Accelerate sales cycles with scalable, hands-on environments that quickly wow prospects and empower sales engineers.
An engaging demo environment is table stakes for today’s software organizations. 62% of buyers1 say the product trial is their top factor in the purchase decision. Meanwhile, 56% of “no decision” deals2 are due to FOMU (fear of messing up).
Software demos and trials should help instill confidence in buyers, but not all demo environments are created equal. Modern demos go beyond static presentations, offering hands-on experiences that empower prospects to see their unique solutions in action across realistic, tailored scenarios. They’re used in sales presentations, tradeshow/event demos and as part of enablement collateral/sales leave-behinds.
Ready to transform your product demo environments into a scalable sales accelerator? Here’s what you need to know.
Jump ahead
- What is a demo environment? Dive into definitions and compare traditional vs. modern approaches to software demo environments.
- What does a good demo environment look like? Spoiler alert: it’s interactive, personalized and scalable. Here’s why and how.
- Beyond the demo – Using virtual labs to streamline Proof-of-Concept (POC) environments for software.
- Real-world examples – See how software organizations are realizing the revenue-driving and efficiency impacts of proof-of-value demo environments.
- tl; dr – How to win more deals faster with modern demo environments.
What is a demo environment?
A demo environment is a controlled, purpose-driven environment designed to showcase how a software application or platform works.
Traditionally, demos are presentations where sales reps or technical experts walk through features and functionality they believe will be relevant and valuable to the prospect. While this can be an effective starting point in sales conversations, hearing or seeing how something works without experiencing it for yourself provides limited context.
Make it more than a talking-head demo with interactive elements that turn the theoretical into the tangible. Virtual lab environments allow you to stop telling and start showing by giving customers (and sellers) the opportunity to get hands-on with your product. By experiencing the benefits firsthand, you flip the script from selling to prospects to prospects selling it to themselves.
Traditional vs. modern demo environments
Traditional demo environments
- Generic, one-size-fits-all experience
- Limited access or functionality
- Broad guidance, leading to an overwhelming or underwhelming experience
Modern demo environments
- Access to a real software environment
- Personalized experience
- Ability to quickly spin up, reset and tear down environments
- Interactive, guided experiences lead users through realistic scenarios that are relevant to solving their real-world challenges
What do modern software demo environments look like?
Modern demo environments go beyond showcasing functionality and foster realistic, interactive experiences via purpose-built sandboxes or guided virtual labs. Leading virtual lab platforms, like Skillable, enable you to quickly stand up interactive live demo environments so prospects can experience the value of your product firsthand – especially if you have highly configurable software.
When choosing a virtual lab platform for interactive and scalable software demo environments, it’s important to think about not only the experience for prospects, but also your sales engineers (SEs). Modern product demo environments streamline setup and customization capabilities, empowering SEs to spend less time managing environments and more time selling.
Modern demo environments provide:
Easy access
- Frictionless – No downloads (even if you have an on-prem solution); no tedious sign-up processes.
- On-demand – Browser-based sandboxes and virtual labs enable users to simply use an access code and dive in.
Real-world experience
- Access to a real software environment – Allows users to experience real functionality.
- Realistic scenarios – Make it applicable and relevant to solving prospects’ real-world challenges.
Hands-on engagement
- Embedded guidance – Including instructions and relevant tasks via guided lab experiences.
- Interactive activities – Support dynamic, adaptive experiences without manual intervention.
Personalization
- User-specific environments – Boost engagement by focusing on the roles, goals and specific tasks users are trying to accomplish.
- Keep it separated – Enable users to launch a personalized instance where they can freely experiment or make mistakes without creating issues for other users.
- SE-specific environments – Enable SEs to deliver personalized experiences without creating issues or roadblocks for other SEs.
Easy maintenance
- Ditch the headaches with DIY environments – Multiple DIY instances become unruly to maintain, create a non-standard experience for SEs, IT and prospects, along with more duplicate work. Automate environment set up and clean up with virtual labs.
- Stop the screenshot merry-go-round – Using simulations for demos? Switch to virtual labs to eliminate the pain of updating screenshots and assets every time there’s a software update.
- Mirror environments – Hands-on labs enable you to easily mirror production environments or an environment of your choosing, including numerous versions and configurations and still provide scalable and repeatable experiences.
Data and reporting
- Capture activity data – Gather actionable insights into how users interact with the demo environment.
- Foster technical sales conversations – Get visibility into a prospect’s engagement and sticking points to personalize conversations and move the sales cycle forward.
- Empower enablement and product teams – Use data to iterate on the demo experience and inform product teams on future enhancements.
Streamline Proof-of-Concept (POC) environments with virtual labs
A POC takes demo environments a step further with more personalization for a specific customer, ideally integrating their data, workflows and unique needs. Developing POCs can be a time-consuming process, slowing down sales cycles and leading to proof-of-concept fatigue, making it critical to have a scalable solution. Streamline the POC process with Skillable’s sandbox environments and virtual labs to quickly show exactly how your solution will work for prospects.
Customer example: Accelerating sales cycles and increasing SE capacity
A leading cybersecurity and systems management company uses Skillable’s lab platform to provide robust pilots and feasibility testing environments, reducing the need for on-premises proof of concepts. Results include:
- 85% decrease in production pilot duration – 56 days down to 7-10 days
- 84% decrease in time spent building and configuring POC environments – 20-25 hours down to only 2-5 hours
Learn more about virtual labs for technical sales and partner enablement.
Real-world customer success
Previously, demos and POCs required Calix SEs to manually grant access for prospects and customers, which was time consuming between software and licensing setup. Now at the end of a demo presentation, SEs can share a link with prospects that grants immediate access to secure, risk-free Calix environments where they can get hands-on with the product on their own. These on-demand environments have guardrails in place to protect Calix, manage costs and optimize the user experience.
Calix has been able to tie this approach back to lead generation and revenue, two critical inputs to showcasing their education program’s maturity and value. Learn more in the Calix case study.
tl;dr – Here’s how to win more deals faster with modern demo environments
Skillable enables you to deliver more interactive, personalized and scalable demo environments – even for highly configurable software solutions. Here’s how:- Easy access – Browser-based sandbox and virtual lab environments eliminate tedious sign-ups and software installations.
- Dedicated environments – Keep software demo environments with sanitized data separate from production and give users and SEs the freedom to launch separate personalized instances without sharing.
- Streamlined setup and maintenance – Free up SEs to focus on selling and telling the value story, not managing DIY self-hosted demo environments that require more upkeep and management.
- Automations – Save time with preconfigured environments and integrated tools that automatically spin up and tear down on-demand demo environments to eliminate manual work and keep costs from spiraling.
- Global performance and highly secure – Skillable’s global data centers reduce latency risks for a global sales teams and customers with 99.99% uptime. We’re also ISO-27001 and SOC 2 Type II certified (amongst others) and GDPR compliant.
- Seamless personalization – Easily include a prospect’s brand elements and relevant, real-world scenarios.
Don’t lose another prospect to passive demos
Accelerate sales cycles with hands-on demo environments that drive results.
