How many times have you seen your favorite sports star or musician make their performances look really easy? A perfect swing every time or never hitting a bad note in a whole concert is hugely inspiring. They are at the top of their game through hard work, determination, and a lifetime of practice but when we watch them - we sit there in awe of how simple they make it look.

In the PreSales world, we know that demos are hard. You have to be technically on point, value-driven, know your audience, solve their pain and deliver ROI value. Like the sports stars, you are at the top of your game and you just make it look easy… right?

A great AE will help you as much as possible by managing the (Zoom) room, the personalities, the body language and give you as much air cover as you need to execute perfectly... but there is some extra magic you can do yourself with the right mindset to be right at the top of your game.

We all know a great demo takes a ton of preparation. Many hours of discovery, technical building, storyboarding value drivers and practice to make sure you hit the high spots at the right time. Your prospect will, I’m sure, greatly appreciate all of that hard work, especially your champion that hopefully has shared many of those working hours with you perfecting the story. However, despite the hard slog and late nights:

The best demos are the ones that make it all look easy.

Yes, it was hard work…

Yes, it took hours of preparation…

Yes, you were up late last night finishing it up

Yes, you wrote some awesome custom code to make one system talk to another!

Your internal team, AE, leadership and champion will all love that! Tell them all about it and make sure they appreciate your hard work, but don’t forget that your real audience, the end-users, the project leaders and the executives are probably motivated by other things.

Just like when Ronaldo hits the top corner or Serena hits the champion winning backhand we don’t think of their hours of practice and sacrifice we are just in awe of how easy they make it look. The great stars inspire us to get out there and want to do it ourselves.

Try to separate your great efforts from your in-demo talk track. Ignite your audience with what they find awe-inspiring. Highlight how your solution:

• Has an exceptional user experience
• Delivers high adoption
• Supports ease of configuration
• Drives obvious business value and return on investment

Avoiding anything that implies it was difficult to configure, took you hours to solve problems, or is hard to use can be the difference between a great response and a flat one. While it’s easy to want to express how hard you worked, save it for the right moment.

Aim to inspire your audience, let your demo flow, be of value and make it look easy!

Happy Monday!

Matt Finch is the Vice President, Global Solutions Consulting at Mavenlink. He's passionate about SaaS technology, leadership, and sales excellence has enabled him to successfully build award-winning sales, pre-sales, consulting and enablement organizations across the world.

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

How many times have you seen your favorite sports star or musician make their performances look really easy? A perfect swing every time or never hitting a bad note in a whole concert is hugely inspiring. They are at the top of their game through hard work, determination, and a lifetime of practice but when we watch them - we sit there in awe of how simple they make it look.

In the PreSales world, we know that demos are hard. You have to be technically on point, value-driven, know your audience, solve their pain and deliver ROI value. Like the sports stars, you are at the top of your game and you just make it look easy… right?

A great AE will help you as much as possible by managing the (Zoom) room, the personalities, the body language and give you as much air cover as you need to execute perfectly... but there is some extra magic you can do yourself with the right mindset to be right at the top of your game.

We all know a great demo takes a ton of preparation. Many hours of discovery, technical building, storyboarding value drivers and practice to make sure you hit the high spots at the right time. Your prospect will, I’m sure, greatly appreciate all of that hard work, especially your champion that hopefully has shared many of those working hours with you perfecting the story. However, despite the hard slog and late nights:

The best demos are the ones that make it all look easy.

Yes, it was hard work…

Yes, it took hours of preparation…

Yes, you were up late last night finishing it up

Yes, you wrote some awesome custom code to make one system talk to another!

Your internal team, AE, leadership and champion will all love that! Tell them all about it and make sure they appreciate your hard work, but don’t forget that your real audience, the end-users, the project leaders and the executives are probably motivated by other things.

Just like when Ronaldo hits the top corner or Serena hits the champion winning backhand we don’t think of their hours of practice and sacrifice we are just in awe of how easy they make it look. The great stars inspire us to get out there and want to do it ourselves.

Try to separate your great efforts from your in-demo talk track. Ignite your audience with what they find awe-inspiring. Highlight how your solution:

• Has an exceptional user experience
• Delivers high adoption
• Supports ease of configuration
• Drives obvious business value and return on investment

Avoiding anything that implies it was difficult to configure, took you hours to solve problems, or is hard to use can be the difference between a great response and a flat one. While it’s easy to want to express how hard you worked, save it for the right moment.

Aim to inspire your audience, let your demo flow, be of value and make it look easy!

Happy Monday!

Matt Finch is the Vice President, Global Solutions Consulting at Mavenlink. He's passionate about SaaS technology, leadership, and sales excellence has enabled him to successfully build award-winning sales, pre-sales, consulting and enablement organizations across the world.

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn