Tips to Avoid Demo Drama - Tip 4: Preparing demos takes time

[#1]

In my experience, the more time you put into preparing for a demo, the more likely it is to be both better and more successful.

How much time should you put into preparing for each demo? This really depends on your use-case and what you already have in place. If you already have demo assets in place, then it will be quicker—but you will almost certainly still need to do some fine-tuning. The golden rule is that you need as much time it takes to reach a comfortable level of 100+%. In my experience, this is roughly the time you think it will take, multiplied by two. If you are going to be using customer data, multiply it by two again. If you are demonstrating a proof-of-concept, multiply it by two once more.

The second part of this tip is that if you don’t have the time, then don’t agree to do the demo.

If you feel that you do not have the time, it is better to be honest with both your team and the customer than to turn in a poor demo.