Overview
If you’ve ever given a software demonstration or a product walkthrough, you know that it can take a lot of work to prep for a relatively short time to give the actual demo. When I pivoted to pre-sales (aka solutions consulting or sales engineering) about six years ago, I quickly learned one the biggest piece of pre-sales wisdom: you’ll never have as much time to get through all the content you’d like to.
Time management is a crucial skill for pre-sales professionals both during the demo and the preparation leading up to it. In this article, we’ll look at ten epic tips that can free up precious minutes during your demo, and several hours a week in your preparation. That extra capacity will allow you to spend more time strategizing, communicating with prospects, and sharpening your skills. You’ll also have a more polished presentation that will be memorable for your attendees!
The 10 tips
1. Use text shortcuts
There are several ways to leverage text shortcuts (also called text expanders). Generally, they let you define an abbreviation for a longer string of text. Examples are for entering names, identifiers, addresses, URLs, passwords, etc. My favorite usage lately has been for our demo password that changes each week. While we can store it in the browser, there are several different users we leverage, and it’s a pain to look up the password several times a week!
Macs have what is called “text replacement” built in – just go to the keyboard preferences and basically set your find and replace values. Here’s an article that explains it.
Windows has this too, but only for the Office apps – look for AutoCorrect in the options for Excel, Word, PowerPoint, or Outlook. To use it in the browser or other apps, you need a third-party app. I’ve had a lot of success with the free version of aText, which allows you to set the shortcut, long text, labels, tags, and even group them together. Check it out in the screenshot below.
2. Stage your clipboard
A similar approach is putting text (or other items) in your clipboard, ready to paste into the software you are demoing. In Windows, you can see the contents of your clipboard by pressing the Windows+v keyboard shortcut (see the screenshot below for an example). On Mac, unfortunately there’s no built-in clipboard history like that – it requires a third-party app like Paste.
3. Enlarge your cursor
If you want the audience to follow along on your screen, they need to know where your cursor is at. If it’s tiny, they won’t be able to find it (and you’ll probably struggle too!). Go to your mouse settings and make it big enough that it’s easy to find on the screen. I also like to change the color so it sticks out (like in the screenshot below).
Bonus tip: on Windows, you can enable a setting to briefly show a circle around your cursor to draw attention to it!
4. Use annotations
Annotations are markings you put on the screen, like boxes, arrows, free drawing, and text (like the red markings in the screenshot below). They are very helpful for drawing attention to a certain part of the screen. I like to use ZoomIt on Windows, which offers several annotation options, including being able to change the color and size of the shapes you use.
Make sure to master the keyboard shortcuts so you can seamlessly turn annotations on/off, add them, remove them, and change the size/color. Also, don’t go too nuts with annotations or they will become distracting.
5. Simplify juggling users
If you tend to use several user personas during your software demos, you know it can be a pain to switch between them by logging in and out. It takes precious time and you can quickly lose your users’ attention.
A great way to simplify this is to use multiple Google Chrome profiles. Each profile (in a separate browser window) can be logged in as a separate user and you can quickly toggle between them! Note that separate profiles do not need to be logged in with a Google account. To set them up, just add a profile by clicking on your profile icon in the top-right of the browser (like in the screenshot below) and add as many profiles as you need. See the full instructions in this article if needed.
Bonus: You can pin each of the profiles to the taskbar in Windows to be able to quickly launch them and know which is which. Note that if you like to save your username/password to quickly log in, you’ll need to do this in each profile you set up.
6. Navigate slides with thumbnails
If you tend to use several slides with your demos, you know that they can be tricky to jump around in. Most people fumble through the slides and animations by clicking the next or back button repeatedly. It doesn’t seem too smooth, does it? But there’s a better way, and it’s so simple!
When in slideshow mode, just click the g key. It will show you thumbnails of all the sides in your file – even the hidden ones (like in the screenshot below). As long as you are somewhat familiar with the general location of all the slides, you can jump between them super-quickly! Note that you can also access the thumbnail view by right-clicking with the option See All Slides.
7. Have screenshots ready
You’ve probably had the audience ask a wild question about something you weren’t planning to cover. Or found yourself running short on time and needing to cover a few topics quickly. Multiple clicks and screen loads can take up precious time.
To cover a topic quickly and have some takeaways ready to share, consider having screenshots prepared of your commonly-discussed features. I like to have screenshots available for just about anything someone could ask about to quickly cover it and move on. Include annotations on your slides to add context and help focus the audience. See the screenshot below for an example.
8. Use cheatsheets
The more complex your software, the tougher it is to remember everything about it. Perhaps there are different versions for different industries, geographies, sizes, or users. And if there’s a lot of innovation, it probably changes frequently!
To combat those complexities, make sure you use cheatsheets! Include any information you might want to reference, such as common examples, keywords, routines, reports – whatever might help you navigate in a pinch. See below for an example. I use an Excel file full of key items by major area. Make sure to update your cheatsheets as you learn more and as things change!
9. Templatize assets
You likely have several files that support the opportunities you work on – presentations, notes, questionnaires, ROI calculations, etc. Templatize these so that they are extremely easy to update from opp to opp. Many people copy files from a recent opp and update them, but inevitably forget to update something, which can be quite embarrassing when a prospect sees the wrong name or logo! Templates with placeholders help combat this.
I like to take it a step further and automate the setup of folders and files for each opp I support. When I get assigned to a new opp, I run a macro that sets up new email/file folders, copies and renames all the template files, and even updates the content of those files – basically a bulk find-replace! An example of settings for this macro is in the screenshot below. You can check out how it works here.
10. Automate prep steps
Ideally, your demo tenant is ready to use whenever you spin it up or reset it. But in my experience, there’s usually quite a bit of prep work to make it look optimal – with the prospect’s logo, company name, and relevant currencies, geographies, and examples. That can take often take hours!
Good news – you can usually automate these highly repetitive steps! I’ve used a couple of tools to do this, but my favorite (displayed in the screenshot below) leverages Excel. Why Excel? Because you can link the steps to inputs (like a company’s name, a folder path with logo images) and build in other logic, such as pauses to put in passwords, and skip steps that don’t need to be done. Just list out all the clicks, text to enter, items to select, etc., and let Excel do the dirty work for you! Check out how this works here.
Using AI
- Creating presentations – develop or refine your talking points by prompting AI, using your target persona, topics to be covered, and whatever details and context you think might help.
- Drafting discovery questions – ideally you already have some solid discovery templates, but you can also prompt AI for them to tailor them to a particular prospect, product, etc.
- Product questions – if there’s a product you’re not that familiar with, you can provide AI with a product manual/URL and ask it questions to help you learn quickly.
- Prospect research – use AI to quickly learn about your prospect’s company and people, using context to focus on the things that align with your products.
- Competitor research – use AI to quickly learn about the products your competitors offer to complement your internal intel.
- Pre-sales trends – use AI to keep up with trends and best practices used throughout the pre-sales world. You may have found some creative prompts or AI tools that can automate specific tasks and that’s awesome! Make sure to share with your colleagues so everyone can leverage them! This is a quickly- developing area of technology that is revolutionizing how we do just about everything!
Summary
Demos can be stressful, but you can reduce some of that stress when you apply the tips above. As with many things in life, preparation is key. Be constantly thinking about how you can improve your demo skills to leave a lasting impression with the audience. Often it’s a bunch of little things that add up to a big impact!
What demo tips and tricks have you used that have helped you succeed? Let us know in the comments below!
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