Why are software demos so long and boring?
Software demos often overwhelm buyers by showing every feature instead of focusing on specific pain points and relevance. This leaves prospective buyers exhausted, disengaged, and prone to ghosting the sales rep after the call.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Doing proper discovery before jumping into a demoDid this help you?
- 2Shifting to shorter demos and async formatsDid this help you?
- 3Focusing on active listening and tying value to real client pain pointsDid this help you?
- 4Prefacing demos with an understanding of what needs to be solved and stopping long-winded pitchesDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Buyers say they want a demo, but halfway through they’re already tired. Every ghosted follow up i’ve had makes more sense now.”source ↗
“I wouldn't need a demo if the product vendor had screenshots or videos of their product in use.”source ↗
“Agreed, but the opposite side of the coin is the companies / buyers that want to do discovery and just demand a demo, then turn around and complain that the demo didn’t show a solution to any of their issues”source ↗
“And still, I get the long winded sales pitch and they don’t even know half of the functionality.”source ↗
Where this came up
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