Product Demos and the Third Circle of Hell

Because I work in the sheer heaven that is corporate America, I occasionally have to research and implement new productivity-boosting software and systems. This means spending hour upon hour on the phone and in web-based meetings and in real-life meetings having sales jargon shoved down my throat and having my questions regarding pricing artfully avoided.

Side note: Sales people can all take a long jump off a short pier.

Anyway, eventually the endless amount of data requested by the company intent upon supplying the product is magically compounded and manipulated into ‘What We Can Do For You’, and then comes the next, and in my opinion, the worst, wave of unpleasantness: The Demo.

Three or four snappily dressed salespeople grinning like a toothpaste commercial show up at your office—sometimes with snacks, which, okay, fine, everyone likes snacks—and waste an hour of your time explaining to you, in granular detail, what their platform does that is so stunningly spectacular. Odds are, you already have a decent idea of what you’re looking at so one or two things during the demo might be exciting and new. The vast majority of it, however, will be the equivalent of a remedial course in HR/Payroll/Project Management/Sales Integration/whatever the product is tailored to, and you’ll want to gouge your eyes out with a spork.

You can stare daggers at them all you want, but these salespeople are hardened professionals. They will go through every facet of their product in painstaking detail regardless of your chosen hurrying tactic. You can try to speed them up by asking questions about the possibility to integrate their product with others you already use or the intricacies of data output or possibilities for reporting, but you’ll always get the same answer, “That’s a great question, we’ll get to it in a minute when we move to the next section of the demo.” You can try the age-old, “Yes, fine, ours does something very similar so after a little practice we should be good to go,” but it’ll be the same story; they’ll just say, “Hey, great!” and pick right back up where they left off.

It’s infuriating.

And that, friends, is why I believe that product demos should be the primary form of torture in the Third Circle of Hell. I’d break it down this way: The First Circle would full of the souls of people who were relentless assholes, and I think the ideal punishment there would be an endless stream of minor annoyances. The Second Circle could be petty criminals, low-level tax-dodgers, that sort of jerk, and they could suffer permanent head colds. The Third Circle would be all the salespeople being forced to sit through product demo after product demo, each presented in painstaking clarity and at a pace most people would find maddeningly slow. Deputy devils with pitchforks could enforce a ‘no sleeping’ rule by poking any offenders sharply in the posterior.*

“But why are all salespeople automatically in the Third Circle?”

Face it, they’ve already got the qualifiers for circles One and Two in their vast portfolio of sleaze, and they’re definitely a special breed of terrible. There’s also a nice ‘the punishment fits the crime’ feeling to it. “Peter Jones, you spent your years on Earth being a horrifying sleazebag, selling unnecessary product upgrades to unsuspecting people, fooling them out of funds so that you could invade Aruba every July, get mind-blowingly drunk, pinch every passing waitress’s bottom, then go home and expense the entire trip with no regard to the laws of taxation in your area. You shall now spend eternity sitting through product demonstrations given by Gilbert Gottfried with no recourse to a fast-forward button!”

::cue evil, booming laughter, accompanied by thunderstorm effects::

“Hang on,” you say. “Not all salespeople are jerks. Some of them genuinely believe they’re selling a great product!”

Oh, my sweet, darling little cherub. Yes, those salespeople do exist, you’re right. So do the salespeople who do it because it’s a job and the money is good. But there is an overwhelming number of people who go into sales as a career who harbor a secret hatred for their fellow man, an unyielding sex drive, an iron liver, and an ego so enormous they have to buy a second seat on the plane for it. I can count on one hand the times I’ve met a salesperson who didn’t leave me feeling like I needed a shower—in 90% isopropyl alcohol. Their fake smiles do little to hide their greed and the fact that if they thought they could get away with it they’d do their entire demo with their hand up your skirt (or down your trousers, depending upon said salesperson’s proclivities.) Seriously. If you ever want to bed a salesperson, start spouting commission plan percentages at them—that’s their dirty talk.

Actually? An eternity of ear-splitting product demos might be too good for them...



*In case you’re curious about the other circles, 4-6 are up for debate but 7 is for people like Hitler, and they have to listen to ‘The Song that Doesn’t End’ on repeat. For eternity.