I have attended many many sessions involving a legal tech demo, as a customer, while giving product feedback, or just for fun (yes, I’m that weird).
Selling to lawyers can be frankly quite random. To this account, I liked this thread by Alex Su.
Building on that, below is my product demo checklist. These are just my personal preferences, no official guidelines whatsoever.
My key advice is to make sure you spend as much time on #1 as possible: because it’s not about what I think or what you think. Your user is what matters.
These are legal context driven recommendations, but I do thing that these are somewhat broadly applicable to all sales in general.
#1 Be very clear about who you are building for
Not all lawyer contexts are the same.
A small law firm has vastly different needs than a large one. Does certain things more or less often. Seeks different ROI.
Just because you stack legal before tech in your pitch, it doesn’t mean that your product is universally applicable to everything legal.
Think furniture stores – humans need human furniture, but some need home offices and some need garden benches.
Plus having one huge client and having tons of tiny ones is just a different game as well.
So before you even begin pitching, create your user personas, making sure that your product is actually worth it for them.
Which brings me to:
#2 Tailor the legal tech demo to the user
Once you are really very clear about who are you building for, make sure that your demo corresponds to who in what legal context (law firm, in-house,…) you are pitching.
Make sure that you formulate the cool use cases for this specific legal context.
This should be felt throughout the whole pitch. Example: if the legal context you are pitching for all works on certain existing technology, make super sure that your product integrates well with it (or at least have a roadmap or an answer prepared, when this comes up).
#3 Make it short
Human brain can only retain certain amount of information, so in your legal tech demo focus on a small number of key use cases that make it worth buying your product.
Also assume that everyone is half-listening, so repeat these multiple times.
Imagine that after your demo, your attendee goes to the kitchenette and tells their colleague: “I just demoed [your awesome tech company]”
“Yeah? What do they do?” (your attendee probably does a lot of demos)
“They have this cool feature where they… [one use case that stuck]“
“Oh wow, we need that!“
#4 Make your vibe match your pitch
Speak in a way that your attendees will understand. Maybe it is a good thing to have someone with a grasp for the legal lingo on the pitch team.
Especially if this is the first foot in the door: drop the technical specs. If they like you, they will ask about them later. If they don’t, it’s probably because you bombarded them with (at that stage) useless technical details for 45 minutes.
Also pro tip: ask for the roles of people that are attending (innovation, lawyers, IT,…) and reflect their specific needs. But stop at that, this is not a social event.
#5 Send stuff before the legal tech demo
I personally prefer to click around first and figure out how things work before deciding to take part in a legal tech demo. (This also helps to understand the learning curve and imagine how hard it is going to be to roll out and train to my colleagues).
If possible, send trial accounts. If your product requires extensive installation, at least send video. Slides are the bare minimum.
But (sadly) do not assume that anyone will actually look at your demo or slides beforehand. Start by good hearted questions, if the attendees had the time to look at them. Take it from there.
#6 Be honest
Whatever you decide to do, be honest, upfront, and transparent.
This applies to everything. Including pricing. Especially pricing. And whatever limitation of your technology.
Alex mentions that since your counterpart be looking to poke holes, tell them the truth. It earns you credibility.
I would take it a notch further and say: be honest regardless of whether someone is poking holes or whatever.
This is an infinite game. They need to trust you. You are forming a partnership. Approach it that way.
Final Remarks
Legal Tech demos and sales can be exhausting and frustrating for founders, but they are the perfect way to connect with your target users.
So the best thing you can do is to try to have fun. Experiment with different techniques and approaches. Ask other people you admire how they do it. Iterate.
Find the one demo vibe that first your salespeople and your product in a way that pleases the user.
What are your best practices?
Let me know in the comments below, on my LinkedIn or at baru@attorneyatcode.com
Oh and… you got this.
Baru
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