In the hyper-competitive world of sales and presales, your demo can make or break a deal. Yet time and again, teams fall into the same traps—classic "demo crimes" that leave buyers confused, unengaged, and ultimately unconverted.
In a sales and presales function, demo crimes are considered especially heinous. The dedicated demo detectives who investigate these presentation felonies are an elite squad of facilitators, executives, and presales leaders. These are their stories.
Cold Case: Would You Please Just Finish That Thought
Picture this: You're five minutes into what should have been a focused software demo, and your prospect looks confused. You started showing one feature, jumped to administration settings, wandered into user permissions, and somehow ended up discussing your pricing matrix. Sound familiar?
Welcome to the world of demo meandering—a presentation crime that's even worse than data dumping.
Repeat Offenders:
Demo meandering happens when you start showing a feature but jump to completely different areas of your software without finishing your original thought. Unlike data dumping (where you at least stay in one logical area), meandering takes your audience on a confusing journey through your stream of consciousness.
Why Do We Meander?
Several factors contribute to this presentation pitfall:
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Time anxiety: Fear of running out of time before showing "important" features
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Lack of discipline: Not sticking to your planned demo flow
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Momentary distractions: Losing focus during the presentation
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Impatient audiences: Letting anxious prospects derail your plan
Scene of the Crime
Let's say you're demonstrating a police dispatch system to Christine, a shift supervisor. You plan to show how her team handles ordinary citizen calls. Here's what meandering sounds like:
"OK Christine, I'll show you how to handle an ordinary call and dispatch an officer. When I receive the call—which by the way can come from landlines, mobile, social media, or text—I gather basic information. The system provides a recommended priority, which is determined by parameters in the administration section. Let me jump over there... [scrolling, scrolling] Here's where you modify parameters, but you need admin rights for that. Speaking of admin rights, here's user administration... Anyway, back to our call... [5 minutes later] So you can see how easy it is to determine priority! Our pricing matrix is really powerful..."
Painful, right? Christine is probably thinking your dispatch system is cumbersome and confusing.
Department of Corrections
Instead of meandering, focus on one complete thought at a time. If Christine asks, "How does the system determine call priority?" respond with: "Great question, Christine. I'll cover that in detail shortly. Is it okay if we finish this workflow first?"
Nine times out of ten, they'll agree to wait for the complete explanation.
Warning Signs
Watch for these phrases—they're red flags that you're about to lose focus:
When you catch yourself using these phrases, STOP. Get back on track immediately.
How to Stay Focused
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Craft a story of change and commit to communicating that story with clarity
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Think of each capability as a complete thought that needs beginning-to-end demonstration
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Ask a teammate to signal you when you start meandering during practice sessions
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Remember your goal: Give prospects a clear picture of how they'll use and benefit from your software
The Final Verdict
Modern software designs make meandering easy—everything connects to everything else, and there are multiple ways to accomplish any task. That flexibility serves users well but can destroy your demo.
Stay disciplined. Complete your thoughts. Give your prospects the focused, logical presentation they deserve. Your sales success depends on it.
2Win!
