What is Situational Fluency?

 

“Situational fluency is the ability to accurately read and adapt to a specific situation, including understanding and responding to the needs and preferences of those involved to improve communication and connection.” – Google AI Overview

 

Using demos as an example, applying the DIKW pyramid provides more enlightenment:

 

D (Data): Collecting the discrete situational data through discovery and observations, including parameters like pain, impact, value, related pain (and their impact and value), environment, and culture.

 

I (Information): Synthesizing the data into a cohesive, specific description of your prospect’s situation. (Great Demo! Situation Slides provide a terrific framework for this!)

 

K (Knowledge): Understanding what to present in your demo, how to present it, when to present, and (sometimes) where to present, and then executing accordingly.

 

W (Wisdom): Leveraging your personal stock of experiences of other prospect and customer situations to adjust, tune, or pivot during your demo.

 

W2 (Additional Wisdom): Leveraging your team’s or organization’s stock of experiences of other prospect and customer situations to adjust, tune, or pivot during your demo.

 

 

Summarizing, situational fluency is being able to leverage the experience of numerous interactions and outcomes. It is a key part of methodology!

 

 

You’ll find the what, how, when, where, and why for discovery, demos, and other practices here:

 

Doing Discovery

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Great Demo! Third Edition:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Suspending Disbelief:

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy 

 

 

 

What Did You Learn…?

 

What did you learn yesterday?

What are you learning today?

What will you learn tomorrow?

 

Want some tasty bitesize learning morsels? Sample our Blog posts – here are few appetizers:

 

-       Whose Value Numbers Are Most Believable?

-       “Walk You Through Our Demo?”

-       “We Tell Great Stories but We Lose the Business…!”

-       In a “Bake Off?” Demo First!

-       Want a Demo Horror Story?

-       How to AVOID Discovery Feeling Like an Interrogation

-       The Myth of the Informed Buyer – And the Importance of Vision Reengineering!

-       Buyer Enablement and Transition Vision: Which Vendor Will Get Your Business?

-       Power Tools of Communication: Analogies and Metaphors!

-       “I Want This to Be Interactive…!”

 

And, of course, the short stories in Suspending Disbelief are like a dim sum or tapas restaurant – nearly three dozen tasty treats in one place!

 

Ready for a more filling experience? Order up a well-spiced article or two from our menu:

 

-       The Power of “You” In Demos

-       Debilitating Demo Diseases

-       A Perfect Demo Environment

-       Lunch and Learn Demos: A Potent Practice

-       Stunningly Awful Web Overview Demos: The Gruesome Anatomy of a Typical One-Hour Web Overview Demonstration

-       Critical Dates – Prevent Prospect Procrastination: A Never Stop Learning! Article

-       Doing Discovery with Your Prospects’ Executives

-       Discovery and Demos for Renewals and Expansion

-       The Incredible Value of Value Realization Events

 

Prefer a self-paced immersive experience? Curl up with one of our books:

 

-       Great Demo!

-       Doing Discovery

-       Suspending Disbelief

 

Or take the most effective approach and join a Great Demo! or Doing Discovery Workshop. They’re like a cooking class where you are guided by an expert chef learning and tuning your new skills to create entire meals!

 

The Great Demo! website Resources pages (Blog, Articles, Books, Podcasts, Webinars, and more) offer proven methods, perfected practices, and novel ideas for your consumption. Bon Appétit!

Type Two Fun and Storytelling

 

Of course, everyone knows the three types of fun:

 

-       Type One Fun: It was fun while it was happening, and it is fun to talk about it afterwards.

 

-       Type Two Fun: It was not fun while it was happening, but it is fun to share the story.

 

-       Type Three Fun: It was not fun while it was happening, and it is still painful to speak of it!

 

Intriguingly, Type Two Fun experiences often have many of the elements that enable a successful story, and “The Hero’s Journey” story structure, in particular.

 

For example, business travel frequently results in delays, cancellations, and other challenging experiences that, when overcome, can yield entertaining and satisfying stories. Most of us have endured these situations and, once the trip was over, turned them into stories that we retell (sometimes over and over!).

 

Similarly, seeing your customers overcome their business challenges (using your solutions) can provide you with great stories to use in your discovery conversations, demos, and other interactions.

 

If it was painful at the time, but is now enjoyable to relate, you’ve got a good candidate for a compelling story!

 

For a few examples, see the 35 short stories in Suspending Disbelief:

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy 

Whose Value Numbers Are Most Believable?

 

Whose value numbers are most believable?

 

- The vendor’s numbers? Hardly!

 

- Industry numbers? Believable, but generally not sufficiently specific.

 

- Other similar customers? Much better…

 

- Your prospect’s own numbers? Best, and completely believable!

 

Here’s an example of each:

 

Vendor’s numbers: “We calculate that you can save $100,000 annually by implementing our solution…”

Believability and relevance rating? Poor!

 

Industry numbers: “Gartner reports that customers average saving $100,000 annually with these solutions.”

Believability and relevance rating? Good believability but low relevance.

 

Other similar customers: “Another customer we worked with, in a very similar situation to what you’ve articulated, told us that they are saving nearly $100,000 annually using our solution.”

Believability and relevance rating? Good.

 

Your prospect’s own numbers: “And, if I recall correctly, you said you expect to save about $100,000 annually by implementing a solution like ours.”

Believability and relevance rating? High!

 

Moral? Uncover and use your prospects’ specific numbers when communicating value!

 

And here’s the guide to uncovering and calculating value: Doing Discovery

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

 

 

Using Storytelling in New and Unexpected Ways!

 

Storytelling is used today in many customer-facing interactions including introductory calls, discovery, demos, and in some tactical portions of those conversations, such as handling objections. But stories can and should be leveraged more extensively.

 

Anything that is typically dry or fact-oriented can be brought to life by infusing them with relevant, compelling, engaging, and memorable stories!

 

Consider the following candidates:

 

-       RFP responses

-       POCs and POVs

-       Product feature planning

-       Startup pitches

-       Resumes

 

Resumes are a wonderful example. Most resumes are factual recitations of one’s accomplishments and skills but lack any real insight into the person.

 

I know a person who is highly skilled at B2B and B2C email marketing, with deep experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Braze, SQL, HTML, Tableau, Litmus, Google Analytics, and other tools. But her resume doesn’t provide the full picture; it’s only (literally!) black and white. 

 

While she’s very thoughtful and analytical, she is also a quietly confident explorer. One day she is completing a major email campaign, two days later she is taking her first surf lesson on the beach in Nicaragua, followed by yoga as the sun sets! One day she’s reviewing campaign KPIs and the next weekend she’s on a solo twelve mile, two thousand feet (vertical) hike through a northwest forest to an exquisite lake with stunning views.

 

Perhaps including these stories in her resume would offer a richer, full color picture of her skills, experience, and personality.

 

I’d suggest using stories in RFP responses, similarly, and in defining and managing POCs and POVs. Product folks can (and should!) use stories to support their cases for implementing certain features. And startup founders should leverage compelling stories in their investor and prospect pitches.

 

What other opportunities could benefit by including compelling stories?

An Abbreviated Cultural Translation Table

When shown a new software feature…

 

An American will say, “Wow, that’s awesome!”

A German will say, “Ja, well, it is adequate.”

And a Brit will say, “Oh, that’s just brilliant,” but you’re not sure if it’s sarcastic or not!

“Walk You Through Our Demo?”

Why do people always offer to “walk” me through a demo of their software? 

Frankly, I’d prefer to run!

 

“Walking” implies a long, detailed, painful, boring demo, drifting through irrelevant features, stumbling across extensive fields of Set-up Mode, twisting and turning down unproductive paths of meaningless options, while wondering and wandering towards hazy horizons…

 

Instead, please take the express route:

 

-       Show me the most important thing (I need) first

-       Do It in the fewest number of clicks

-       Map to my interests using Inverted Pyramid

 

And here’s the expert GPS to guide you!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

Demonstration or Demolition?

 

There are only a few letters difference between a demonstration and demolition!

 

Traditional approaches demolish demos by:

 

-       Saving the best for last

-       Showing how everything works

-       Making it a monologue

-       Focusing on the product

-       Ignoring meaningful personalization

 

Great Demo! practices drive conversions, wins, renewals, and expansion by:

 

-       Doing the Last Thing First

-       Showing only what your prospect wants and needs to see

-       Making it a two-way conversation

-       Focusing on your prospect

-       Precisely personalizing through intelligent discovery

 

For intriguing, stimulating, and pragmatic ideas, explore the blog and articles on the Resources pages at https://GreatDemo.com. 

 

For a deeper dive, read or listen to the Doing Discovery and Great Demo! books. 

 

And for a complete hands-on experience to improve your demo and discovery skills, enroll in a Great Demo! or Doing Discovery public or company-specific Workshop!

 

Great Demo! Third Edition:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

Doing Discovery

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

 

Suspending Disbelief:

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy 

 

Great Demo! Workshops

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/great-demo/ 

 

Doing Discovery Workshops

https://greatdemo.com/training/workshops/doing-discovery/