TL;DR Compelling demos pull the audience in by getting them to see themselves in both the company and the personal narrative that you present through a narrative business arc, a character hero, and user stories that focus on before, with, and outcome (so what).
Great stories start with asking the right questions and acute listening to the prospect's world. This comes from strong discovery (either you or more likely a sales rep).
From here, choose a story telling framework. I use 3 layers of scaffolding a) The overarching arc (bundled formula) b) the character journey (outside loop) c) and the user story (inner "for" loop). It's a combo of Nancy Duarte's Resonate (which is mostly just the hero's journey), Pixar (once upon a time, this person, but then), South Park (this person, but, therefore, then, because, but, but, oh crap, resolution), and Demo2Win (tell, show, tell).
a) The arc: The business situation, the challenge ahead of them, what it looks like today and why the status quo is no longer going to work, imagine a new world XYZ, this is how they achieved XYZ (b/t we have customers that did XYZ case study), these are the steps they took (next step sales and implementation). Usually as a derivative of your selling methodology whether it be BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline), MEDDIC, Challenger Sale.
b) The character: The main persona who you are selling to (can be buyer or user, hybrid). What do they personally care about, what are they trying to do, why does it matter.
c) The user story(ies): This has many names depending on the dept. JTBD (jobs to be done), user story (as a ___, I'm trying to do ____, because ____, so that ____), tell-show-tell, value props w/ feature-benefit.
- Either as end to end workflow (I tend to like this for live demos, more business realistic and rewarding)
- or vignettes/moments based on value.
How this practically looks (as a MadLib)
- Here's [AcmeCo]; they are a [] business in [] industry who are trying to do [challenge ABC], like you.
- Let's pretend that I'm [] person. They [daily/existential pain] and [how it impacts them]. Here's what it looks like in [XYZ solution]:
- [JTBD/Valueprop1]
- Before, [] person used to have to [] and it [challenge: took # hrs, % slow, manual pain].
- With [XYZ solution], they can now [click, upload, transform, send, report, download, compute].
- This [value: took # hrs, % faster, automated bliss] aka the "So what"
- [JTBD/Valueprop2]
- Before...
- With...
- This...
- [JTBD/Valueprop3]
- Before...
- With...
- This...
- [JTBD/Valueprop1]
- Now [] person can [value: how it impacts them]. From [before], to [after].
- Now [AcmeCo] can do [benefit 123]. Here are some real examples from [client case studies].
- And this is how those case studies go to where they are [next steps/implementation path]
An example
Here's [AcmeCo]; they're a 300-person payment processing company in fintech who are trying to consolidate their compliance reporting across 12 state regulators, like you.
Let's pretend that I'm Maria, their compliance operations manager. She spends her mornings pulling transaction data from three different systems, cross-referencing it against state-specific reporting templates, and manually flagging exceptions before the weekly filing deadline. One mistake and she's looking at an audit. Here's what it looks like in [XYZ solution]:
- Automated report generation
- Before, Maria used to manually export CSVs from each system, merge them in Excel, and re-format for each state template. It took her 6 hours every Monday and she dreaded it.
- With [XYZ solution], she connects her transaction sources once, maps them to each state's requirements, and generates all 12 reports in a single click.
- This cuts her Monday reporting from 6 hours to 20 minutes and eliminates the copy-paste errors that triggered 3 audits last year.
- Exception detection
- Before, Maria eyeballed thousands of rows looking for threshold breaches, often catching them after submission.
- With [XYZ solution], the system flags exceptions in real-time as transactions flow in, days before the filing deadline.
- This means Maria's team shifts from reactive firefighting to proactive resolution, and her auditor calls have dropped to zero this quarter.
Now Maria can leave Monday mornings open for her team's strategy meeting instead of locked in a spreadsheet. From dreading the weekly filing to trusting it's handled.
Now [AcmeCo] can expand into 5 new states this year without hiring additional compliance staff. Here are some real examples from [client case studies]. And here's what their first 90 days looked like to get there.
John Forbes is the founder of Aero and a former sales engineer & product marketer at high-growth software companies. john@aero.ws