Your failure state is a demo that impresses and then stalls. The buyer nods, thanks you, and goes quiet. A feature tour teaches the room but never earns a committed next step. The best reps run the demo as a buying conversation, not a product tour, and leave with a booked action.
Read time: about 5 minutes. First step runnable Monday morning.
Open your next demo with a "What we heard" recap in the buyer's own words.
Most demos start with a product tour, so the buyer never hears their problem named. Recap their top priorities from discovery in the first two minutes. Then ask if you missed anything, and demo only what maps to that.
Start here: pull the notes or call recording from your last discovery, list the buyer's top three priorities, and build one recap slide. You need your CRM notes and one call recording.
Ignore this week: do not buy a demo automation tool yet. Fix the opening and the differentiator focus by hand first.