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Create and Deliver a KillerProduct DemoThe complete guide to WOW yourcustomers

Oscar Santolalla

This book is for sale athttp://leanpub.com/killerproductdemo

This version was published on 2017-04-29

ISBN ISBN 978-952-93-8523-2

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© 2016 - 2017 Oscar Santolalla

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Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . 1History of Product Demos in Technology . . . 2The Mother of All Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . 2The Evolution of Product Demos . . . . . . . . 3A Magician in Product Demos . . . . . . . . . 3The Recent Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Now The Time is Yours . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

CHAPTER 2: KILLER PRODUCT DEMOS . . . . 7Types of Product Demos . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

CHAPTER 3: HOW TO CRAFT YOUR DEMO . . 15Before You Start: Your Main Message and Your

Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16The Basic Structure of a Product Demo . . . . 21Section One: Pre-Demo . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Section Two: The Demo . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Section Three: Wrap-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION

Before cable TV, if you wanted to watch television, buyinga TV receiver was not enough. You also needed to buy anaerial antenna, install it on your roof, and wire the antennafrom the roof to the TV inside the house. It was a hassle.

When I was a child I saw the following scene quite a fewtimes: A street seller demonstrating a small nifty antennathat would easily attach directly to any TV receiver. Withthis gadget you could save a lot of money and get rid ofthe inconvenience of installing a proper TV antenna onyour roof. The salesman would prop it on any old TV,and immediately receive an array of channels in stunninglygood quality. Why wouldn’t you buy it right away?

You might have experienced the allure of a gadget like thatbefore. But why did every passersby devote their attentionto the antenna salesman? He was doing more than simplydescribing the product with words — he was physicallydemoing how the product worked in a dramatic and eyecatching fashion. Sound like déjà vu to you?

Today’s companies put a great deal of effort into show-casing products. From the commanding rise of the “falconwing doors” on Elon Musk’s Tesla X, to Van Damme’s epicleg splits between precision Volvo trucks, incredible demos

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 2

continue to impress and inspire audiences worldwide.

History of Product Demos inTechnology

Product demos have existed for many years, but today theyare vital to sales and marketing in nearly all industries,ranging from stain-eradicating detergents to Software-as-a-Service web technologies. This book will focus on howcomplete products, not just hobbyist inventions, are pro-moted through the use of stunning product demos. Let usfirst review some moments in the history of product demosin technology that deserve mention.

The Mother of All Demos

It was December 8, 1968 in San Francisco at Menlo Park.Roughly a thousand people packed the Brooks Hall towatch Douglas Engelbart’s “The Mother of All Demos,” atechnical session during the Fall Joint Computer Confer-ence.

This was the very first demo we know of that captivateda tech-savvy audience, making demos a show in its owncategory. The presentation was a collage of visionary com-puter technologies such as: the mouse, hypertexts, wordprocessing, video conferencing, a collaborative real-time

http://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY


editor, and more, all in 100 minutes. This ground-break-ing demo ran with almost no glitches, and captivated anaudience of other computer pioneers including Alan Kay.Not surprisingly, TheMother of All Demos — as it was laterbaptized — ended with a standing ovation.

The Evolution of Product Demos

It wasn’t until the late 70s and early 80s that most ofthe Engelbart team’s inventions finally became products.In the 80s the computer industry exploded, as did theconsumer electronics business, which created a space forsales and marketing folks to develop product demos. Westarted to see plenty of demos emerge for both hardwareand software products.

A Magician in Product Demos

In 1984 a new kid appeared on the product demo scene.It was Steve Jobs showcasing the very first Macintoshcomputer during an Apple Shareholders event. Though itwas a short presentation, Jobs stunned audiences with thefirst computer to speak and introduce itself in a humanoidvoice. The demo was followed by a standing ovation. If youwatch the video of this event you will see a shy version ofthe man who 20 years later would shine as a paradigm ofpublic speaking.


After returning as the CEO of Apple, Jobs delivered a longlist of extraordinary product demos. This series startedwiththe iMac (1998), continued with the iPod (2001), the iPhone(2007), the MacBook Air (2008), and the iPad (2010). All ofthem magnificent examples of how to run an effective andinspiring product demo.

The Recent Years

What has happened since Steve Jobs? A remarkable ex-ample of another executive who presented products withpassion was Intel’s Mooly Eden. An animated presenter,Eden was very active in almost every Consumer Elec-tronics Show (CES) until 2014. In particular, during CES2014 he introduced Intel® RealSense™ immersive realitytechnology. Using 3D cameras and facial recognition, in hisdemo a girl browsed Google Earth by raising her hands andmoving her head to look in all directions, as if in real life.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk began showing outstandingdemos in 2013. Musk demos are known for clear messages,creativity, fine attention to details, and impressive staging.In June 2013 he presented a refueling contest between twocars: Tesla Model S vs. Audi A8. In less than four minutes, amachine automatically swapped the batteries of two TeslaS cars, while a gas station in Los Angeles needed slightlylonger time to refuel only one Audi A8. In April 2015 Musklaunched Tesla Powerwall in one of the best ever keynoteswitnessed in the technology arena. Later in September 2015


he showcased the Tesla X car, an SUV that impressed withits “falcon wing doors.”

Another excellent product demo occurred in June 2015during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2015 inLos Angeles. Microsoft and Mojang presented the firstdemo of the game Minecraft for a new platform: MicrosoftHoloLens. Event attendees and online viewers were ec-static, expressing immediate desires to buy and play thegame on this innovative platform.

Now The Time is Yours

Today, nearly five decades after Engelbart, with all theamazing technology at our disposal and the staggeringnumber of products launched every day, we still see howelusive it is to craft an outstanding demo. You can seethis by searching on YouTube for product demos; the vastmajority are boring, uninspiring, hard to understand, orjust a complete failure.

This book is a combination of my own experience withproduct demos, the analysis of dozens of famous and suc-cessful product demos, and interviews with experts fromall over the world who represent various types of softwareand technology companies. I have written this book to giveyou the strategies to create and deliver killer product demosthat make a big impact. I want to ignite your creativity sothat you, like keynote leaders before you, will be known for


your killer product demos.

In this book you will find the types of product demos usedtoday, the structure of a successful demo, the preparationprocess, tips on what to avoid, and more. You will soonknow the answers to question like: Should I write a step-by-step script for action and dialogue? What is the correcttext to graphic ratio for slides? How does a speaker buildsuspense? Do I need any fancy tools?

Welcome to this journey.

CHAPTER 2: KILLERPRODUCT DEMOS

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacherexplains. The superior teacher demonstrates.The great teacher inspires.” – William ArthurWard

Why Product Demos?

You might be asking yourself: Why a book about productdemos? Why should I spend all this time rehearsing aproduct demo? Some people believe “I know my productvery well. Therefore I can demo it successfully in anysituation.”

Wrong. I’ve been there too, relying on mere intuition tocreate demos on the fly. However, the results are inconsis-tent and unpredictable. Would you leave the fate of yourbusiness to unpredictability?

Also, after researching the demos that have inspired meover the years, I’ve found that all successful demos werethe result of a lot of preparation, proving that the time youspend preparing for your demo will multiply your chancesof success.

CHAPTER 2: KILLER PRODUCT DEMOS 8

Of course I’m not the only one who strongly believes inthe importance of awell-crafted product demo for technicalproducts or services. In his book “The Art of the Start,” GuyKawasaki, the legendary Chief Evangelist at Apple duringthe original Macintosh era (1983-1986) and currently ChiefEvangelist at Canva, wrote a mini chapter titled “Howto Be a Demo God” that stressed how too many startupexecutives neglect the importance of serious preparationfor their product demos.

A Demo Brings a Product to Life

A product demo is not only a promotional validation ofwhat a product does; it brings a product to life. Deliveringa product demo thus means going beyond words andpresentation slides to prove a real life value. This is oneof the best opportunities a company could ever have toillustrate a product in a way that inspires action.

Types of Product Demos

There are dozens of situations in which you can present ademo. In this chapter I’ll describe the distinctive elementsfor a few main demo types, grouping various productdemos in two broad categories: Public Demos and PrivateDemos. Later in the book, in the chapter “How to CraftYour Demo” I will detail the structures of these commonscenarios.


Public Demos

Public demos occur in front of a large audience. Rather thantargeting a single customer, this type of demo is gearedtoward “everybody” (general public, media, users, fans).This public speaking act could be for launching a newproduct, a feature upgrade, or announcing a big milestone.In most cases, this is the time to impress and own the show.

Product Launch

The most impressive and famous demos occupy this cate-gory. Product launches occur at conferences, big industryevents, or sometimes as especially arranged launch events.Since they are in the public eye, a product launch demo isa real show that millions might watch. Example: Jeff Bezosintroduces and demos the Kindle Paperwhite (September2012).

Startup Pitch

In startup pitches, teams have just a few minutes to tell aconvincing story about their new business; the goal beingto convince investors to fund the business idea. In startuppitches, a demo is optional and actually doesn’t happenvery often. Due to the time constraints, the demo will beextremely short: half a minute could even be too long.Example: “Demo Day” event, organized twice a year by YCombinator.


API Demos

During hackathons, developer conferences, and other API-oriented events, many of the companies take to the stageto demo their Application Programming Interface (API)functionality. In these demos, the API evangelist or devel-oper advocate will demonstrate their live coding masteryto present the coolest features of the API. Since one ofthe main goals of an API demo is to showcase how easyit is to use the API, the audience must be convinced thatonboarding is easy even with just a few lines of code.Example: SendGrid and Twilio have been presenting greatAPI demos in several conferences and hackathons in recentyears.

Video-Recorded Demo

Search “product demo” on YouTube and most of the resultswill be video-recorded demos. These demos were neverpart of a public event or sales meeting, but were madeas a promotional or instructional video. Once the demo isrecorded, it is edited in post-production and later publishedonline for the world to see. In order to produce a demolike this, the presenter must be well trained at interactingin front of a camera. Example: Thousands of companiesproduce video demos, especially SaaS products like HubSpotor Zoho.


Private Demos

Private demos are presented to a small group of people,and often involve more interaction with the audience. Themost typical cases involve visiting a customer in person,presenting for a client online, or showcasing the product tointernal company stakeholders. These demos are usuallylonger and provide time for specific details. Depending onthe setting, the presenter may be standing or sitting; theirchallenge will be to connect to a group of people withdiverse backgrounds.

Presales Meeting

This is presumably the most common type of product demoof all. At particular stages in the sales process, a salesengineer (or someone with an equivalent technical andcustomer-facing role) will present a number of productcapabilities and ignite a conversation on business use cases.The goal is to convince potential clients that the productis a suitable solution to the company’s problems and thusmove them along in the sales process. Example: Thousandsof enterprise software companies such as Red Hat and SAP.

Trade Show Demo

If your company has rented a demo booth at a trade show,you will have the opportunity to present product demosto anyone that walks by. You must have an impressive


overview demo prepared for the curious passerby. Some-times, a qualified prospect will be present and this will beyour long awaited opportunity for a demo.

Due to the boisterous atmosphere of trade shows, demosfor Business to Consumer (B2C) products are easier toarrange. Why? Because you can easily prove value to anend consumer with just one or two key capabilities. Amobile app that splits payments with friends, for example,is simple to demonstrate and communicate end user value.

On the other hand, a Business to Business (B2B) software,such as an Enterprise Resource Management system withdozens of modules, will take more effort to demo effec-tively. Thus, it’s good practice for B2B teams to preparetwo demos for trade shows. One: A short overview demointended for new and unqualified prospects. Two: A morein-depth technical demo intended for decision makers orprospects more advanced in the sales funnel. Example:Demo booths at CES (Las Vegas), Mobile World Congress(Barcelona), and similar events.

SaaS Demo

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) demo has become in-creasingly important with the growth of SaaS products andservices. They most often occur when a party who hassigned up online needs a little more convincing. A stunningproduct demo can make the difference and convert poten-tial clients into paying customers. As your customer couldbe located anywhere in the world, SaaS demos are often


done remotely with the help of a videoconferencing toolsuch as GoToMeeting. Example: Sites from SaaS productssuch as Infusionsoft, Optimizely, and thousands more.

Game Pitching Demo

Game developers also present demos, especially when theyneed to pitch the game to a publisher. It’s very commonin game conferences to organize pitching competitions inwhich independent game developers sit around a table andshow off their coolest game dynamics to a jury. Example:“The Very Big Indie Pitch” competition, organized at every“PocketGamer Connects” conference (currently held yearlyin Bangalore, Helsinki, London, San Francisco and Vancou-ver).

Other Situations Where You Need a Demo

Sometimes you need to deliver a demo that is not exactlya “product” demo. Instead of promoting a product or solu-tion, these demonstrate that something works or showcasean operational process. Some examples are:

Scrum Sprint Review

In the agile scrum methodology of software development,the “Sprint Review” meetings are designed for teams topresent project results at the end of an iteration. Thedemo focuses on minute product features that the team


has completed. You can do this — and probably will haveto — sitting down. The internal project review demo alsoapplies to other software development methodologies, notonly scrum.

Non-Commercial Demo Sessions

If you are giving a lecture or public talk, having a demois a great complement as it brings action and concreteexamples beyond words. A great example of this is theseries of demos Mikko Hyppönen showed during his talk“Fighting viruses, defending the net” at TEDGlobal 2011.Even though these demos are not commercial, this bookwill give you great ideas and tactics on how you can perfectthem as well.

CHAPTER 3: HOW TOCRAFT YOUR DEMO“A speech is like a symphony. It may havethree movements but must have one dominantmelody.” –Winston Churchill

You have probably watched a trove of product demos, bothlive and online. Both good and bad. How many of them doyou actually remember? Forget the funny failures. Fromhow many of them do you clearly remember somethinggreat about the product? Why are few product demosremembered and the majority forgotten?

There is nomagic ormystery. It takes a lot of effort to creategreat product demos.

Successful product demos have a clear structure. This struc-ture helps them connect both emotionally and logicallywith potential customers. The exact pacing will depend onmany aspects such as the available time, type of product,and type of event, but there is a distinct three part armaturethat the best demos use to their advantage which we willexplore in this chapter.

Dummy Product: Voicetoblog

CHAPTER 3: HOW TO CRAFT YOUR DEMO 16

I will use the imaginary product Voicetoblogto illustrate the creation of a product demo.Voicetoblog is a web-based service that makesit easy to publish blog articles. Instead of typ-ing an article with a keyboard, you can justtalk and record it. Voicetoblog will convert itto a text and publish it.

Before You Start: Your MainMessage and Your Story

Your Main Message

Before you start creating slides, consider the following:What is the ultimate message that you want your audienceto remember when they leave the room? This will be yourmain message, and will guide each step throughout thedemo. You should be able to describe your message with asingle sentence.

Regardless if your demo is short and simple or long andcomplex, a single core concept needs to be communicated.Write down that message, for instance: “Speak to Voice-toblog and you’re one click away from having your blogpost published.” Though your product might have manyother great features, highlighting the very best one willensure your message resonates and is remembered by theaudience.


As Winston Churchill said, both a symphony and a speechmust have one dominant melody. We can say the sameabout a product demo; your main message will be thedominant melody.

Your Story

The vast majority of outstanding products have a storybehind them. The story can originate from the creators ofthe product, founders of the company, real users, or evenfrom fictitious characters that are part of the product’sbrand. But in case the main feature doesn’t have a storythat fits the demo, you must craft one yourself.

Stories are powerful in connecting data and technologywith real life, which makes your demo compelling andeasier to understand. For instance, a story for Voicetoblogcould be “Through my work with Voicetoblog I have theunique opportunity to help empower the disabled. TakeJerry, a Parkinsons sufferer who can’t hold a pen to writeor a keyboard to type. He uses Voicetoblog to capture hisideas, and his voice has been converted to educational andinspirational articles that touch many lives.”

Example of Voicetoblog’s message and story:

Main message Tell your message to Voicetoblog andyou’re one click away of having your blogpost published


Story Through my work with Voicetoblog I havethe unique opportunity to help empowerthe disabled. Take Jerry, a Parkinsonssufferer who can’t hold a pen to write or akeyboard to type. He uses Voicetoblog tocapture his ideas, and his voice has beenconverted to educational and inspirationalarticles that touch many lives

Does the content of this table sound easy to understand?Yes, it does. Writing down your main message and storyfrom the onset is the raw material that will guide theelements of your demo.

Types of Stories Used in Product Demos

You might find it difficult to come up with a story for yourdemo. You’re not alone in this. If you don’t know where tostart, check the following table. It lists types of stories thatare commonly used in product demos, with some examplesfor each:


Type of stories Explanation

Story is part of the product Most of games. In “AngryBirds”, the pigs have stolenthe bird eggs. The birds areon a mission to catapultthemselves into the pigs’structures to destroy them.This is a story of theft,sacrifice, parenthood, andrevenge.

Creator’s story Product inventors have greatmaterial to craft a storywith. For example, DustinMoskovitz and JustinRosenstein met whileworking for Facebook. Bothfaced the same challenge:Smart people were wastingtime in email chains. So,they designed an internaltool for team collaborationand it became massivelyadopted. They left thecompany with the mission tocreate a project managementtool available for anybody inthe world. That’s how Asanawas conceived.


Type of stories Explanation

Real user’s story If you can transform a veryspecial customer testimonialinto a compelling story, it ispowerful for both yourpresentations and yourdemos. Take Lydia Winters’case. At E3 2015, just beforedemoing Minecraft forMicrosoft HoloLens, she toldher own story of how thegame changed both her ownlife and the lives ofthousands of people aroundthe world.

Allusion to famous fictionstory

In order to promoteMacintosh, Steve Jobs saidthat “IBM wants todominate” and become “BigBrother” as in G. Orwell’s1984. Apple is the only hope.

Exercise #1

If you are going to create a demo now, stopand write down your message and story.

Main message: ______

Story: ______


The Basic Structure of a ProductDemo

Once you have your message and your story, feel proud.Now you have solid raw material for creating your demo.We can start!

As we saw in Chapter 2, there is a large variety of productdemo types. Each context will require a slightly differentstructure. However, after my observations and interviewswith subject experts, I have constructed a base formula that— with little adaptation — will fit the majority of productdemos. It’s made up of three main ingredients: The Pre-Demo, Demo, and Wrap-up.

We’ll first describe this generic structure, and later on willexplore the makeup of specific common product democontexts: Product launch demos, Presales demos, Software-as-a-Service demos and API demos.


A product demo has three main sections: 1) Pre-Demo 2) Demo and3) Wrap-up.

Section One: Pre-Demo

A common mistake is starting to demo the product as soonas the presentation begins. The consequence is that youraudience will probably not understand or follow you soquickly, and they will miss your opening lines. A Pre-Demo satisfies two important objectives: It introduces thepresenter, and provides a context for what is to come.


Introduce the Presenter

Write a short introduction of yourself (e.g. name, position,experience) and hand it to the person who will introduceyou. At a public demo, it is the event host; during a visitto a customer it may be your colleague. Your introductionshould make it clear that you are the most qualified personto present the demo. Needless to say, if you are a “celebrity”like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, the host of the event, or theonly representative in the salesmeeting, you can ignore thisstep.

Set the Context

Never start a demo without providing context. Don’t as-sume that your audience will understand what you aredoing immediately once you start showing the product.Instead, supply a context that answers the question “Whyshould I pay attention?” that is likely on your audience’sminds. Even if you want to maintain suspense until yourbest feature is unveiled, give some hints that arouse interestby disclosing precise information so viewers are intriguedto see what comes next.

If the demo is using some unusual technical setup that youraudience should be aware of, this is the time to brieflyexplain it. Last but not least, keep your Pre-Demo short.You only need two or three sentences: short and sweet.

Example: Minecraft for Microsoft HoloLens demo (2015)


[Lydia] “The game has changed millions oflives including mine.” “Now we’re going toshow you a version of Minecraft built specifi-cally for Microsoft HoloLens”

[Saxs] “To show a demo today we’re usinga special camera. This display technique ofputting HoloLens right on the camera itself al-lows the entire audience to see the hologram.”

Observation: Some demos are part of alonger presentation or keynote. For in-stance, all Steve Jobs’ demos were part ofkeynotes that took around 1 hour each. Inthese cases, the Pre-Demo is longer andusually combined with other elements.

Section Two: The Demo

This is the core and practical section where you showbeyond words the value of your product and how awesomeit is. At this point, you clearly know yourmainmessage andyou have a story. There are two main elements you mustwork on in order to craft an outstanding demo: a script, anda WOW moment.


Write a Step-By-Step Script

I often make the analogy that a product demo is like atheater play, where the actors have everything writtenduring their preparation. Yes, write it step-by-step, or findsomeone to do it. The order of how things are done reallymatters. Scripts are more relevant in public demos, but Istrongly recommend doing it for every type of demo.

Decide the details of your script in advance; Don’t leave asingle detail to randomness or improvisation, as that cancause random problems too.

6 Reasons Why You Should Write a Script

Presenting a sales or product demo sounds easy. If youknow the product upside-down, understand all its capabil-ities, and you’ve always anticipated your prospects’ ques-tions successfully before, then you’re probably confidentthat you can demo the product without notes. The truth isthat you should take the extra effort to arrange the orderof thoughts in a script. There are 6 strong reasons why youshould write a script:

• You don’t have to rely on your memory: Onceyou have demoed your product a good number oftimes, you will gain mastery and you will rely lesson your memory. In spite of this, a written scriptwill help you as a guideline to quickly verify details


just before the meeting with your prospect. Therewill always be some products, prototypes, MVPs, orspecific capabilities of your main products that youwon’t have to demo every week or month. For thesesituations, having a written demo script will saveyou a lot of preparation time.

• A colleague can quickly learn the demo: If anotherteam member, colleague, or business partner has torun the demo instead of yourself, a written scriptwill save them a lot of time. This can also addscalability to the organization, in case the sales teamis large or if customer support representatives alsohave to present the same demos. You can still be the“demo owner” responsible for maintaining the demoscript document and defining what to say; managersactually see this as great intrapreneurship initiative.

• Helps flesh out details in advance: Little detailsmatter. Some sales reps even set up the demo envi-ronment to look as close to the real customer userinterface as possible. Simple details such as using aplausible name “Bill Clark” instead of “Demouser”will make a difference. Then the next step is towrite down these optimal details and parameters onthe demo script: the files you will open or upload,the usernames, directories, which web browser touse, target URLs, etc. Being explicit in a script helpsdescribe details and execute actions correctly.

• Identify the ideal sequence of steps: Yes, often-times the order of steps really matters. Just chang-


ing the order of one step can significantly increasethe likelihood of bumping into problems. A goodexample of this is the first iPhone demo, for whichApple engineers wrote a step-by-step guideline onhow Steve Jobs would demo this new product, whichwas very unstable at the time of the public launch.Even a small diversion from the suggested demoscript would have caused a major failure.

• Brevity is the soul of wit: No one likes overly text-ridden slides and bumbling, repetitive statements.Writing a script helps you phrase exactly what youwant to say in a succinct manner, so that when youdo present, listeners will admire your cadence.

• Get the feel of an actor: Would you like to feel likean actor? Work with a script! For actors, the scriptis already written and provided – their art is findingthe best way to perform it. An actor is not allowedto say anything improvised that is not written in thescript. Similarly, a product demo is a theater play, notimprovisation.

How to Write a Script

From my own experience, and from reading and hearingabout success stories, the way I recommend writing yourdemo script is in two columns. In the left column you writeyour Lines (what you say) and in the right column is Action(what you do). Similar to stage blocking, the right columnincludes the details and parameters that you don’t speak


aloud but are crucial to the performance. The first steps arewritten at the top and the timeline continues downwards.

See the example script for the Voicetoblog demo:

Lines Action

To show you how easyVoicetoblog works, I’ll startby opening my browser andheading to the site atwww.mydemosite.com.

Open Firefox browser, andtype URL. Zoom for easierview

I’m prompted to log in, soI’ll enter DEMO2016 and thepassword here so I can login.

Type user: DEMO2016password: RecAndPublish

Click ”Accept”

Now I’m logged in. You cansee the username appears atthe top-right corner.

On the left bar you can see“Posts”. From there I find theoption “Talk and CreateNew Post” and I click on it.

Click on “Talk and CreateNew Post”

Press “record” and now Ispeak for 10 seconds


Lines Action

Press “record” and say:“Brevity is the soul of wit–Shakespeare. Thank youfor reading my first post.-Oscar”

Click on “Stop” button

I click “Stop”, and my voicehas been recorded.

If you’ve reached this point and have filled in the productdemo script template, rest assured that you belong to anelite of professionals who are ahead of the masses. Nowlet’s move ahead in the demo script to find a key sectionthat will make a big difference: the WOW moment.

Define a WOWMoment.

The WOW moment is the snapshot of your demo thateverybody must remember. A WOW moment exposes thebest feature of the product and also epitomizes your mainmessage. Do you remember when Steve Jobs literally un-veiled the MacBook Air from a manila envelope? That isprobably the best example of a WOW moment you canfind. Another is Elon Musk’s “Oh, the grid is actually zero”moment during Tesla Powerwall product launch, in whichthe audience was astonished to find that the entire pressconference was battery powered.

http://youtu.be/Z0jIpSCndtw

http://youtu.be/Z0jIpSCndtw


Now it’s time for you to get creative. You must createsomething unique that nobody has done before; a new wayto showcase THE feature. But what is the feature? Startwith a list of the best features and capabilities that yourproduct has. Then narrow it down to 1 to 3 features youcan use to demonstrate something impressive.

When framed in an effective and creative way, great func-tionality will produce a WOW moment in people’s minds.If the demo is for a sales meeting and your prospect isexpecting a specific feature that is not in your narroweddown list, highlight a WOWmoment for that feature. Alsonote that for technically deeper demos, you might needmore than one WOW moment.

Ask your colleagues to brainstorm creative use cases. Nomatter how complex or unsexy you think your product is,with some time stretching your creativity you will craft agreat WOW moment.

See the WOW moment example for Voiceto-blog:

Two persons are sitting down, each one infront of a computer. They have the task tocreate and publish a 1000 word-long blog postin the shortest possible time. The first bloggeruses a regular web content management sys-tem and operates everything with a keyboardand a mouse. The second blogger uses Voice-toblog and commands everything with voice.


Both start at the same time. The first bloggertakes 60 minutes to complete the task. WithVoicetoblog, the blog article is on the Internetafter 20 minutes.

Chapter 5 presents you with additional strategies to craft aWOW moment, and real examples that will serve as inspi-ration. In terms of the overall three part demo structure, wehave covered the importance of setting context in the Pre-Demo, and crafting a scripted demo with a WOWmomentwithin the Demo. Most of the job is done, but this is notthe end of the presentation quite yet.

Section Three: Wrap-up

Another typical mistake in product demos is that oncefinished, the presenter rushes to say “that was my demo,”“this is pretty much all,” or “thank you.” If you do so, youare losing a great opportunity to inspire your audience andleave them with a desire to buy.

The best way to wrap up your demo is by doing two things:

1. Reiterate the message. Repeat your main messageagain to make it clear, sticky, and unforgettable.Otherwise the effect can be: “OK, this was impressivebut what was the point?”


2. Call-to-action. Your last words must be a call toaction, such as explaining when the product is goingto be launched, how it can be ordered, pre-ordered,downloaded, what the price is, etc. Similar to the Pre-Demo, keep the Wrap-up as short as two or threesentences.


Exercise 2: Your ProductDemo StructureNow that we’ve covered the full structureof a Product Demo, with its three mainsections and their subsections, it’s time foryou to take a stab at formulating your own:

Pre-Demo Introduce the presenter__________

Set the context__________

Demo Script (step by step)__________

WOW moment__________

Wrap-up Reiterate the message__________

Call-to-action__________


Where can I use my main message andstory?

In case you don’t know where to insert the message andstory you wrote earlier in this chapter, the following tablewill give you some hints.

Where to use your main message and story

Main message Story

Introduce thepresenter

X Tell the story ofthe inventor

Set the context You can givesome hints of themain message

Mention the storyto make thisexplanation moreconcrete. Story ofuser

Script The mainmessage must beclearly shown atsome moment

Mention the storyin specificmoments to makeit more concrete.Or the story ofhow the producthas improved auser’s work in aconcrete way

WOWmoment Some WOWmoments can fitwith the mainmessage / goal

Illustrate /emphasize thestory


Main message Story

Reiterate themessage

Connect mainmessage withwhat’s just beenshowed

Connect storywith what’s justbeen showed

Call-to-action X X

As you can see, there are some special sections in thedemo where you can use the main message and story.Taking your time to do this can be extremely powerful andbeneficial.

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