 2021, Gong grew from $200k ARR to nine figures. During that window of time, I spent dozens of cycles with our VP Sales on crafting demos that sell. Here's 6 elements of insanely persuasive sales demos I learned (trial and error): 1. Flip Your Demo Upside Down Most salespeople save the best thing for last. Wrong move. By that time, buyers have checked out. Some have even left the room. Start your demo with the most impactful thing. Save dessert for the beginning. Not end. 2. Give Them A Taste, Not A Drowning You eat, sleep, breathe your product. So you want to show EVERYTHING. You believe that the MORE you show, the more VALUE you build. Wrong move. Your just diluting your message. Show exactly what solves your buyer's problem. Nothing less. But also, nothing more. 3. Focus Your Demo On The Status Quo’s Pain It’s  tempting to focus on benefits. They’re positive and easy to talk about. But focusing your message on the pain of the status quo is more persuasive than focusing on benefits. If your buyer believes the status quo is no longer an option, they’re a step closer to investing in a new resource. Your new resource. People are more motivated to NOT lose than they are motivated to gain something new. Use this psychological bias to your advantage. 4. Avoid Generic Social Proof We're all trained to use social proof. Whether it works is not so simple. Using endorsements from big customers might win credibility with a few buyers, but it'll work against you if your buyer doesn't "identify" with the customer you're name-dropping. It alienates them. If you cite a bunch of your customers who DO NOT LOOK like your buyer? They’ll think “This product isn’t designed for clients like me.” Only name drop customers they can identify with. 5. Frame the problem at the beginning of the demo. Start with a "What We've Heard" slide. Center your buyer on the problem. And get new people in the room up to speed. Then show a "Desired Outcome" slide. Do those two things, and now your demo is a bridge between the two. Easy for your buyer to "sell themselves" when you do that. 6. Frame the pain each feature solves. This is the "micro" version of the previous tip. For EVERY NEW FEATURE you showcase: You HAVE to frame the problem it solves. Otherwise, it's meaningless. At best, your buyers write it off. At worst, it triggers objections. That's all for now. This is nowhere near the last thing to be said about demos that sell. So what would you add? P.S. After watching 3,000+ discovery call recordings, I picked out the best 39 questions that sell. Here’s the free list: https://go.pclub.io/list

Your demo is the reason you're losing deals And it has nothing to do with your product. After sitting through 200+ sales demos last year, I've identified the pattern that separates winning presentations from forgettable ones. It's not about features. It's not about benefits. It's about sequence. Most demos follow this deadly structure: 1️⃣ Company overview 2️⃣ Product walkthrough 3️⃣ Feature deep-dive 4️⃣ Pricing discussion 5️⃣ Next steps This is exactly backwards. Your prospect doesn't care about your company story. They care about their problem. They don't want to see every feature. They want to see outcomes. Here's the demo structure that actually converts: ↳ Start with their outcome  "Based on our conversation, you mentioned needing to reduce customer churn by 15% this year. Let me show you exactly how this would work for your situation." ↳ Show their scenario Use their data, their use case, their terminology. Make it feel like they're already using your solution. ↳ Focus on 2-3 key capabilities The ones that directly impact their stated priorities. Skip everything else. ↳ Handle objections proactively Address the concerns they mentioned in discovery before they have to ask. ↳ End with clear next steps Not "Do you have any questions?" but "Based on what you've seen, what would need to happen for you to move forward?" The best demos don't feel like demos. They feel like problem-solving sessions where your product happens to be the solution. Subscribe to our Innovative Seller channel where we post bi-weekly videos on sales strategies like this 👇

Spent 40 min with one of the best founders I know yesterday (he’s personally selling all their deals himself right now). Entire convo focused on what to SAY during a demo (most sellers actually have no idea): 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “we can do this… and we can do this… and we can do this… any questions?... and we can do this…” Great demos use features and functionality as *validation* that the platform can deliver the customer’s desired results (and solve the challenges currently blocking them). You want the customer thinking about buying the result, and the solution to the problem, not the features themselves. To do this effectively, before you talk about any feature, you want to contextualize it with the outcomes and challenges that matter to the customer (that you learned in discovery). For example, 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “so of course the main thing you guys are working towards is [outcome] and one of the biggest issues is that right now [challenge] so what I want to show you is how we [solve challenge] that should directly result in [outcome]” 𝐎𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: “another thing I want to show you as we think about the issue the team is having with [challenge] is how we [solve challenge] which immediately start to free up your reps to be able to do more [whatever] which should then translate directly into more [outcome]” Think of yourself like a teacher. You’re helping the customer learn the relationship between your functionality and the results they want/the challenges they want to solve. Anything you swear by that helps you lead more impactful and engaging demos that I might be interested in?