Tips to Avoid Demo Drama - Tip 12: Embrace storytelling as part of your demos

[#1]

When you are doing a demo, it is easy to focus on telling your audience about the features of the software. The problem is that when you concentrate exclusively on the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, you forget about the ‘why’—and this is perhaps the most important question of all.

Your audience is of course interested in the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, but most of all they want to know why: what value they will get.

Storytelling can help to ensure that you always remember the ‘why’.

It is a very powerful approach that will make your message even stronger. Telling stories builds trust with your audience. A story can also make it easier for your audience to see the value and understand the purpose of what you are trying to showcase. It is easy to fall into the ‘how’ trap, showing feature after feature without telling the audience why these features matter. Storytelling helps you to combine the ‘why’ and ‘how’ in the right order.

For example, before showcasing a specific capability, you might say, “Imagine you need to explore your data to determine what underlying parameters are driving customer satisfaction. This might be complex, especially if you do not know where to start. What you can do is….”, before moving on to showcase your capability.

Focus on why first, before moving to what and how.

[WhitneyWilson]

This was explained so well. Great insights, Kalle!

[KalleM]

Thank you @WhitneyWilson Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year