How sexy is your demo?

It’s an age-old question. and I have finally developed a way to quantify the answer (by the way, is there anything sexier than quantifying how sexy something is?). It’s called the Demo Sexiness Score™ and you can figure out yours using the calculator at the bottom of this post.

The Assumptions

It should go without saying that what a Chief Marketing Officer finds sexy will be very different from what a Principal Engineer will find sexy, so here are the assumptions behind this model:

• You are demoing an enterprise application that will be used by business users; this does not apply to a technical audience (developers, architects, etc.), or to consumer apps.
• The model is superficial. It only cares about looks. The more substantive your demo, the sexier it will be, no doubt. Humor will make your demo sexier, too. But there aren’t objective ways to measure either of those so this focuses strictly on what the audience will see during the demo.
• The model is biased toward a desktop experience. Mobile is very sexy, and if you’ve got it, flaunt it, but the model assumes a desktop experience where there’s just more pixels to work with.
• It’s a live demo with real software. This model does not apply to canned, screenshot demos or video demos where you literally cannot veer from a prescribed script. While those can often be designed to look really sexy, as a buyer, I wonder why you can’t show me the real thing and I have zero interest.
• This model works for any enterprise software, not just Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I happen to sell Dynamics CRM, so the examples focus on that suite of solutions, but the model is universal.

Demo features, in order of attractiveness

Customization
This should be assumed, but we all know what happens when we do that. A less-sexy-but-customized-demo will beat a super-sexy-generic-demo every day of the week.

Streaming data
Any movement of data or visuals on a screen while you’re showing it is super sexy. This tends to be difficult within demo environments since it’s not like there are other employees or customers doing things to generate data in real-time, but even if there were, most screens don’t have a reason to show live, streaming data. There are a few spots in Dynamics, though, where things are happening live that can achieve this level of sex appeal. If you can ever demo an IoT device streaming real-time data into Connected Field Service, you’ve got a sexy demo. A weak example, but better than nothing, is an SLA timer on a case in Customer Service (you can always do an SLA for a lead in Marketing, too!). If I were a Marketer, I would want to watch some real-time analytics of email opens and clicks after launching a campaign but I’m not sure such a report exists yet (the reports that show those metrics in Marketing need to be refreshed; they don’t stream). If it seems hard to think about how to show this, that’s why it’s at the top of the list: it’s the combination of being sexy and rare.

Mixed reality
On the one hand, there aren’t yet dozens of obvious use cases for mixed reality in enterprise applications; on the other hand, that’s what makes it so damn hot. It’s cool, it’s novel, and I find the existing use cases genuinely compelling. If you have an opportunity with a legit mixed reality use case — within Dynamics CE, that would involve Product Visualize, Remote Assist, or Guides– you’d be crazy not to demo it. It should go without saying, too, that HoloLens > mobile device.

Dynamic AI
I think I’m going to make up two categories of AI here; they don’t exist in the real world (afaik), but they’re necessary to make a point about demoing “AI.” For our purposes, “dynamic AI” will refer to the ability to show AI in use, in real-time, to effect something in the demo. “Live AI” would be another way to think about it. For example, live transcription of a phone call is an example of dynamic AI.

“Static AI” will refer to anything you show that was a result of AI, but there’s nothing you can do in real-time to change it (unless you refresh the model which you wouldn’t want end-users doing ad hoc in the real world). A churn score, or Customer Lifetime Value, already assigned to a customer would be an example of “static AI.”

Here are some places within Microsoft Dynamics CE that you can show what I’m calling “dynamic AI”: real-time transcription and analysis in Conversation Intelligence (and coming soon to Omnichannel Voice), real-time translation and sentiment analysis in Omnichannel Customer Service, the natural language segment builder in Dynamics Marketing, natural language querying in Power BI, AI-based content ideas for emails or AI-based channel optimization in Real-time Marketing, converting handwritten notes to text via the Sales mobile app, and turn-by-turn driving directions and Resource Scheduling Optimization (RSO) in Field Service.

Exotic Visualizations
We need to be honest here: just because a pie chart is a visual, doesn’t make it sexy (in fact, most data scientists would wonder why you’re using pie charts at all). Not all visualizations are created equal, and the ones that make an audience go “wow” are visuals that (1) tell a story about the data because they’re appropriate for the data, and (2) look cool. So a good rule of thumb here would be to ignore any chart type that you could insert in Excel circa 2015 like a bar, pie, or line/area chart (the reason I’m suggesting 2015 is that Excel now offers a lot of interesting visualizations like radar charts, tree maps, box + whisker charts, that I consider “exotic”). Below is a slideshow of visualizations that turn heads:

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In other words, to satisfy this requirement, you need to show a visualization we don’t see everyday. If you’re looking for specific examples, I’d include heatmaps and tree maps, radar charts, Sankey diagrams, Mekko charts, ribbon charts, and decomposition trees. Narrative-like visuals, infographics, Key Influencers, and word clouds are all cool even though they might be more “textual” than “visual.” And if you can’t show streaming data, perhaps you have a report that would benefit from the Play Axis visual that animates the data, usually based on the time series. The last image in the slideshow above goes meta by showing BI tools in the Gartner Magic Quadrant from 2015-2020.

Power BI is the obvious place for racy visuals, but don’t sleep on the new Deal Manager workspace, the analytics provided for journeys in both Outbound Marketing and Real-time Marketing, or the embedded Power BI visuals in Omnichannel Customer Service.

Please note: I would never suggest you use a visual that is inappropriate for the type of data being displayed just to be sexy. If a doughnut chart is the best visual for representing data, use a doughnut chart. But if there’s an opportunity to use a colorful, more exotic visual that tells the story, use that over something more plain every day of the week.

Static AI
As defined earlier in the post, “static AI” will refer to those features where we can see the result of AI, but there’s nothing we can do to change it in real-time save for refreshing the model. The most obvious examples of this “static AI” are predictive scores like for lead scoring in Marketing, opportunity scoring, relationship health and email engagement, or predictive forecasting in Sales, and Customer Lifetime Value and churn scores in Customer Insights. Don’t get me wrong: all these things are incredibly valuable, it’s just that the demo doesn’t really showcase the power because the score’s just already there. If you’ve created a new lead or opportunity in front of the prospect, a score won’t be calculated at all until the next day; if you modified a lead or opportunity in the demo, the score won’t reflect changes until the next day.

Drag & drop
I explained this a little in my Ten Commandments (it’s Commandment 9), but the people love a good drag-and-drop UI. The drag-and-drop UI in Real-time Marketing is so fresh and so clean (and uses a Sankey diagram in the analytics if you have data for it). The Customer Journey designer in Outbound Marketing is not as modern-looking as Real-time Marketing, but far more powerful at this stage. The attraction of a Kanban view is not only the view, but the ease of dragging an Opportunity from one swim lane to another. There are two caveats:

1. There should be a good reason for using a drag-and-drop UI. I still don’t understand why Lead Scoring in Dynamics Marketing has a weird version of a drag-and-drop UI; there’s gotta be a better way of designing that UX.
2. Drag-and-drop is seductive when a business user can do the dragging and dropping; it is far less sensual when it’s done as an administrator. For example, creating a Sequence in Dynamics Sales Insights uses a drag-and-drop UI that is fairly easy and powerful. But it’s not something a business user would interact with regularly; theoretically, sequences are defined, built and activated, and then left to run. The person that would have to set up Sequences might be interested; but the VP Sales will be bored.

Integration
This sounds inherently unsexy and yet, it’s so, so sexy if done right. There are almost no enterprise applications purchased these days that are expected to be silos — to stand on their own, and integrate with nothing else. But Presales folks are almost always equipped with an environment of only the application they sell. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade and all that, so we hand wave about how our application could be integrated, and the prospect can take our word for it (or not). But…if you can show your application integrated with another application that the prospect already has, or is considering, that is hot. I realize there are a number of reasons why showing integration to a 3rd-party system is difficult (it’s never impossible, by the way, it’s just a matter of cost, time, or both), but that’s also what makes it special to see if you can show it.

There are some places you can show various levels of integration with 3rd-party applications. Is LinkedIn considered 3rd-party if it’s owned by Microsoft, but operated independently? Regardless, LinkedIn integration in Marketing and Sales is one spot. In Omnichannel Customer Service, you can show off Twilio, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp integration. Customer Insights has input and output integration points: you can always mockup data to ingest that looks like a CSV export from a 3rd-party system, and the export destinations grow by the month with Facebook Ads Manager, AdRoll, Adobe, LiveRamp, Mailchimp, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, SendGrid, and others.

And of course, this is one of the reasons I lean hard on all the places where Dynamics and Office are integrated (Outlook/Exchange, Teams, Excel, SharePoint, OneDrive, etc.). Even though a customer should have every expectation that Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft Office are integrated, it doesn’t mean everyone’s seen it. If the prospect already uses Office, they’ll instantly see the value in the integration between their business applications and their productivity tools.

Mobile
No one wants to feel forever chained to their desk in order to do their job. A mobile app represents freedom, mobility you might say. Now, there are certain work items that just aren’t easily done on a phone, period. You’re not going to design a Marketing Email, answer an RFP, or conduct a deep analysis of reports on a phone. If a task doesn’t work well on a phone, don’t force it. But in every department, there are probably some tasks that could be accomplished on a phone, and you should consider showing them. For example, the Approvals process in Microsoft Teams could be used by Marketers to approve copy or design, by Sales to approve a Quote, or by a Customer Service supervisor to approve an accommodation (I’m intentionally leaving Field Service out of that example because Field Service is an area where most of the demo should be mobile!).

Non-standard forms or views
There’s regular ol’ forms, lists, and views, and then there are the forms, lists, and views you don’t see every day. Because of that, they stand out in a demo. Examples would include org chart views, calendar views, Kanban views, and I’ll even allow data entry forms accompanied by a progress bar (business process flows in Dynamics). There’s a reason why progress bars are a feature of “gamification” — they play to our natural desire to accomplish something, to make progress. Our brains literally release endorphins when we finish a complex task, so walking through the steps of qualifying a lead, winning an opportunity, resolving a case, or completing a work order taps into that natural response. Showing a process but not finishing it may actually increase stress amongst the audience so finish a process to get Mother Nature on your side!

Another good example are forms, lists, or views that utilize company logos and/or people’s profile photos. The new Deal Manager workspace in Microsoft Dynamics Sales is a great example. Companies love to see their logos on things, and people love to see pictures of themselves.

Table Stakes demo features

Dashboards
Showing a dashboard or two doesn’t make your demo sexy these days because everyone has them; but not showing a dashboard is bad. The executives that are going to sign off on the purchase want, nay expect, a sleek, colorful cockpit-like dashboard that gives them a quick view into the health of their business. There is no quantity of reports that one has to click into and out of that can match the appeal of a single click to consume a great dashboard.

Reports
These days, there just isn’t a lot that’s remarkable about most reports. Everyone’s got them, yet no one ever has enough. And to be clear, I’m not saying reports aren’t valuable; just that they’re not that sexy to demo.

Bonus opportunity

Most of the above
While this list is ranked from most sexy to least sexy, the sexiest demo incorporates most of the above in optimal amounts. Just like some people look for a partner that’s funny, smart, and physically attractive, a sexy demo is more than just an hour of watching streaming data. The formula calculates an escalating premium for every component you include.

Penalties, in reverse order by severity

If you’re showing anything from the list below, you are now actively harming the sexiness score of your demo. The penalties might seem a little harsh given that you think there’s a good reason to show product documentation, admin screens, or code (spoiler: there isn’t), but the penalties have to be harsh because not only are you showing inherently unsexy stuff, but there’s an opportunity cost as well. Demo time is precious and finite, so time spent on any of these is time you could have spent showing something sexy.

Documentation or screenshots
I’ve seen it happen in a demo (I’ve probably done it once or twice tbh), so it needs to be available in the formula. Something has gone wrong with your demo plan if you’re showing product documentation. Either something is supposed to work, but it’s broken, and you’ve resorted to showing documentation to prove it’s supposed to work. Or you don’t understand something well enough to answer confidently so you’re reading docs in front of the prospect. Not the end of the world, but it sure ain’t sexy.

Administrative screens
For clarity, let’s define what I mean by “admin screens.” I mean screens for configuring or customizing the application that would typically be used by an admin (IT or CRM administrator), not a business user. A screen where the end user themselves can set preferences like light/dark mode, profile photo, email signature, color palette, language, currency & date formats, etc. is fine although I would hope there’s more compelling stuff to demo.

Admin screen	Sex appeal
Not showing any admin screens
A screen for the business user to set their personal preferences
An admin screen to set global settings for how the application behaves
A command prompt

Now, I understand there are times you may be asked to show how something is administered. Anytime you show a workflow or automation, you run a risk that the prospect asks how it was set up; it’s a perfectly valid question. You’ll need to decide, on the fly, whether you should show how the sausage is made. In the Dynamics world, if someone asked me how a Sequence was designed, or a Forecast was configured in Dynamics Sales, I would happily show them since the admin UIs for both are clean and modern. If it’s an automation done by Power Automate, flows can be very intimidating to those not familiar with it. And if you need to show something in the legacy admin, the UI looks so old it risks diluting the impression the applications themselves have already made. Worse, if you need to get into the multiple admin UIs Dynamics still has (Power Platform admin center, legacy admin, or the four different UIs to manage a portal, you run the risk of confusing everyone.

I won’t go so far as to say there’s never a reason to show admin screens in a demo, but if the prospect is asking to see admin screens, (1) that’s a positive buying sign, and (2) a great excuse for another demo where you show the IT folks what it takes to administer the system. Don’t lose the business user audience you have; schedule a separate demo!

Code
There is no good reason to show code in a demo to business users. Even if you think it’s really easy to understand, no business user is going to want to think they need to learn a programming language to do their job.

How to use the Demo Sexiness Calculator™

This could not be simpler. For each category below, toggle the button if you showed something from that category; if you didn’t, leave it off. Hit the Calculate Sexiness button and accept its judgment. Score is on a scale of 1-10.

Since many of you are screaming for a mobile-friendly page you can bookmark to quickly calculate your score without scrolling down to the bottom here, you can bookmark this page.