Guy Kawasaki’s Legendary Tech Demo Principles

Hey Sales Pros, happy Friday! 🙌🙌

Today I want to reference an extraordinary piece of content by a legendary figure in the Tech industry: Guy Kawasaki.

Guy is, of course, the first person to have held the title of Chief Evangelist at a fledgling company by the name of Apple, where a certain Steve Jobs would go on to deliver many legendary demos himself:

And while Guy’s piece is great it feels a bit like learning layups from LeBron 🏀 or free kicks from Messi ⚽: Great during the “see him do one” phase, daunting to say the least during the “now you try one” phase.

So I’ve decided to add my own spin bearing two things in mind:

Firstly - Sales Pro-oriented commentary - Guy’s original piece refers to all sorts of demos, mainly ones for the benefit of VCs.

Secondly - The fact that many of us consider ourselves mere mortals as opposed to Demo Gods. It doesn’t take away from the preparation we put in, but when it comes to showing off the finer points of the solution not all of us operate quite at Chief Evangelist level.

And if Guy is your neighbour or you meet him for tacos and beers next week - maybe don’t tell him about this  😳 so I don’t find a strongly-worded email in my inbox…

From the top then:

Create something worth demoing

As a Sales Pro, I’d assume (ha!) you would only demo or indeed sell a solution that you stand behind. My interpretation here is “make sure your demo is tailored to the prospect’s pain points and mirrors their situation/processes closely enough to convince them of there being a solution fit.”

We’re asking for thorough discovery and confirmed insight into the inner workings as well as customisation of your demo environment beyond just showing the prospect’s logo. If you aren’t convinced you have fulfilled this requirement you are not demo-ready.

In my experience hardly ever has a prospect baulked at “just so I don’t waste your time and mine, can I confirm I have understood this process properly before we run the demo next week.”

Bring two of everything, Get organized in advance & Eliminate the factors that you can’t control

Do. As. The. Man. Says. BUT: In the context of a Sales Demo in 2024, if your solution requires connectivity - do NOT mislead your prospects about your demo environment being live if isn’t. In any way, shape or form. Ever. That is the road to hell and there are NO off-ramps. 👿👿

Start with “shock and awe.”

I’m pretty much with Guy here, show them the “coolest thing your solution can do” in the first minute. In my own cautious way I’d perhaps call the most valuable thing for their particular use case in an environment they clearly recognise as modelling their reality or desired end state, whichever of the two has been agreed on beforehand. It just… doesn’t sound as good. 😉😉

Cut the jokes

Yup, do what the man says. You’re not employed as a comedian - it may just be a tough crowd. Keeping your timing straight is hard enough when you’re not busy cracking jokes.

Do it alone

Sales Pro to Sales Pro I’d say consider doing it alone. Not a hill I’d die on. If your customised environment or even the solution as such is too complex for you to demo smoothly and convincingly, bring your favourite Sales Engineer buddy. The demo is a Sales tool meant to advance your opportunity, NOT a rodeo for your personal vanity.

Cut the jargon

100% agree with Guy. Since Sales Pros mainly are likely to only demo to a single company/organisation you may however pick up some of their jargon in your detailed discovery - and that can really help things along. So “Cut any of your own/generic jargon.”

Don’t take any questions until the end

Totally with Guy here.

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End with an exclamation point

Couldn’t have said it better. If you do it thoroughly, this will be one of the longer bullet points to work through.

Have you checked the commentaries on Guy’s original piece? It was written in 2015 and - in my humble opinion at least - stands up perfectly well today.

I challenge you to channel your inner Sales Pro Demo Demi-God and put in the work to plan, customise, practice and deliver the best possible tech demo. Good things will come to you.

In the meantime: Thanks for your time and have a great weekend whether you’ll be working or relaxing (or both.) I’ll have more for you on Monday.

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