"Can you just show them the software?"
If you're a solution engineer, you've heard this sentence approximately 47,000 times in your career. Usually it comes from an account executive about three minutes into your carefully planned demonstration opening, right when you're setting up the business context that will make the next forty minutes meaningful.
If you're an account executive, you've probably said some version of this yourself. Maybe you were getting nervous about the prospect's attention span. Maybe you felt like the "intro stuff" was taking too long. Maybe you just wanted to get to "the good part."
Either way, that sentence, innocent as it seems, is a deal-killer.
Here's why: Elite solution engineers don't "just show the software." They execute a proven demo structure that moves prospects through a carefully orchestrated journey from strategic context to operational proof to business commitment. When that structure gets interrupted or abandoned, demos devolve into feature tours. And feature tours don't close deals—they just create more meetings.
The good news? Once you understand the structure, you'll know exactly when to actively participate, when to support silently, and when to let your SE work their magic. You'll also understand why that "intro stuff" isn't filler, it's the foundation that makes everything else work.
The framework is called the 2Win Structure, and it's built around a specific sequence of moments, each color-coded to show where it sits on the Value Pyramid:
Statement of Intent (Strategic - Green): Set clear expectations for what will happen in the meeting and agree with the client on the intended outcome.
Example: "By the end of today's session, you're going to understand how we can specifically address your challenge of reducing loan processing time by four days."
This isn't throat-clearing. This is alignment. Everything that follows will ladder up to this stated objective.
Limbic Opening (Departmental - Yellow): Frame the conversation around a key departmental impact using storytelling to create an emotional connection. This might be discovery insights you've uncovered, a relevant customer story, or an illustrative analogy that helps the audience think differently about their current approach.
This is where you plant the emotional seed that determines how the rest of the demo will be perceived. Skip this, and you're trying to grow a plant without roots.
Initial Visual Roadmap (Operational - Blue): Outline the topics you'll cover. In formal presentations, this might be a slide. In improvised demos, it might be typed in chat. The purpose is to break the narrative into digestible chunks so the audience knows where they are throughout the journey.
Then comes the heart of the demo, multiple cycles of Tell-Show-Tell:
Opening Tell: Provide meaningful context for what's about to be shown so the audience knows why they should care.
Show: Demonstrate the features, but only what's needed to prove the point and communicate the operational impact. This is surgical, not comprehensive.
Closing Tell: Surface and discuss the operational impact. How will this change the way people work? What does this mean for the users in the room?
This Tell-Show-Tell pattern repeats for each topic in your roadmap, creating a rhythm: context, solution, benefit, context, solution, benefit.
Final Visual Roadmap (Operational - Blue): Summarize where you've been. Connect all the operational elements ("here's how it works") with what it means operationally. This prepares the audience to climb back up the Value Pyramid.
Value Close (Departmental - Yellow): Bookend the Limbic Opening. If you told a story at the beginning, bring it back. Provide evidence of your success; case studies, customer quotes, ROI calculations. This is your moment to connect to the business value they care enough about to act on.
Next Steps (Strategic - Green): Identify and communicate clear actions to move the deal forward. You've opened and closed at the strategic level, proving you understand not just their technical needs but their business objectives.
Let's pause on Tell-Show-Tell because this is where most teams get it wrong.
Many people hear "Tell-Show-Tell" and think: "Tell them what you're going to show them, show them, then tell them what you showed them."
That's not it.
Here's what it actually means:
Opening Tell: "Let me give you context for why this matters. During discovery, you mentioned your loan officers are currently copying data between three different systems for every application, and that this manual process is causing an average delay of two days per loan and creating errors in about 15% of applications. What I'm about to show you directly addresses this."
Show: Demonstrates the integrated workflow "So all the data flows automatically from the application into these fields, and the validation happens in real-time here..."
Closing Tell: "So what this means for your loan officers is they're eliminating two full days of manual data entry per application and you're removing the error rate entirely. For a team processing 200 loans per month, that's roughly 400 hours you're getting back. Talk to me about what your team could do with that time."
Notice the difference? The Opening Tell isn't just previewing features. It's connecting upcoming capabilities to real business pain. The Show is focused and efficient, no tangents. No "let me also show you this cool thing." And the Closing Tell facilitates a conversation about impact, not just a recap of what was clicked.
This structure does something psychologically powerful: it moves the audience from passive observers to active participants in envisioning their future state. When done correctly, prospects aren't watching a demo—they're experiencing a preview of their transformed business process.
But it only works if the structure stays intact.
If you're an account executive or account manager, you might be thinking: "So I just sit there quietly while my SE does their thing?"
Not quite. Strategic participation is different from passive observation. Here's your playbook:
Limbic Opening: If you have a customer story that perfectly illustrates the business objective, work with your SE beforehand to deliver this yourself. You own the strategic relationships so use that. One top performer I worked with would open key demos by sharing a story about a similar customer's transformation, setting the emotional tone before handing off to the SE for the technical journey.
Opening Tells: This is prime territory for on-the-fly discovery. Maybe you understand the general context but not the specific details. "Before Sarah shows you how our workflow automation handles this, help me understand when you're processing these applications manually today, what's the biggest bottleneck? Is it the data entry time, the error correction, or something else?" Now your SE can tailor the Show based on what they just heard.
Closing Tells: Similar opportunity. You understand the operational changes, but you want to surface the specific impact. "You just saw how the automated validation works. For your team specifically, what does eliminating those errors mean? Is it primarily a time-savings thing, or is there a customer satisfaction angle we should be thinking about?"
Value Close: If you deeply understand the business outcomes and stakeholder dynamics, you might be better positioned than your SE to deliver this. "We've shown you how this transforms the loan officer workflow and drives measurable departmental improvements. Let me connect this back to what you shared with me last week about your strategic initiative to capture 15% market share in the small business segment..."
What not to do:
Don't interrupt the Show. Your SE is being surgical. They're showing exactly what needs to be shown to prove the point without veering into feature-tour territory. When you interject with, "Hey, can you also show them the reporting dashboard?" (even if you think it's relevant) you're breaking the narrative flow. If something needs to be shown, it should have been in your Win Plan. If it wasn't, save it for later.
Don't challenge the structure. If your SE takes three minutes for an Opening Tell, that's not wasted time. They're building the foundation. Give them space to execute the plan you built together.
Don't ask them to "do what you did last week." Every deal is different. Every audience is different. Every business context is different. This lazy shorthand tells your SE you don't know the deal and aren't helping them craft a compelling story.
Don't only focus on operational items. When you do participate, connect those operational changes to business value. That's what makes the story compelling.
While your SE is navigating the software, you have a crucial role that most account executives completely miss: you're watching the audience.
Your SE is managing a lot. They're navigating screen sharing, clicking through the solution, articulating value, and trying to read the room, all simultaneously. They can't possibly catch every signal.
But you can.
Watch for body language. Did someone lean in during a particular moment? Did you catch a smile or a nod? Is someone clearly disengaging, checking their phone or losing focus?
Take notes on questions that come up so you can help organize the conversation later. Be ready to field business or commercial questions you're better positioned to answer than your SE.
Notice who's engaging and who's not. Maybe the end user is loving the operational impacts, but the VP hasn't reacted to anything yet. That's valuable intelligence you can use in your Value Close to directly address what matters to that executive.
This is active support. Your SE is running the technical show, but you're quarterbacking the broader dynamics in the room.
Here's where most teams drop the ball: they finish the demo, do a quick "I think that went well," and move on.
Elite teams do something different. They debrief.
Immediately after the demo, or at least within 24 hours, spend 15 minutes with your SE asking:
What went well? What should we keep doing?
What didn't go as well as we'd hoped? How do we adjust next time?
What surprised us? What did we learn about the account?
How did our teamwork look? Where were we seamless? Where were we clunky?
What's our next move based on what we observed?
This isn't about blame or criticism. It's about objective observation and continuous improvement. The teams that build this rhythm, map out a Win Plan, execute the 2Win Structure together, and debrief afterward, hone their coordination to a level that becomes a legitimate competitive advantage.
Remember: buyers judge their future experience with you based on how you work together during the sales process. Every demo is both an evaluation of your product and an audition for your team's ability to deliver post-sale success.
Starting with your next significant demo, try this:
Before the demo: Build a Win Plan with your SE. Agree on objectives, audience, messaging, and who's handling which elements of the 2Win Structure.
During the demo: Execute your assigned moments with excellence. During your SE's Show portions, watch the audience like a hawk. Take notes. Catch signals. Support the structure rather than disrupting it.
After the demo: Spend 15 minutes debriefing. What worked? What needs adjustment? What did you learn?
Do this consistently, and something interesting happens. Your SE stops seeing you as someone they have to "also manage" during demos and starts seeing you as a true partner who makes them better. You stop seeing your SE as someone who "handles the technical stuff" and start seeing them as a strategic weapon in your deal pursuit.
That shift in dynamic is worth more than any feature advantage you might have over competitors. Because here's the reality: your competitors probably have most of the same features you do. They might even have better features in some areas.
But do they have a seamlessly coordinated team executing a proven structure that takes prospects on an emotional journey from strategic context to operational proof to business commitment?
Probably not.
And that's your edge.
The software doesn't sell itself. But a well-coordinated team using a proven structure to tell a persuasive story about business transformation?
That closes deals.