The Discovery-to-Demo Handoff Reboot — 60-Min Training

Direct Answer

Section 1 — Open & Frame the Gated Handoff (5 min)

State the rule out loud: "No demo gets on the calendar until the discovery doc is written, the demo plan is approved, and every attendee is named." Peter Cohan, in *Great Demo!*, calls the unprepared demo a "harbor tour" — a tour of the boat instead of a path to the buyer's destination. The fix is procedural, not motivational.

• Name the cost of a bad handoff: burned SE hours, a buyer who feels misread, a deal stuck in "evaluation" forever.
• Set the stance: AEs own discovery quality, SEs own demo design, both own the handoff artifact.
• Pre-work: every AE brings one demo-requested but not yet scheduled opportunity to run through the templates live.

The rule for the next 12 weeks: if the four gates below are not green, the demo does not get booked.

Section 2 — The Discovery Doc → Demo Plan Template (15 min)

Walk it line by line. Reps fill it in for their live opportunity as you teach.

``` DISCOVERY DOC → DEMO PLAN — [Account] — [Date] — AE: ___ SE: ___

PART A: DISCOVERY (AE owns)

1. Compelling event: ____________________ (date-bound? Y/N)
2. Business problem: ____________________ (in buyer's words)
3. Measurable pain: $______ or ___ hrs/week, evidence: _______
4. Today's process: Step 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 (current-state map)
5. Decision criteria: Must-have: ___ Nice-to-have: ___
6. Decision process: Who decides? Who approves? Who blocks?
7. Budget signal: $______ range, source: ______
8. Competition: Incumbents / Alternatives / Do-nothing
9. Champion test: Have they intro'd to power, shared an

internal doc, or defended us? Y/N

1. Critical Business Issue the demo must move: ______________

PART B: DEMO PLAN (SE owns, AE approves)

1. Demo goal: "Show [capability] solves [pain] for [persona]

so they will [next step] by [date]."

1. Audience list: Name | Title | Stake | What they see
2. Story arc (3-5): Illustration → Capability → Proof
3. The "do-it" moment: The single screen that delivers payoff
4. Discovery callbacks: Three verbatim buyer quotes
5. Off-limits topics: Features we will NOT show (and why)
6. Proof point: Logo + metric + quote tied to the CBI
7. Next-step ask: Specific, dated, calendared in the demo

GATES (all four GREEN before demo is booked) [ ] Discovery doc complete, MEDDPICC scored >= 7/9 [ ] SE/AE 15-min alignment call held and logged [ ] Anti-feature-dump pre-brief signed by AE + SE [ ] Attendees verified (name + title + stake) ```

Cohan drives Part B item 4 — the "do-it" moment: show the destination first (the screen the buyer will live with after they buy), then back into the capabilities that produce it. Falcone drives item 3: a demo is a story in 3-5 beats, not 25. Care drives Part A items 4 and 10: current-state map plus one Critical Business Issue the demo must move.

Section 3 — The 15-Minute SE/AE Alignment Call (10 min)

A fixed-format meeting that happens after discovery is documented and before the demo is scheduled. Force Management's MEDDPICC lives here.

• Min 0-3 — Walk-through. AE reads Part A out loud, line by line. Empty line = red gate.
• Min 3-8 — SE challenges. Four questions: *"What proof moves the economic buyer? What objection will the technical buyer raise? What will the competitor show that we cannot? What single screen turns this demo on?"*
• Min 8-12 — Co-author Part B. SE drafts the demo plan; AE confirms it ties back to the buyer's words.
• Min 12-15 — Gate check. Both initial the doc. Red gate = demo delayed, not de-scoped.

The Pavilion SE community publishes this cadence as a norm, not a favor. A 15-minute call avoids a 90-minute rebuild Friday night.

Section 4 — The Anti-Feature-Dump Pre-Brief (10 min)

Most demos die from feature spray — the SE shows everything to prove the product is "powerful." The buyer reads it as *"you did not listen."* Falcone calls it the biggest sin in B2B SaaS demos.

A one-page checklist, signed by AE and SE the morning of the demo:

• Story arc, 3-5 beats only. Sixth beat appears, something gets cut. Cap the list before walking in.
• The "do-it" first. Open with the screen the buyer will use after they buy — not the data model.
• Three discovery callbacks, verbatim. SE prints three buyer quotes and reads them at the right beat. The room hears its own language.
• Off-limits list. Two or three tempting-but-irrelevant features both sign not to show.
• Time budget. 45 minutes = 25 demo + 15 dialogue + 5 next-step. Anything else is a presentation.
• Single next-step ask. Exact words at minute 40: *"Based on what you saw, the next step is X by Y date — does that work?"*

Care frames the pre-brief as the SE's rehearsal contract: AE confirms what will be said, SE confirms what will not be shown, demo becomes a performance, not a pitch.

Section 5 — Attendee Verification & Live Practice (15 min)

The gate most teams skip — and the one that quietly kills the most deals.

Attendee verification — 5 min. Before the demo is booked, the AE confirms in writing:

• Every name, title, and stake — *who they are, what they need to see, what they will say "yes" or "no" to.*
• The economic buyer is on the invite or has a follow-up touchpoint dated within 5 business days. Neither = "feedback session," not a deal-advancing demo, and the forecast is downgraded.
• Stranger on the invite the morning of? AE runs a 10-minute pre-demo call to learn what they care about, or the demo is politely rescheduled. Unknown attendees are unmanaged risk.

Live practice — 10 min. Pairs (AE + SE) take the live opportunity they brought, run the 5-minute alignment call, then read the demo plan out loud for 5. Facilitator audits one pair in front of the room against the four gates. Goal: feel the rhythm so Monday is muscle memory.

Section 6 — Sign, Schedule, Close (5 min)

End with three concrete acts:

• Sign the gate. Every AE and SE signs: *"For the next 12 weeks, no demo I run gets booked until all four gates are green."* Manager countersigns.
• Schedule the cadence. AE/SE alignment call is a recurring 15-min slot inside the deal — AE schedules, SE leads. Ops reports gate-compliance weekly.
• State the Monday move. Not "improve discovery" but *"send Part A for [Account] to [SE] before 10 AM Monday."*

Cohan's reminder: "Demos are not where you sell — they are where the buyer sees themselves succeeding." Gate the handoff, earn that moment. Skip it, and the demo is where the deal dies.

FAQ

Q: What if marketing or partners book demos before discovery happens? A: Those are fit calls, not demos — relabel in the CRM. End with either a qualified-out or a path to the Discovery Doc. Force Management's rule: never let inbound short-circuit the gates.

Q: How do we handle a buyer who demands a demo on day one? A: Run a 3-minute vision demo (Cohan's term) tied to one public industry pain, then pivot to discovery; or schedule a 20-minute overview with the explicit ask: *"to do a real demo, I need 30 minutes with you and X next week."* Gates still apply before the real demo.

Q: SEs say AEs deliver weak discovery. How do we stop that? A: The 15-minute alignment call is the forcing function — weak Part A = red gate, demo delayed. Track "alignment-call rework rate." Above 30% is a coaching problem for the AE manager.

Q: Does this slow us down? A: Short-term yes, long-term no. Falcone's data and Pavilion benchmarks agree: gated teams run fewer demos with higher win rates and shorter cycle times. Slower booking, faster closing.

Q: What if the economic buyer refuses to attend? A: AE secures a dated follow-up touchpoint within 5 business days — readout, recorded demo with reaction call, or champion-led internal share. No EB access and no proxy = forecast downgrade.

Sources

1. Peter Cohan, *Great Demo! How to Create and Execute Stunning Software Demonstrations* (Second Story Press, 2nd ed. 2005) — "do-it" first method and harbor-tour anti-pattern.
2. John Care, *Mastering Technical Sales: The Sales Engineer's Handbook* (Artech House, 4th ed. 2022) — SE/AE handoff discipline and current-state mapping.
3. Robert Falcone, *Just F\*ing Demo! Tactics for Leading Kickass Product Demos* (2018) — 3-5 beat story arc and anti-feature-dump principles.
4. Force Management, *Command of the Message* and MEDDPICC playbooks — discovery-gated demo and economic-buyer access discipline.
5. Pavilion Sales Engineering community of practice — pre-brief norms and AE/SE alignment-call cadence.
6. Greg Holmes / 2nd Derivative, *Demo2Win!* workshop materials — demo planning frameworks aligned with Cohan's method.
7. Chris Orlob, Gong research on demo win rates — call analytics on opening with outcomes, not features.
8. Jacco van der Kooij, *Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization* (Winning by Design, 3rd ed. 2018) — gated handoff stages in SPICED.