Sales Demo Best Practices: How to Engage and Close Deals

When you buy a car, you’re not just shown a list of features—you’re asked about your lifestyle and driving habits. The salesperson focuses on what matters most to you: safety for your family, fuel efficiency for your commute, or comfort for long road trips. 

A great sales demo works the same way. It’s not about listing the use cases and product features to dazzle prospective customers. It requires careful research about your customer’s needs and addressing them specifically during the demo, illustrating how your product fits into their life or workday. 

Approach your next sales demo in a way that turns decision-makers from prospects into buying customers and boosts conversion rates.

You’re pitching a revolutionary product to a potential client, but halfway through your pitch, you realize their biggest problem isn’t even on your radar. It’s like trying to sell snow boots in the Sahara.

A lack of preparation can lead to this disconnect, costing you the deal early on in the buyer’s journey. Here’s how to run a sales demo with complete preparation: 

Step 1: Research your prospect’s pain points and business needs

You’re meeting someone for the first time, and instead of listening to your story, they jump straight into talking about themselves. 

Now, imagine the same scenario happening in a sales demo. Unsurprisingly, 59% of business buyers say most sales professionals don’t take the time to understand them, and 86% claim they’d prefer to buy from companies that deeply understand their goals. 

If you skip this step, your pitch risks sounding generic—like offering a one-size-fits-all suit to someone looking for custom tailoring.

The following three practices can help you identify your client’s goals and needs for a perfect product demonstration: 

• Deep dive into their business goals. Research the client’s recent projects or press releases to look for indicators of what they value most: cost savings, innovation, or scalability. If a client recently announced expansion into new markets, your sales demo could highlight how your product can help them scale.

• Ask specific, insightful questions. Don’t rely solely on your research. Conduct meetings and calls to discover and show genuine interest in your client’s pain points. Ask them questions like: 

  • “What’s holding you back from achieving [specific goal]?”

  • “If you could solve one challenge this quarter, what would it be?”

• Encourage them to share their perspective: Sometimes, clients need a little nudge to articulate their pain points clearly. Encourage them to record a quick video using screen sharing and sales video software like Loom so they can share specific challenges, priorities, or desired outcomes. Unlike a phone call, where details can be misinterpreted or context forgotten, this replayable video provides unfiltered insights you can refer to at any time.

Pro tip: Listen actively so you can answer questions and address every tiny detail later in the demo. Buyers notice when you remember the small details, which sets you apart from sales reps who treat outreach messaging and the buying process as merely transactional.

Step 2: Set a clear agenda and confirm it with the prospect 

It’s optimal to dive right into your sales demo. You know exactly where to focus—on the pain points keeping your prospect up at night. No wasted time, no irrelevant details, just a targeted account of your solution that leaves them thinking, This is exactly what I needed.

Without a clear plan for your pitch, you risk meandering through features that don’t matter to your prospects.

Before the demo starts, send an agenda to your prospect for review. They can provide feedback and indicate their strongest areas of interest. 

Also, consider what you want the prospect to take away from the demo. Is it a better understanding of how your product solves their specific problem? Or is it a commitment to the next steps?

If your prospect is exploring automation tools, an agenda might look like this:

• Introduction (5 minutes): Quickly recap their challenges.

• Solution overview (15 minutes): Highlight specific features addressing their pain points.

• Interactive Q&A (10 minutes): Address their top questions.

• Next steps (5 minutes): Define clear follow-up actions.

Send the agenda a day or two in advance so your prospect has time to review it and request any changes.

Step 3: Pre-record demo videos for convenience

While live demos are perfect for addressing high-level benefits, immediate customer needs, and pain points, some features need a deeper explanation. 

That’s where pre recorded demo videos can help. Instead of going into a detailed explanation during the live demo, end it by saying, “For more in-depth information on how this works, I’ve included a prerecorded video that goes into more detail.”

Say you’re demo-ing a complex project management tool. The live demo can focus on the dashboard and main features, while the pre recorded video can walk the audience through more intricate workflows or integrations. This allows them to review the complex parts of your product at their own pace without overwhelming them during the live demo.

Pro tip: Use Loom to create your pre recorded demos. You can record your screen and face to provide more context, adding annotations and commentary for a personal touch. 

Step 4: Showcase value through storytelling and social proof

When presenting a gourmet dish, chefs don’t just list the ingredients; they weave a story. They might say something like, “This truffle was foraged from a misty forest in Tuscany,” which paints a vivid picture and makes the dish appear extraordinary. 

Try applying this to your sales strategy. Think of your product as the dish you want to present in an irresistible light using storytelling. 

Here’s how you can use the art of storytelling to showcase your product’s features: 

• Mention the prospect’s challenges. Create an emotional connection and grab your audience’s attention by stating their problems. Say something like: “It’s Monday morning, and your sales team spends two hours manually compiling data instead of strategizing. That’s 10 hours a week wasted. What if we could give that time back?” 

• Introduce your product as the hero. Position your product or services as the solution to their challenges. Rather than overwhelming them with technical features, paint a picture of how the product solves their problem. You can say, “[Product/Brand Name] automates data collection, so your team can focus on high-impact decisions. One of our retail clients saved 40% of their time and increased sales forecasting accuracy by 20% in just three months.”

• Use real-world examples to add authenticity to your claim. Show how your product helped a client overcome a similar issue so the prospect knows that you walk the talk. Include real numbers, real results, and real transformations. 

Pro tip: Start the demo with an impactful, client-centered introduction, articulating the goals of your demo and how your product can help from the get-go. Instead of saying, “We’ll cover our automation features,” try, “We’ll show you how to cut manual tasks by 50%.”

Step 5: Address questions proactively

You may have noticed that every courtroom drama has one thing in common: The attorney closes the argument by tying everything together, leaving everyone nodding in agreement. 

That’s exactly how your sales demo should end—everyone leaves content and without lingering doubts. Setting aside 10 to 15 minutes for a Q&A session helps alleviate your prospects' doubts and leaves them feeling completely understood. 

Here are two things to keep in mind to run a successful Q&A session: 

• Ensure the prospect knows about the Q&A session. Mention the Q&A session in your agenda with the specific time so your prospects can come prepared with questions. Remind them of the Q&A again before you start the demo by saying, “We’ll finish with a quick Q&A session to make sure we’ve covered everything you need. Feel free to jot down any questions as we go.” 

• Be ready with answers to common customer queries. Ensure you start the demo prepared with predictable questions based on your prospect’s budget, industry, role, and challenges. Address potential objections while demo-ing the product to minimize resistance. If pricing is a common concern, dedicate time in your demo to how your product maximizes ROI. 

Pro tip: Sales prospecting is about boosting revenue, but this doesn’t mean relying on dishonest answers or tactics. Even if you don’t know the answer, admit it by saying, “That’s a great question. I don’t have that data on hand, but I’ll get it to you right after this demo call.”

Later, you can follow up by sharing the data using Loom. This makes your response personal and allows you to visually demonstrate key points. 

Here are some practical, easy-to-apply best practices for running a successful sales demo.

• Tailor the demo to the prospect’s specific needs. Craft every aspect of the demo to align with your prospect’s pain points, role, industry, and goals. Use specific examples and relatable testimonials to reinforce your product as the ultimate solution to their problems. 

• Make the demo interactive. Engage your prospects throughout the demo so you’re not just talking at them—you’re speaking directly to them. For software demos, let them try the product themselves while you guide them. 

• Show, don’t just tell, what success will look like. Weave a clear picture of the results and business transformations they can expect when they use your product. One way to do this is by sharing before-and-after scenarios of your current customers. Or, you could use data visualization tools to project growth metrics like ROI—for instance, “By month three, you could see a 20% increase in efficiency.”

• Tap into the FOMO (fear of missing out). Invoke a bit of FOMO by showing them what their competitors are doing and how your product will help them stay ahead. Keep it simple by saying something like, “60% of businesses in your industry are using this product,” and then highlight what your product does differently to give them an edge.

• Offer limited-time perks. Create urgency without being pushy by offering genuine incentives like an exclusive trial or discounted implementation period. Say, “If you sign up this quarter, you’ll unlock X at no additional cost.”

Pro tip: Follow up using video sales tools like Loom to recap key takeaways and reinforce your product’s value with additional case studies. You can also add a CTA link within the Loom video to direct your prospect to complete an action—it could be signing up for a free trial or scheduling a meeting. 

Great sales demos can captivate, engage, and convince your audience. 

To leave a lasting impact with your product demo, you need extensive research to understand and address potential customer pain points, a set agenda to guide you during the sales demonstration, and the tools to connect on a deeper level. 

Loom’s free screen recorder makes it easy to both show and tell your prospects about your product. With Loom, you can provide detailed functionality demonstrations and tailored follow-ups—and that added personal touch to the sales process can make all the difference.

So why not make your next sales demo unforgettable? Elevate your sales demos with Loom’s video capabilities. Start today!