Said It Here

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.

  1. 1
    Doing proper discovery before jumping into a demo
  2. 2
    Shifting to shorter demos and async formats
  3. 3
    Focusing on active listening and tying value to real client pain points
  4. 4
    Prefacing demos with an understanding of what needs to be solved and stopping long-winded pitches

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, 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 ↗

Different_Pain5781 · r/salesforce · 84 upvotes

“I wouldn't need a demo if the product vendor had screenshots or videos of their product in use.”source ↗

agent674253 · r/salesforce · 8 upvotes

“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 ↗

Suspicious-Nerve-487 · r/salesforce · 3 upvotes

“And still, I get the long winded sales pitch and they don’t even know half of the functionality.”source ↗

OnceMooSomnia · r/salesforce · 2 upvotes

Where this came up

r/salesforcesales

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