I am building software to help onboard sales team new hires by helping them get to demo proficiency fast (if you are interested, here’s a 3 minute video of the DemoWizard).

One of the things we help our clients with is writing a compelling opening. My partner, Brian, calls this a “James Bond” opening. I’m not a salesperson, but I gave a ton of demos at Droplets and Atalasoft (both made developer tools)—I wish Brian had told me this back then, because I love this kind of opening.

Here’s how I try to explain it:

The beginning of a James Bond movie is actually the end of the previous (unmade) movie. We don’t know anything about the back-story of that movie, but now we get to watch the most exciting 10 minutes of it until it ends. Then, we start the next movie—the one we came to see. We know that at some point we’ll see an ending that topped the one we just saw, so we lean forward in anticipation.

For you, the opening is your best customer success story, but just the end. That customer already have a completely set up system, and they are already getting value from it. Start your demo by showing the part of the software that delivers that value and share their results (with permission of course).

Now that you have their attention, you can start your prospect’s story and help them understand how they will get from where they are now to an ending like the one they just saw.