Tips to Avoid Demo Drama - Tip 22: Use information from the customer to improve your PoC demo

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I said yesterday that proof-of-concept (PoC) demos could be time-consuming and frustrating. However, there are some tricks that might help you to improve your success.

1. Establish a customer contact. It is always important to have someone to confirm your understanding and answer questions. If you have established a good relationship with someone, they may even help you to succeed. Remember my best demo ever? That started from a PoC.
2. Summarise all use and demo cases and try to find a common theme. The customer has probably provided a lot of information in the PoC introduction and description. This may point you towards a specific direction, or enable you to identify a theme that will help you to succeed.
3. Use your contact to confirm you are on the right lines. You can discuss your intentions with your contact, setting out your understanding of the overall theme. This will help you to confirm whether it is relevant. You may also be able to add your own twist and make your software shine.
4. Use the customer responses to FAQs. Sometimes customers send out answers to FAQs asked by you and the competition. These answers may provide vital information. Look in particular for questions to which you think the answer is very obvious. These may highlight a weakness from the competition - or they may suggest that you have misunderstood the use case.