Productize The Demo And The Customer Needs Analysis
Sell the diagnosis before the product, so the sale feels like receiving something rather than being sold to.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 94%
Priestley's core sales move is to package the demo and the customer needs analysis into something that has a name, a landing page and a sign-up, so it feels like a product rather than a sales call. The demo explains the value: features, advantages, benefits, the research that backs it up, data, and an emotional story of how the product changed someone's life. Critically, the demo has to show that your product is the path of least resistance between the customer's current reality, their desired reality, and the obstacles in between. The needs analysis is a survey or assessment that determines whether this person actually needs it — because it is not for everybody. He grounds both in the situational model that sits inside people's heads: where am I now, where do I want to be, what is in my way, and what do I perceive as the path of least resistance. Those are his four questions, followed by pricing questions — what feels fair, what would be so cheap you would question quality, what would be so expensive you could not afford it. His argument for why this now works better than a straight offer is clutter: a century ago people had unmet needs; today people feel they have too many books unread, too much entertainment unwatched, too many clothes. So they only want what is hyper-personalised to what they actually need.
Origin
Priestley uses the framework to answer why launches fail: most people focus on the supply side of what they do — bottling companies, fruit costs, MBA qualifications — when what needs testing is demand. The productized demo plus needs analysis is his answer to how you test demand before you have a product at all.
Core principles
- 01Test demand, not supply.
- 02Give the demo a name and a landing page so it feels like a product.
- 03The situational model has four slots: now, desired, obstacle, perceived path.
- 04Smart businesses sell the needs analysis before the product.
- 05Clutter means people only want what is hyper-personalised to them.
- 06Cheaper leads are not better leads — segment by situation, not by cost.
How to run it
- 1
Craft the demo around the path of least resistance
Features, advantages, benefits, supporting research, data, and an emotional story of an outcome. Then position the product as the path of least resistance between where the ideal customer is, where they want to be, and what is stopping them.
Pro tip Priestley's coffee example: present the research on why it works, the branding, and what it will look like — with no product yet made.
Watch out A demo that lists features without mapping the customer's obstacles is a supply-side pitch.
- 2
Run the situational model as your questions
Which best describes your current situation. Which best describes the outcome you want. Which best describes why you have not achieved it before. What are you currently considering as an option.
Pro tip Follow with three pricing questions: fair price, so-cheap-you'd-question-quality, so-expensive-you-couldn't-afford-it.
Watch out A bare waiting list captures intent but none of the segmentation that makes the data useful.
- 3
Test the concept with paid variations first
Run 10 to 30 ad variations, send clickers to a not-yet-available-in-your-area page, and offer the waiting list. Priestley calls it the Hunger Games for which ad performs better.
Pro tip Bartlett ran 70 book titles for £200 and found a spread from 0.3% to 15% click-through — roughly a 50x variance he would otherwise never have seen.
Watch out Click-through alone can mislead: a £10 lead attracting broke students is worth less than a £20 lead attracting a CEO on £500k.
- 4
Package it with a name and a signup
Give the demo and analysis a name and a landing page so people can sign up, experience the presentation and complete the needs analysis. It has to feel like something of value rather than a sales process.
Pro tip Assessments and quizzes are the scalable version — Priestley points at Huel's 'which Huel is right for you' quiz as a live example.
Watch out Unnamed and unpackaged, it reverts to being an ordinary sales call.
- 5
Let the assessment diagnose the need
The assessment helps the customer diagnose a need they may not have been clear on. Priestley's Whoop example: score how well you know your health and fitness, discover you are at 22% and need to be above 80%, and now you need a product to close the gap.
Pro tip You could collect 10,000 completed assessments while the product is still in development.
Watch out This works especially for complex products; for simple ones the diagnosis can feel contrived.
In the wild
Priestley's worked example: a libido-boosting coffee sold through retailers. Approach retailers with the research on why it works, the branding, and an offer to run a customer needs analysis at your own expense across several of their locations — clipboarding, a waitlist campaign, or a coming-soon promotion.
→ Retailers move slowly anyway and would not buy today even with product in hand, so packaging the data collection as step one provides real initial value and secures the relationship before any product exists.
For an upcoming book, Bartlett ran 70 different titles as Facebook ads. Clickers hit a waiting list and entered their email.
→ The best title converted at 15% and the worst at 0.3% — a roughly 1,500% variance — for about £200 of testing. He notes he could otherwise have written the 0.3% book.
Bartlett cites a study where two groups joined an intentionally boring discussion group — one had to complete a survey to get in, the other was let straight in.
→ The survey group rated the group as really interesting; the straight-in group rated it boring. Priestley's gloss: friction creates value, and demand-supply tension is the ultimate test of value.
Common mistakes
Testing supply instead of demand
Priestley says most launches focus on bottling companies, fruit costs, or MBA qualifications — all supply-side. What needs testing is whether anyone wants the thing.
Optimising for cheapest lead
A campaign producing £10 leads may be attracting broke students while a £20-lead campaign attracts CEOs earning £500k. Without the situational model you cannot tell which campaign is actually better.
Running a waiting list with no questions
The waiting list captures intent but discards the segmentation. The five or six situational and pricing questions are what turn a list into a decision-making dataset.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone launching a product, book, service or market expansion who wants evidence before committing.
Not ideal for
Impulse-purchase consumer products where a diagnostic step adds friction without adding fit.
From the transcript
“what we want to do when we launch anything is we want to test the demand of what we do”
“the situational model is where am I now where do I want to be what's in my way and what do I perceive as the…”
“smart businesses often sell the needs analysis before they sell the product”
From the episode
The Money Making Expert: The 7,11,4 Hack That Turns $1 Into $10K Per Month! This 90 Day Rule Will 10x Your Income! Daniel Priestley
Daniel Priestley