When my clients come to me asking for help with their sales demo, I usually start by helping them discover ways to add structure, organization, and flow to their demos. Then, we dive deeper into the meat of their presentation and ask: What’s the smartest way to organize the features of this demo? Today I will share the framework I like to use, called the Demo Roadmap, which can help SEs communicate business value by structuring their presentation of features in an effective, logical way.

What is a Demo Roadmap?

A Demo Roadmap, a concept I was first introduced to by John Care, is an agenda of the demo session. It allows you to provide an organized, structured flow that maps out how your audience will reach their goals with your product.

You can use your Demo Roadmap to help your prospect achieve the goals they expressed during the discovery session.

Benefits of a Sales Demo Roadmap

A well-designed Demo Roadmap will:

• Keep your demo organized
• Assist with time management by encouraging you to break your demo into specific sections
• Give you opportunities to practice and perfect your transitions for better demo flow
• Help ensure that you respond to the prospect’s expressed and unexpressed needs
• Provide better opportunities to align with your prospect around their goals

The Demo Roadmap also helps you speak the language of your audience. By taking the time to map out your prospect’s needs against your features and reaffirm their expressed goals, you’ll be able to give a more targeted, more personalized, more effective sales demo.

The Basic Structure of a Sales Demo Roadmap

What does a Demo Roadmap look like? The exact format is up to you. John Care’s version takes the “roadmap” metaphor literally, including the following components that are a part of any road trip:

1. 1. The Starting Point: Establish your understanding of the prospect’s current state. Start every demo by making sure that the information you received during discovery is still relevant.
   2. The Destination: Where does the client want to go? Why do they want to go there? Make sure you understand their ideal state as well as you understand their current state.

 

• The Route: How long will this journey take? What risks might there be along the way? Who will be the primary “driver”?  These are the questions you’ll want to answer throughout your demo.

 

How Do You Create a Sales Demo Roadmap?

Now that you understand the basic components of a Demo Roadmap, it’s time to learn how to create one.

The first step to creating an effective Demo Roadmap is to have an insightful discovery call. You should leave your discovery call with a list of the prospect’s goals/needs: both those they explicitly expressed, as well as those you might have picked up on implicitly. As you take notes during the call, be sure to jot down their specific wording surrounding their goals and needs. This will help you speak their language back to them during the demo, which will help build a more trusting and value-adding relationship with your prospect.

The next step in creating a sales demo roadmap is to examine the list of their goals, and try to match each one with a feature of your product that will meet that need. Practice talking through how that specific feature will help them meet their specific goal, so that this flows naturally when it’s time to actually present the demo. This is the “Route” portion of your Roadmap. Don’t forget to also include the Starting Point and Destination! Plan to spend time at the beginning of your demo discussing your prospect’s current state and future ideal state before diving into specific features.

Final Check-In

It’s almost time to present! How do you know if your Demo Roadmap will be effective? Before presenting your demo, look over your Roadmap and ask yourself:

• Does this flow well? Is the progression logical and meaningful to the prospect?
• Does this meet the prospect’s needs? If I were the client, what questions would I still have after receiving this demo?
• Does this demo speak the prospect’s language? Will this demo make them feel heard and understood?
• Does this demo highlight the right mix of features to meet the prospect’s needs? Does anything feel random or out of place?
• Does this demo relay how valuable your product/service is for the prospect?

Demo with Confidence!

If you’d like to learn how to give more effective sales demos, I’d highly recommend going through a demo review. Learn more here!