Thursday, March 14, 2024

“It’s Hard to See Your Mouse…”


“It’s hard to see your mouse…” said the prospect, “It’s pretty small.”

 

This is a very (very!) common problem, as screen resolution of computers has continued to increase, and it has a very simple solution. Do two things:

 

1.     Increase your mouse cursor size.

2.     Choose a mouse cursor style that is “filled-in” or high contrast.

 

On Mac, you’ll find mouse size adjustment in:

 

·       System Preferences

·       Accessibility

·       Display

·       Pointer…

·       (about 200% is good – move to the second mark on the scale)

 

On Windows you’ll find mouse size and fill-in choices in:

 

·       Start

·       Settings

·       Ease of Access

·       Cursor and Pointer

 

(The specific steps may depend on which version of Windows you have.)

 

Now enjoy the improved visibility your audiences will experience…!

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Step-Change vs Optimization vs Refinement

 

I was watching an Audi advertisement last night that showed a new Audi owner trying to decide which of four headlight display options to choose from… It made me think:

 

Products (and services) go through three stages: 

 

1.     Step-Change, resulting from Invention and pioneering, yielding major step-changes in performance, practices, or offering new dimensions.

2.     Optimization, resulting in substantive, ongoing improvement of existing offerings.

3.     Refinement, result in “polishing” through small improvements or additions to existing offerings.

 

This cycle, from Step-Change to Optimization to Refinement, is then surpassed and overwhelmed by new inventions yielding step-changes to the next levels.

 

Importantly:

-       During the Step-Change stage (invention and pioneering) change is very fast.

-       Optimization slows the rate of change somewhat with a series of steady improvements, which typically provide more value than the cost of the investment.

-       Refinement slows the rate of change even more and “improvements” in the Refinement stage typically do not deliver significant incremental value for the investment.

 

Airplanes provide an example:

 

-       Biplanes were invented (e.g., Wright brothers) yielding new ways to travel (and truly enabling a new dimension in travel!): A major step change, that was then optimized, and then refined (check out the Beech Staggerwing as an example of Refinement)

-       Monoplanes represented the next Step-Change, enabling major improvements in speed, efficiency, altitude, and other performance parameters. The fabulous Spitfire is an example of that Step-Change; the progression from the Mark I to Mark 24 is a wonderful representation of Optimization.

-       Jets were the next Step-Change. Optimization progressed from the Comet to the 707 to the A380 and the 787; the 737 Max could be a sad example of the risks of Refinement!

 

Skills and methodologies are also applicable and subject to this cycle.

 

For example, Great Demo! represents a major Step-Change from traditional demos and traditional demo methodologies. Continued innovations (e.g., Vision Generation Demos) have resulted in more Step-Changes. Optimization in ongoing improved methods of storytelling in demos, virtual demos, automated demos, demo environments, other forms of proof, buyer enablement practices, and more.

 

Similarly, the Doing Discovery methodology provides another game-changing Step-Change from traditional qualification and discovery practices, providing organizations with major opportunities to differentiate and win, while reducing No Decision outcomes, shrink churn, and outflank competition.

 

(You can find the Great Demo! and Doing Discovery books on Amazon and training options at GreatDemo.com.)

 

Where are your products on this spectrum? Where are your skills and your team’s skills in this cycle? Where should they be?

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Curious AI?

 

I’m interested, no, I’m excited about the possibility of AI being trained to be curious. It’s (comparatively) easy to uncover general trends and typical patterns, and that’s very useful. However, it’s often the outliers and exceptions that yield the most interesting results and new opportunities to explore!

Monday, March 11, 2024

The Sad Story of the Way Cool Tool

 

Once upon a time, our product manager and development team created a chemical drawing capability that enabled chemical structures to be generated with a single mouse click. It was fabulous! You could click, hold your mouse button down, and draw out the complex hexagonal structures of chemistry in a single fluid motion (think “di-methyl-chicken-wire”).

 

It was, truly, way cool! And so it was named, the “Way Cool Tool.”

 

As soon as it was released, we showed it in every demo to both new prospects and existing customers. We reveled in showing it. We found every possible reason to show it, over and over, because (of course) it was way cool!

 

One day, several months after its release, a long-term customer took us aside after a demo and said, “I’m sorry inform you, but we never use your ‘Way Cool Tool.’ We are almost always working from existing structure templates, which we then modify with a few additions or changes. But we never use the ‘Way Cool Tool.’”

 

True story! 

 

The moral?

 

Seek to understand – and gain a clear understanding – of how your customers actually use your software. Those are the best pathways for your demos!

Friday, March 8, 2024

The Magic of Numbers in Communicating Value

 

A Never Stop Learning! Article

 

 

“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.”

                  - Galileo Galilei

 

 

Which of the following vendor statements has more impact?

 

“If you buy our software, you’ll save time and money…!”

 

“If you implement our software, it looks like you will reduce your project completion time by 20%, you can redeploy 4 FTE to other more valuable tasks, and you will save over $750,000 annually, based on the numbers you provided.”

 

The difference between these two approaches is striking and has a huge impact on your prospects’ perceptions of value!

 

What’s in This Article for You?

 

-        Words vs numbers

-        How can three minutes be worth $24 million?

-        Building a compelling business case

-        Comprehending numbers and making them tangible

-        Aligning value communication with job title

-        The power of annualizing!

-        Some numbers you should memorize

-        A bit less about numbers

-        When should value be communicated?

 

You can find this article here – enjoy!

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Automated Demos Do: Get to the Point!

 

I just watched a website-hosted automated demo and was appalled at what I saw!

 

The demo is designed to highlight the capabilities of the vendor’s forecast management and reporting tool. It starts logically, offering, “Let’s answer the question, ‘How do I know what will close this quarter?’”

 

- It then takes you on a journey of eleven clicks, but never actually answers the question!

- Instead, it explores a range of “If” and “Or” options.

- Several times, I had to hunt and guess where to click. I might have terminated the demo if I was a real prospect because of that frustration.

 

It was basically an automated Stunningly Awful Harbor Tour…!

 

Here’s a Great Demo! approach:

 

0. Offer several different automated demos to choose from (or paths, if that option is available in the tool), based on

   a.        Job Title or

   b.        Task

   c.        And let the prospect choose which to pursue…

1. Use the dialogue text box to present a Great Demo! Situation Slide.

2. Present the desired deliverable screen (if possible, without having to back click afterwards): the Illustration. Provide a summary of what the prospect is seeing.

3. Next, lead the prospect through the fewest number of clicks to navigate from a logical starting point to the Illustration, then summarize in a text box: Do It.

4. Then, offer the option to slice/dice to see some of the other views if the prospect desires: Peel Back the Layers! 

5. Summarize again, based on how far the prospect progresses (the demo could provide crisp summaries in the text boxes after each new view).

 

Interestingly, the final screen in this vendor’s automated demo included a “Request a Demo” button. This seems redundant, didn’t I just watch a demo? Instead, I’d recommend, “Request a Consultation” or similar.

 

If you’d like to make your automated demos crisp, compelling, and surprisingly successful, contact Natasja Bax at NBax@GreatDemo.com!

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Demo Jockeys Interview Part 2 – Doing Discovery

 

I joined the fabulous folks at the Demo Jockeys for a discussion of the Doing Discovery book. Here’s a timeline for part 2 of the interview (Minutes:Seconds):

 

0:00     Configuring couches for laptops

3:00     Extolling the virtues of Moosehead Lake in Maine

4:00     Interview begins

4:30     Curiosity-driven discovery vs a “chore”

6:15     Confirm the normal, investigate the outliers

8:00     A great story about differentiation

9:45     “You know you’ve already closed me…!”

11:00   Another great story: the “Sales Prevention Team”

13:30   The risk of demoing from a script

15:00   Understanding the buyer’s journey, when you haven’t been a buyer

18:00   Buyer experience vs problem/solution complexity

20:00   Another story: Learning how to sell internally

23:00   Intro to Buyer Enablement and examples

25:45   Cohan activities – a raft of articles and posts on the Great Demo! website Resources pages

29:45   Should we do a session or two on the Third Edition of Great Demo!?

 

You can find this on https://demojockeys.com/ 

 

Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Discovery Do: Prospects WANT to Be Discovered…

  

Prospects with complex problems want to be discovered, but they are cautious.

 

It’s like to going to see a doctor about a problem: You know you need to communicate the details of your issue to the doctor, but you may be cautious about taking that first step. Once you do, you have opened the door to an unknown future. Will the potential cure be worth the investment and associated risks?

 

We often do some preliminary exploration of our symptoms and possible treatments before seeing a doctor. We want a vision of what to expect and what is possible before committing to the path as a patient.

 

Along similar lines, prospects don’t want to get connected to a salesperson until they are ready to proceed down a path to purchase. Accordingly, prospects often ask for a demo of your “solution” prior to committing to a conversation. They want this from you before they are willing to offer information about their situation. It’s basic quid pro quo.

 

This is why Vision Generation Demos (Chapter 11 in the Third Edition of Great Demo!) are so effective! Vision Generation Demos provide your prospect with a sense of what’s possible with your offering and, if they feel it aligns with their situation and their objectives, prospects are then willing to invest in a discovery conversation. Quid pro quo.

 

Even so, vendors should ease into discovery with most prospects. Doing Discovery’s “About You” process and exploring Demographics provide questions and topics that are easy to ask and easy to answer for both parties. It’s a comfortable way to begin!

 

(Please avoid trite phrases such as, “What keeps you up at night?” My response to this is, “Finding ways to avoid reps who start calls with, ‘What keeps you up at night?’!”)

 

Note that prospect players’ willingness to engage ranges across a spectrum, from executives who want to get to the point right away to lower-level players who often exhibit the “Doorknob Effect.” (The “doorknob phenomenon occurs when patients wait until the last moment in the clinical encounter – often while the physician is grasping the doorknob to exit the examination room – to utter something that, not uncommonly, provides crucial information.”

 

Prospects who anticipate solutions to their complex problems do desire to reveal the specifics of their situation to vendors (who have earned the right to have the conversation).

 

See Doing Discovery for details on these approaches and Great Demo! for the process for Vision Generation Demos, and enjoy the results these methods yield!

Monday, March 4, 2024

Sales and Presales New Hire Interview Process Remarkable Change – A Test for Discovery Skills

 

We realized that our traditional interview process for sales and presales staff was seriously flawed: It had a very strong bias towards hiring people who were skilled at “telling” but not at “asking.”

 

So, we made a change!

 

Previously, after a candidate “survived” our first-round phone interviews, we invited them to deliver a presentation or a demo (topic and/or tool was their choice). If they “passed” this round, we would likely extend an offer letter.

 

After tracking their performance in the field, we realized that they were skilled at making presentations or showing demos: They were good at “telling.” But we also realized that they weren’t necessarily skilled at doing discovery: “asking.”

 

This was a major problem, as our offerings were complex, and prospects needed deep discovery to enable happy outcomes as customers.

 

W. Edwards Deming noted, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does.”


So, we changed our system.

 

After the initial phone interviews, we asked candidates to perform a discovery call with us (again, topic or tool was their choice), and then, if they did well, we invited them back to do a demo or presentation based on what they learned in discovery.

 

The result? Much better hires and rather dramatically improved performance with prospects. Oh, and crisper sales/buying cycles and much happier customers, as well!

Friday, March 1, 2024

Automated Demos Don’t: Garbage In, Amplified Garbage Out!

When you create automated demos, consider the following: If your current live demos aren’t driving conversations, your automated versions of these will be equally poor at driving conversions.

  • Automating a fast-food restaurant doesn’t make the food any more palatable!
  • Automating the production of a poorly designed car results in piles of poorly performing cars (as well as increased breakdowns, maintenance expenses, insurance costs, and recalls. It’s hard to recall a poor demo!)
  • Automating the assembly of products from poor-quality components yields tons of sub-standard products and negative product reviews.
  • Providing ChatGPT with mediocre content as the input doesn't improve the value of the output.
  • Automating chopping onions just makes you cry faster, longer, and more painfully!

Your objective is to engage your prospects with content that compels action, and traditional approaches have proven to be ineffective. Great Demo! methodology has been validated as a refreshingly successful approach for demos in studies of tens of thousands of recorded demos!

 

Learn and apply practices for automated demos that yield the desired results. Contact Natasja Bax for more information.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Demo Do: Great Demos and Chunking

  

How do you verbally communicate a phone number to someone else? We “chunk” it, almost without thinking about it – and that’s a terrific model for software demos!


Consider a U.S. phone number: 6506313694. How would you share this number with someone else? (Say it out loud) “650, 631, 3694.” Some people might break it up even further as, “650, 631, 36, 94.” We put a brief pause or space between each two- or three-number chunk. We do this naturally!

 

This is even more true when communicating longer strings, such as European phone numbers. “+496934127856” would likely be spoken, “+49, 69, 34, 12, 78, 56.” We automatically chunk this without having to think about it.

 

Intriguingly, we receive information best in chunks, as well! If you asked someone for their phone number and they said, “+496934127856” as a single string without any gaps, most of us would have to ask for it to be repeated.

 

The same principle applies to demos!

 

The most successful demos have logical chunks that run only a few minutes. How do you form a chunk in a demo? By introducing the segment, presenting the capability(ies) in as much depth as your prospect or customer has interest, and then closing the chunk with a crisp summary. By adding a pause after your summary, you provide the opportunity for your prospect/customer to offer comments or ask questions.

 

The result is a delightful conversation as opposed to a traditional, boring, painful, demo monologue. You can find more on how to put this idea into practice in the Third Edition of Great Demo!

 

Enjoy!