Demo-litions: Klue’s Sales Demo Tear-Down (Episode 1)

It’s here! Welcome to Season One, Episode One of our new Sales Hacker series, Demo-litions, where real reps giving real sales demos are reviewed by two sales experts.

Please provide your feedback and comments so we can keep improving this series as we go! To see new episodes as they come out, subscribe at the top of this page, and we’ll get them to you in your inbox each week.

Full Disclosure: We don’t have anything to disclose. Nobody in this video paid to be in it, and we didn’t trade any services either. This is just our honest appraisal of a real sales demo from a real rep!

Let’s dive in!

Setting the Stage 

In this first pilot episode, we dive into a demo provided to us by Shane Todhunter (shout-out to Shane for being our first guest!). Shane is from an awesome organization called Klue, a competitive intelligence SAAS company, and he’s demoing his software to another great org, OpenGov.

In Episode 1, we look at the first quarter of Shane’s demo: Discovery and Introduction of the product. In this episode, DaveI will evaluate Shane on his ability to: 

  1. Build rapport
  2. Set an agenda
  3. Introduce the product and the pain points it addresses 

Rapport-Building: 5/5

Shane, the seller, seems to have a natural ability to find common ground quickly and in a natural way. His tonality and cadence make the prospect immediately feel at ease. 

In Chris Voss’ book Never Split the Difference, he talks about putting on a “Late Night DJ Voice.” Shane has this voice nailed, and we think he used it to full effect in his sales demo.

Keep doing you, Shane! You’re a rapport king!

Agenda-Setting: 4/5

Shane set a pretty loose agenda, so there is certainly a little room for improvement in this area. We would have liked to see him take more control from the beginning so she knows what she’s getting herself into.

Still, the agenda was clear, which is the most important part.

Introduction / Discovery: 3/5 

Shane spends a little too much time on the intro slides for our liking. Nobody likes watching a Powerpoint deck, and typically prospects are itching to check out the actual platform. 

We also would have liked to see Shane asking a few more questions up front, so he could better tailor the demo to the prospect’s specific needs.

Key Takeaways

  • Reiterate their pain up front.
  • Be firm in your agenda setting.
  • Ask more discovery questions up front.
  • When talking customer use-cases, tailor it to their use-case and not a generic one.
  • Use “close-probs” like the seller does (i.e., “Is that how you look at things too?”). 
  • Watch for buzzwords. 
  • Copy Shane’s calming “late night DJ voice.” 

Quote of the Episode

Get them to talk about their headache and then hand them the Tylenol.”

Scott Barker is the Head of Partnerships and Revenue at Sales Hacker. He is passionate about building and strengthening authentic relationships with his team and partners. Outside of Sales Hacker, he helps bring Vancouver sales professionals together to share ideas, network with peers, and learn from top sales operators & leaders as GM of Vancouver Enterprise Sales Forum.   Dave Kennett is a seasoned SaaS and Software sales leader with over 25 years of progressive business development and sales leadership experience. His experience has centered around start-up, turn-around, and hyper-growth situations. He founded and leads a successful high-growth On-Demand Inside Sales Coaching company called Replayz.

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