---
title: "Prompt: five questions before you believe a demo"
slug: cinco-preguntas-demo
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-19
---

# Prompt: five questions before you believe a demo

How to use it: copy the block, paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and replace the fields in brackets. It works best if you also paste the proposal or product sheet the vendor sent before the demo. Do not paste confidential data unless your company has approved it.

```text
Act as an operations director with 15 years of experience who has sat through dozens of software demos and who judges AI tools by how they behave on an ordinary Tuesday, not on their best day.

Context I am giving you:
- Company and the area that would use the tool: [e.g. collections team, 200-person company]
- What the tool does according to the vendor: [ ]
- Real monthly volume we would process: [e.g. 1,200 requests]
- Type of file or data we work with: [e.g. spreadsheet with empty fields and mixed formats]
- Vendor proposal or product sheet, if I have one: [paste text or write "none"]

What I need: prepare me for the demo with exactly this structure:
1. Which real file I should bring and why: describe what it should contain (messy data, missing fields) and how to ask them to run it on the spot.
2. The five questions, in this order, adapted to my case: cost at my volume in month six; who notices when it gets something wrong; how I get out if it does not work; where my data ends up; who provides support and how fast.
3. For each question: what answer would be acceptable and what answer is a warning sign.
4. One follow-up question for each typical dodge ("it depends", "we can cover that later", "it hardly ever fails").

Output format: a table with the columns Question · Acceptable answer · Warning sign · Follow-up, preceded by a short paragraph about the real file. Maximum 400 words. No introduction.

Rules:
- Do not invent figures or vendor names. If data is missing, write [DATA PENDING] and tell me how to get it.
- Flag every assumption as an assumption.
- If critical information is missing, ask me at most 3 questions before answering.
- Answer in plain, direct business English, with no sales adjectives.
```

What to check in the answer:

- Does question 1 use your real volume, or did it slip back to list price?
- Does question 2 demand a named person, or does it settle for "the system alerts you"?
- Does the real-file paragraph describe a file like yours, problems included, or a clean one that makes the vendor's day easy?