A Comprehensive Guide to Sales Discovery Call (Updated 2024)
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Discovery calls can be somewhat daunting for sales reps because the responsibility of adequately introducing a prospective client to your product or service falls on your shoulders.
However, armed with the right attitude and information, you can quickly become a pro at running these calls and leaving a positive first impression on your prospects at a critical juncture in the sales process.
Before diving deeper, let’s clarify what a sales discovery call is.
What is a Sales Discovery Call?
A sales discovery call is your first call after your potential buyer shows interest in your product or service. In the call you aim to uncover what the prospect’s actual problems are, and whether they will actually benefit from using your solution. So, it’s a call where both you and the prospect get to qualify each other. Once qualified, the prospect is then given a demo after which they can decide whether to buy the product or service or go for trial.
This make-or-break step in the sales process sets the tone for the entire sales relationship and determines whether the prospect will turn into a client.
A great sales discovery call:
- makes the prospect feel comfortable,
- unearths the information necessary for you to make an effective sale, and
- makes a compelling case for the viability of your product or service.
Let’s begin by dealing with a frequent question sales team employees have about these calls – how long should the call take?
Also check out: Sales strategies to close more deals
How Long Should a Sales Discovery Call Be?
Discovery calls are not like the popular kids in town. Almost everyone despises it. And that’s because some discovery calls stretch over 30 minutes.
The average length of sales discovery calls is 38 minutes long, but ideally you should aim for a maximum of 20-30 minutes.
If your calls tend to be significantly longer, revisit them to determine where you can make modifications about:
- Which questions you include,
- The division of talk time between you and the prospect,
- The structure of the call, and
- The expected outcomes of the call according to its length.
Ultimately, there is no perfect prescribed length for a discovery call because a lot depends on the natural flow of your sales conversation and the quantity of information you require.
Before you learn more about the kind of questions to ask and the process of conducting an effective call, you must know what purpose a discovery call serves in the sales cycle.
What is the Purpose of a Discovery Call in Sales?
Discovery calls can go a long way in establishing the critical details of your potential customer’s circumstances. Through well-structured and engaging calls, you can:
- understand whether they need the product or service,
- find out whether your solution is the right fit for them
- check if they’re a use-case fit,
- understand their budget, and timeline for implementation,
- gauge how likely you are to secure their business.
And what you need is to have a foolproof process in place to run a great discovery call.
Step by Step Sales Discovery Call Process
A great discovery call depends on how prepared you are. If you have all your bases covered, you won’t be thrown off by any turns the conversation might take.
Here are the 8 steps for a successful sales discovery call:
1. Research as Much as You Can
Since every prospect has different concerns and backgrounds, you must thoroughly research their business and concerns to tailor your call accordingly. This includes gathering information on their goals, pain points, and company background. By incorporating the information from your research, you can enrich your sales discovery process, get an idea of your prospect’s buyer persona and their business’ vision, and know whether they fit your sales agenda.
At this first step of the process, it is also possible to filter out prospects with obvious red flags that may indicate that they are not likely to become clients.
2. Structure Your Call Beforehand
You are less likely to fumble or miss out on important topics if you plan and structure your call beforehand. Whatever the length of your call, divide your time carefully between
- rapport building, which should take up about 10-15 percent of the total time,
- furthering the sales discovery process by asking crucial questions, which form about 30-40 percent of the call,
- highlighting your product or service’s relevance to the prospect, which should form another 30-40 percent of your call, and
- discussing your next steps, including pricing, onboarding, and setting up a meeting for further negotiation, which should take up not more than 15 percent of the total time.
Use your discretion to intuitively intersperse your questions and sales tactics to create a naturally flowing conversation so that the prospect doesn’t feel rigidly shepherded. Thinking on your feet and adjusting to your potential client’s responses is essential.
3. Set Expectations at the Beginning of the Call
Agenda-setting at the beginning of the call increases the prospect’s confidence in your reliability and transparency as a sales rep. By being clear about what the discovery call and what follows it entails, you convey to the prospect that you respect and value their time while simultaneously building up their anticipation. You also establish your capacity to take control of the conversation.
Setting the right expectations for the call positions your prospects to better answer your questions and can result in you obtaining more concrete information and, thus, results.
4. Ask Open-ended Questions So Your Prospect is Constantly Engaged
It’s your responsibility to ensure that your prospect stays attentive during your sales call. If your prospect reduces the frequency of eye contact, nodding, or smiling when you talk, it may signal that you have lost their attention. Ask open-ended questions when you sense their mind wandering to bring them back to the topic of conversation.
A simple tactic is asking them for their opinions or thoughts on what was discussed so they have to recall essential points to formulate an appropriate response quickly. When the opportunity presents itself, try to further the conversation by asking questions related to their day, such as what they’ve had for breakfast. Trust us; a little goes a long way!
5. Focus on the Metrics Your Prospect Cares About
Ensure you don’t overwhelm your prospect with too much information about your product or service. When in doubt, lead with value, not features. You must focus on the parts of your product or service relevant to the prospect instead of giving a rundown of all the features.
You must help your prospect visualize precisely how your product solves their problems without giving away too much information and diluting the value they get from it.
6. Construct a Compelling Narrative
Try and weave both your surface-level and more detailed questions together by creating a holistic framework that takes into account your business’ ethos and values. This will create a compelling story for your prospective client to absorb and retain in their memory, thus providing a lasting impression of you and your product.
Personalize your calls by bringing in anecdotes highlighting how your product helped out another client in a particular fix or recall a concern that a similar prospect had before and how you effectively addressed it. Softening your pitch to accommodate these human touches can significantly impact the process.
After all, a successful salesperson is one who continuously hones their storytelling skills.
7. Close on a Strong Note
Closing your calls on the right note is necessary to ensure you aren’t left hanging with vague promises of your prospect getting back to you after further consultation. Ensure you stress concrete next steps they can take, such as booking a product demo. It is crucial to lock down your next interaction with the prospect before you end the call.
If the prospect seems close to committing to a sale, don’t be afraid to push for a close. Adding a sense of urgency by creating the impression of scarcity or focusing on a limited time frame to avail your services can work well in such circumstances.
Remember:
- to all that you have learned about the prospect during your call,
- to summarize their pain points,
- to reiterate how your product or service can solve this,
- To outline next steps clearly
And of course, if you think there’s a mismatch of use case-fit, let the bird go.
Check out more on Product demo
8. Record Your Calls to Revisit and Learn
Nothing helps you prepare better than through experience. The more discovery calls you make, the better you will get at the whole process. This natural improvement will accelerate if you record and revisit your calls to learn what you could have done differently. While reviewing your calls, you can:
- come up with alternative ways of dealing with moments in the conversation where you might have hesitated,
- check how you handled objections and think of better ways to handle them
- streamline the structure of your call,
- take notes on the increased knowledge you have about the prospective client and incorporate that into your agenda for following up, and
- refresh your memory before negotiations.
Still confused about how to conduct a compelling sales discovery call? Don’t worry; we’ve put together some essential things to remember when you frame your sales discovery call questions to make your job easier.
Also, check out a complete guide to sales engagement
10 Sales Discovery Questions
Sales discovery questions are vital because they help you get information you cannot access simply by researching. Different questions can yield different types of responses, growing your knowledge about the prospect and their business. Here are ten questions you can ask prospective customers on a sales discovery call categorized under five types.
- Rapport-building Questions at the beginning of the Call
Rapport-building questions cover everything from making polite inquiries about how the prospect’s day has been to tapping into your research and asking them about things you’re genuinely curious about. Some good starters are:
- What is your take on (insert recent development in their field)?
- I was reading about you and noticed you (insert a professional development in their life that you want to know more about). What prompted you to take that step?
Rapport-building questions are an excellent tool to fill in gaps in your knowledge about your prospect’s personality and background, too.
- Qualifying Questions to Identify Key Decision Makers
Qualifying questions are particularly helpful in determining whether your prospect is a good fit for your business.
They can help you decide the amount of effort you need to put in to reach a sale with the prospect and if that effort is worth it considering their executive capabilities in their company. Some questions that may give you an idea of who is in charge of the decision-making process are:
- How does the buying process typically work in your company?
- What metrics are you responsible for as the holder of (insert the prospect’s professional position)? Is there anyone else involved in this process?
- Questions to Understand Key Metrics
Identifying key metrics is the most critical step to dive deeper into the kind of change they want to bring into the future. Be as direct as possible during this step because a concrete answer in terms of numbers or figures is what you require. Some questions you can ask here are:
- What are your hopes for a year-over-year revenue increase?
- How has your ROI (rate of investment) been impacted due to (insert a recent decision taken or a problem faced by the prospect)?
- Questions to Unearth and Intensify Pain Points
It is crucial to identify your prospect’s specific pain points and allow them to emphasize their negative impact on the company to adjust your sales strategy better. For instance, you may ask,
- What is your biggest roadblock to achieving this goal?
Depending on their response, you can tailor your follow-up to amplify the inconvenience caused by asking:
- Which resources are being wasted due to this roadblock? How is this impacting team morale?
This prepares the prospect for considering your product and service as a potential solution to secondary and tertiary repercussions caused by their original pain point and increases the likelihood of a successful sale.
- Questions to Guide Your Prospect Along Next Steps
Don’t forget to nudge your prospects along the following steps to purchase before you end the call. Typical questions you can ask at this stage include:
- Are there any legal or procurement reviews we must consider before proceeding?
- Does this seem like a competitive solution to you? How do you see this panning out?
If your prospect seems like they will require further convincing, make sure to schedule a follow-up meeting at this stage.
It is important not to overwhelm your prospect with too many questions at once. Remember to space out your questions throughout the call. Be vigilant about the sales discovery call becoming an interrogation, and consciously steer it towards a friendlier, relaxed tone characteristic of a two-way conversation.
How to Handle Common Discovery Call Objections?
Nearly every prospect you speak with will have reasons for hesitating to commit to a purchase, which makes objection handling the biggest challenge in making an effective sale. Listed below are three of the most common objection criteria you will inevitably have to address.
- Objection on Competitors
To effectively deal with this objection, you must thoroughly research your product or service’s competitors. Draw up a factually favorable comparison and don’t just emphasize why your product is better – focus on how it is better for your prospect specifically. Consider offering an impromptu demo that might allow the prospect to put their qualms to rest.
- Objections on Budget
There are several ways to deal with this common objection. You can
- offer discounts if they make the purchase within a stipulated time period (for instance, a week from the call)
- specify how your product or service offers more than the average competitor
- bring out statistics on how prospects with similar concerns have seen an improvement in their metrics after making the purchase.
Focusing on provable and relevant facts regarding your product or service’s past performance is advisable for the best results since this objection turns the discovery conversation into a risk versus reward one.
- Objections on Time
If your prospect does not have the time to adopt your product right away, resist the urge to ask them when would be a better time because that means you lose control over your sales timeline. Instead, focus on asking them what they do have the time and resources for at the moment, and tailor your sales strategy to convince them about what you can realistically offer within that criteria.
If your call has to be rescheduled due to timing, make sure to book your next meeting as soon as possible, even if it is just for a short while on the same day, so you have a better chance of maintaining your momentum.
Conclusion
When done right, the sales discovery process sets you up for a successful demo and, eventually, a closed sale. With the right information, you can qualify or disqualify leads, ensuring that you focus your attention on promising prospects.
Learning through experience is the best way for you to get better at it, so don’t hesitate to get started. If a sales discovery call doesn’t go as planned, examine why and what you can do differently. If you’re unsure, seek the advice of a more experienced sales professional, or watch them conduct a discovery call to get valuable insights.
As long as you don’t get complacent and treat every call as a fresh opportunity, you will consistently improve your skills. Good luck!
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Related Articles
If you're in the market for demo automation software, you've likely come across Storylane and Walnut.io. This comparison should help differentiate between both platforms to guide your purchase decision.
Why customers prefer Storylane over Walnut.io
At a high level, Storylane and Walnut share several similarities. They’re both demo automation softwares that support HTML/CSS demos, browser extension-based capture, demo engagement analytics and insights, and CRM integrations.
That being said, Storylane stands out significantly when it comes to product versatility, user satisfaction, pricing flexibility, and overall platform capabilities. Here's how:
1. Flexible demo formats vs. HTML-only approach
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to capture interactive demos:
- Image/video demos: Screenshot or video-based demos with sequential steps. While they have limited interactivity, they're quick to create, load faster, and work well for specific use cases.
- HTML/CSS demos: Clickable demos that capture the product's look, feel, and interactions, allowing for editing on-screen elements such as text, data, and graphics.
Walnut focuses exclusively on HTML/CSS-based demos, which can be limiting when teams need video walkthroughs or screenshot-based demos. Storylane, on the other hand, is expressly designed for both demo formats — complete with auto-capture, annotations, guides, blurs, zooms, presenter videos, voiceovers, and more.
This flexibility puts Storylane in a significantly stronger position when it comes to scaling demos across departments and use-cases. Marketing teams can create image-based guided demos for websites, sales teams can use HTML demos for personalized experiences, and customer success can leverage video demos for onboarding.
2. Cross-functional platform vs. sales-centric tool
Walnut.io is built primarily for sales teams, which can create friction when marketing, presales, or customer success teams need to create and manage demos. The platform's focus on sales workflows makes it less accessible for other departments.
Storylane is specifically designed for horizontal adoption across the entire go-to-market organization:
- Marketing teams use it for top-of-funnel engagement
- Sales teams leverage it for personalized demos
- Presales teams rely on it for technical demonstrations
- Customer success teams implement it for onboarding and training
This cross-functional design is evident in features like Demo Hub, which allows teams to create galleries and playlists of demos that address multiple buyer personas and use cases in one place. Walnut does not offer comparable functionality.
3. User satisfaction and ease of use
User satisfaction data reveals a significant gap between the platforms. Walnut currently ranks 17th on G2's demo automation category with a satisfaction score of 32/100, while Storylane maintains substantially higher ratings with a satisfaction score of 99/100.
Storylane's intuitive interface and self-serve capabilities contribute to its higher user satisfaction. The platform's design focuses on practical usability rather than just aesthetic appeal, making it easier for teams to create, manage, and share demos without extensive training.
4. Tiered pricing vs. upfront investment
With a starting price of $9,200/year and no free tier, Walnut requires a substantial commitment upfront. This high entry point can be prohibitive for smaller teams or organizations wanting to test demo automation before making a significant investment.
Storylane’s pricing plans offer a more accessible approach with:
- A self-serve free plan that allows teams to build their first demo without financial commitment
- Tiered pricing options that grow with your needs
- More features available at lower-tier plans compared to Walnut
5. Agentic demo automation with Lily AI
One of Storylane's biggest differentiators against Walnut is Lily, our demo automation agent that helps in two critical ways:
- Easier, faster demo creation for sellers: Generate or improve demos in seconds with product-specific guides, prompt-based editing assistance, voiceovers, and more.
- Contextual demo discovery for buyers: AI-powered guidance that helps prospects navigate through demos based on their specific interests.
Lily's demo creation capabilities include:
- Create with AI: Generate complete demos with guides, voiceovers, and visual enhancements
- AI Avatars: Choose from dozens of avatars or create one of yourself for studio-quality presenter videos
- AI HTML Editor: Customize demo environments with simple prompts — no code needed
- AI Voiceovers / Translation: Access 65+ voices and 25+ languages to expand accessibility
As it stands, Walnut does not currently offer comparable AI features, putting them behind the innovation curve in the rapidly evolving demo automation space.
6. Buyer Hub and superior organization
Storylane's Buyer Hub is a flagship feature that allows teams to showcase libraries of bite-sized product demos, PDFs, videos, and more through galleries and playlists. This organization makes it easier to:
- Present relevant demos to different buyer personas
- Create curated demo experiences for various stages of the buyer journey
- Maintain a centralized repository of demos that different teams can leverage
Though Walnut supports a playlist style demo experience, its organization capabilities are relatively limited, making it challenging to manage multiple demos for different audiences and use cases.
Making your choice
Your decision ultimately depends on your priorities:
Choose Walnut if:
- Your use case is exclusively sales-focused
- You only need HTML-based demos
- You're comfortable with the higher upfront investment
Choose Storylane if:
- You need a platform that works across marketing, sales, and customer success
- You want flexibility in demo formats (HTML, video, screenshots)
- You value AI-powered creation and customization
- You prefer a more accessible pricing model with a free tier
- User satisfaction and ease of use are priorities
The bottom line
While both platforms will help you create interactive demos, Storylane offers a more versatile, user-friendly solution that scales across departments. Walnut's sales-specific approach works for certain teams, but its HTML-only focus, higher price point, and lower user satisfaction scores make it a more limited option for organizations looking to scale their demo strategy.
We encourage you to try both platforms and see the difference for yourself. Storylane's free plan makes it easy to get started without a significant commitment. If you choose to work with us, we hope the question "what's next?" excites you as much as it excites us!
If you're in the market for demo automation software, you've probably come across Storylane and Navattic. This comparison should help you differentiate between both platforms to guide your purchase decision.
Why GTM teams prefer Storylane
At a high-level, customers prefer Storylane for the product functionality, versatility, ease-of-use, commercial model, and rate of innovation.
1. Product functionality
Before diving in, here’s a quick overview of core features common to both Storylane and Navattic — really, they’re table stakes for any modern demo automation platform:
- Self-serve free plan: Build your first demo on your own, for free
- Browser extension: Chrome extension for click-based capturing
- HTML/CSS demos: Clickable, editable HTML-based demo capture
- App integrations: Your usual suspects - CRMs, Slack, Zapier, etc.
- Demo analytics: Account reveal, performance metrics, intent signals, etc.
And with that out of the way, here are a few ways Storylane stands out from Navattic...
1.1 Flexible demo formats
Broadly, there are two formats of interactive demos:
- Image demos: Screenshot or video-based demos with sequential steps. Limited scope to control on-screen elements and interactions, but quick to create and load.
- HTML/CSS demos: Clickable demos that capture the product's look, feel, and interactions. On-screen elements such as text, data, and graphics may be edited.
In their own words, Navattic only specializes in top-of-funnel HTML demos. Storylane, on the other hand, is expressly designed for both demo formats — complete with auto-capture, annotations, guides, blurs, zooms, presenter videos, voice overs, and more.
What does this mean for you? With Storylane, you have the flexibility to pick between demo formats based on your needs: image-based guided demos for your website, video demos for email campaigns, HTML demos for sandbox environments, etc.
This flexibility (coupled with the next set of differences) puts Storylane in an unequivocally stronger position when it comes to scaling demos across departments and use-cases.
1.2 Agentic demo automation with Lily AI
One of Storylane’s biggest differentiators against Navattic (and pretty much every other vendor in this category) is Lily, our demo automation agent. Broadly, Lily helps in two ways:
- Easier, faster demo creation for sellers
- Contextual demo discovery for buyers
Here’s a rundown of what you can do with Lily today:
- Create with AI: Generate or improve demos in seconds — complete with product-specific guides, prompt-based editing assistance, voiceovers, zooms, and more.
- AI Avatars: Pick from dozens of avatars or make one of yourself to generate studio-quality presenter videos. You have the option to manually record content in-app as well.
- AI HTML Editor: Customize HTML demo environments on the fly to meet ad hoc requirements. Edit text, images, and graphs with simple prompts — no code needed.
- AI Voiceovers / Translate: Choose from over 65+ voices (or record your own) and 25+ languages to expand accessibility and furnish your demos with a human touch.
As for discovery, think of Lily as a conversation product expert with as much information as your best sales person, available 24/7 to guide prospects through discovery and qualification. Coming soon.
Where’s Navattic at with all this? As it stands, they do not support any comparable features.
1.3 Demo Hub
Next up, we have Demo Hub: one of Storylane’s flagship features to address multiple buyer personas and use-cases in one place with galleries and playlists of demos. Galleries help marketers showcase a library of bite-sized product demos on their website (without overwhelming early stage prospects) while playlists help sales and presales teams share curated demo experiences with later stage prospects.
Navattic does not support any comparable feature to date. As it stands, Navattic’s response to Demo Hub is Demodash, an agency that charges as much as $2000 per demo to create demo centers for their customers.
1.4 Apps galore
Another key differentiator is Storylane's lineup of native apps. We’re the only demo automation vendors to support apps for Gmail, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Desktop (Mac).
- Try the Salesforce app, listed on the Salesforce AppExchange
- Try the HubSpot app, listed on the HubSpot marketplace
- Try the Gmail plugin
- Download the Storylane desktop app
These quality of life improvements are designed especially for sales teams to personalize and share demos without logging into Storylane (plus, easier change management is always nice).
You might be noticing a pattern here: To date, Navattic does not support this functionality — and given their focus on a limited set of use-cases, nor do we believe that they plan to. More on this next.
2. Versatility across GTM
Most demo automation vendors sell to a specific function. Saleo sells to sales. Consensus sells to pre-sales. And Navattic? Well they primarily sell to marketers. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach, it can be a limiting factor when you’re looking to scale demo operations across departments and use-cases.
Storylane is specifically designed for horizontal adoption across marketing, pre-sales, sales, and even customer success, product, and development teams. The differences in product functionality highlighted above (coupled with under the radar features such as secure demo sharing and personalized links for email campaigns) are testament to this claim.
3. Ease of use
As for which demo automation software is easier to use, we’ll let numbers do the talking.
"Storylane makes it much easier to organize content with its tagging system for chapters and sections. While Navattic allows labeling, it lacks searchability and filtering capabilities, which becomes crucial when managing multiple chapters. I particularly appreciate how Storylane structures chapters with their own dedicated build sections. In contrast, with Navattic, when I created an 80-step process, it stretched into one long, horizontal sequence that required constant scrolling back and forth. Storylane's more concise organization makes me much more excited to build out product demos” - A customer when asked about how Storylane compared to Navattic
4. Commercial models
Upon initial inspection, Storylane is (slightly) more expensive per plan than Navattic. A closer look, however, reveals that we offer several features in our lower tier plans. To name a few:
- Lily AI (Available in Storylane’s free plan onwards vs unavailable on Navattic)
- Account reveal (Available in Storylane’s $40/mo plan vs. Navattic’s $1000/mo plan)
- Demo translations (Available in Storylane’s $40/mo plan vs Navattic’s $1000/mo plan)
- Demo Hub (Available in Storylane’s $500/mo plan vs unavailable on Navattic)
- Offline demos (Available in Storylane’s $1200/mo plan vs. Navattic’s enterprise plan)
- Demo coaching (Available in Storylane’s $1200/mo plan vs. Navattic’s enterprise plan)
If you really think about it, this probably translates to better bang for your buck. But what about the whole “unlimited seats” deal? Sounds great, sure — but how sustainable is it really? As your organization (and demo requirements) start to scale, it’s unrealistic to expect the same support for a 5 seat plan as a 200 seat plan. Another reason why Storylane’s value-based pricing makes more sense for the long run.
Edit: Recently, Navattic has also started capping their seats per plan. Goes to show that as a commercial model, the whole unlimited seats approach probably didn't work out as intended.
And there you have it! Both Navattic and Storylane are leading demo automation softwares — but when you break it down, it’s hard to argue against the latter. Storylane's objectively in the clear for most buying considerations: functionality, versatility, ease-of-use, and commercials.
5. On innovation - What’s next?
It may not feel like it (especially to us), but demo automation has only been around for a handful of years. As a category, we’re still in nascent stages. Unlike with established verticals such as CRMs or project management tools, it’s on younger companies like ours to innovate and push the envelope in these “early days” of demo automation.
Nitty-gritty comparisons aside, it’s worth sharing that Storylane has been at the forefront of this since day one. With category-first initiatives like self-serve PLG, Demo Hub, and more recently, Lily AI — innovation continues to be at the heart of our business. If you decide to go with Storylane, we hope the question “what's next?” excites you as much as it excites us!
From day one, our mission has been to simplify B2B buying and selling. When we launched in 2021, we recognized that product demos – a key touchpoint in most customer journeys – generated undue friction for buyers and sellers alike. From both a creation and discovery stand point, demos fell flat in terms of ease-of-use, accessibility, and scalability. This gap is exactly what we set out to close with Storylane.
A trip down Storylane
Storylane's growth has always been marked by industry-first innovations. We began by introducing interactive demos in 2022. The goal was to help teams build quick and simple demos for a range of marketing and sales use-cases. Soon enough, this put us on the map as the fastest, easiest-to-use demo automation tool in the market.
Next, in 2023, we became the first self-serve platform in our category. Here, our goal was to democratize access to demo automation for marketing, sales, and presales teams of all sizes. Today, we work with over 3000 companies ranging from early-stage startups to industry giants such as Microsoft, Gong, and Cognism.
Last year, in 2024, we recognized that one demo wasn’t going to cut it. After all, B2B purchase decisions involve multiple buyer personas, use-cases, and product lines. In such cases, it only makes sense to share multiple, context-specific demos with prospects.
After much anticipation, we launched Demo Hub; another category-first innovation designed to share multiple demos as galleries or playlists.
In 2025, Storylane goes agentic
We’ve done well to get to where we are today — but we know there’s still a ton of scope to simplify B2B buying and selling for everyone involved. We realize that:
- Sellers prefer spending their time on qualified, high-intent deals — not demo operations
- Buyers expect self-guided, context-specific product discovery — with minimal sales intervention
And so, in our attempt to address these all-too-common gaps in the buying experience, we're thrilled to announce Storylane’s boldest innovation yet: Lily, your demo automation agent.
Meet Lily: Your demo automation agent
Lily is a demo automation agent built for both buyers and sellers. She represents a fundamental shift in how we’ll be thinking about demo creation and discovery going forward, bringing in an agentic approach to Storylane’s existing line of demo automation products.
To start with, here’s what's in it for demo creators
1. Create with AI: Simply capture your product with Storylane's browser extension and leave the rest to us. Lily will create and optimize demos in a single click — complete with product-specific guides, annotations, and voiceovers.
2. AI Avatars: Pick from dozens of avatars — or make one of yourself. Share a script and generate studio-quality presenter videos in seconds. No camera, edits, or redos needed.
3. AI Voiceovers: Speak your audience’s language — literally. Generate studio-quality voiceovers in over 60 diverse voices and 25 languages.
4. AI HTML Editor: Customize demos on the fly to meet your prospect's unique needs. Edit text, images, and graphs with just simple, code-free prompts — Lily does the rest.
But wait…there’s more
All this? Just the beginning.
In March, Lily will evolve to support autonomous, contextual demo discovery for buyers. Imagine prospects exploring your product, right on your website, through intelligent conversations with Lily — getting exactly the information they need, when they need it — without any of the friction associated with traditional sales touchpoints.
In short, Lily will be a 24/7 tour guide — equipped with as much product knowledge as your best sales rep — to support buyers with contextual, self-serve product discovery.
Looking ahead: sales enablement & beyond
As we launch Lily, we're more committed than ever to our founding mission: eliminating friction in B2B buying and selling. We believe agentic demo automation represents the next frontier in B2B sales enablement, moving beyond static product demos to intelligent product experiences.
To our customers who've been part of this journey – thank you. Your feedback and trust have been instrumental in shaping not just Storylane, but the future of demo automation. And to those considering how to make their demo experience more effective and engaging – welcome to the era of agentic demo automation.
The future of product demonstrations is here, and we couldn't be more excited to help you tell your product's story in ways never before possible.
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Make buying easy with Storylane
Chat with our demo expert to find out how 2500+ companies use Storylane to drive more revenue
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