Logorrhea – Excessive Talkativeness
Symptoms: Customer is unable to break-in to ask a question; presenter feels obligated to keep on talking if he/she hears nothing from customer. Condition is often exacerbated when working over certain conference room speaker phone systems. Audience often lapses into disgruntled silence for the balance of the demo. Demo fails; sales person does not get order; customer goes with the competition.
Examples: “But, what if…”
“Um, excuse me but…”
“Can I ask…?”
“Never mind.”
Cure: Remove Starbucks coffee cups from victim’s immediate area. Have victim slow down delivery and put pauses in place. Encourage victim to summarize at the end of each section. Ask questions more often and give audience time to respond. Check telephone connection and speakerphone for bisynchronicity before launching into demo.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Debilitating Demo Diseases - Staff Infection
Infection – Group Blindness
Symptoms: Doing the same demo(s) over and over, regardless of customer needs or desires.
Examples: “We’ve always done it this way…”
“New hire, are you? Great – here’s the script for our demo. Memorize it by next Monday…”
Cure: Rapid, deep application of Great Demo! methodology. Reframe and customize demos for each key audience members’ situation. Turn traditional demos upside down and start with the pay-off, the “Wow!” factor:
1. Review customer’s Situation
2. Present the Illustration of the end result
3. Do It – show how to get there in the fewest number of steps
4. Peel Back the Layers in accord with customer interest
5. Manage Questions along the way
6. Summarize so customer retains the key points
Symptoms: Doing the same demo(s) over and over, regardless of customer needs or desires.
Examples: “We’ve always done it this way…”
“New hire, are you? Great – here’s the script for our demo. Memorize it by next Monday…”
Cure: Rapid, deep application of Great Demo! methodology. Reframe and customize demos for each key audience members’ situation. Turn traditional demos upside down and start with the pay-off, the “Wow!” factor:
1. Review customer’s Situation
2. Present the Illustration of the end result
3. Do It – show how to get there in the fewest number of steps
4. Peel Back the Layers in accord with customer interest
5. Manage Questions along the way
6. Summarize so customer retains the key points
Monday, October 13, 2008
Debilitating Demo Diseases - Harbor Tour Delusion
Harbor Tour Delusion – Living in the Land of Hope
Symptoms: Presenting a long, tortured demo that attempts to cover all of the possible customer needs and problems before any reasonable discussion of the customer’s situation.
Aka: Harbor Tour Demo, Show-up-and-Throw-up, Spray and Pray, the Spaghetti Demo, Doin’ the Demo Dash.
Examples: “To give you an idea of what we do, let me show you a demo…”
“Stop me if anything looks interesting…”
[Trade show booth] “Hi – would you like a demo?”
Cure: Collect a handful of Informal Success Stories. Distill and carefully extract the key Situation information, based on:
· Job Title and Industry
· Critical Business Issue
· Reason
· Specific Capabilities
· Delta
Match customer Job Title/Industry, present appropriate Success Stories to generate interest, follow with questions… Apply the Menu Approach for crusty customers or larger groups. Hold back from delivering demo until customer situation is well understood.
Symptoms: Presenting a long, tortured demo that attempts to cover all of the possible customer needs and problems before any reasonable discussion of the customer’s situation.
Aka: Harbor Tour Demo, Show-up-and-Throw-up, Spray and Pray, the Spaghetti Demo, Doin’ the Demo Dash.
Examples: “To give you an idea of what we do, let me show you a demo…”
“Stop me if anything looks interesting…”
[Trade show booth] “Hi – would you like a demo?”
Cure: Collect a handful of Informal Success Stories. Distill and carefully extract the key Situation information, based on:
· Job Title and Industry
· Critical Business Issue
· Reason
· Specific Capabilities
· Delta
Match customer Job Title/Industry, present appropriate Success Stories to generate interest, follow with questions… Apply the Menu Approach for crusty customers or larger groups. Hold back from delivering demo until customer situation is well understood.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Debilitating Demo Diseases - Atrophied Communication
Atrophied Communication (aka CRM Refusal) – Pre-Call Inadequacy
Symptoms: Sales rep communicates key pre-call information in the car on the way to the customer, in the customer’s parking lot, or in the customer’s lobby.
Examples: Sales rep: “Oh, by the way, you need to show them the new biframulator tool – I promised them that we’d show it today.”
Presales Person: “Oh – that’s too bad; I don’t have it on my machine. Why didn’t you ever answer my email messages asking what we know about the account and what we need to show?!!”
Cure: Take two cell phones (or Blackberries) daily. Use to communicate pre-call information as needed – well before the demo is scheduled.
Symptoms: Sales rep communicates key pre-call information in the car on the way to the customer, in the customer’s parking lot, or in the customer’s lobby.
Examples: Sales rep: “Oh, by the way, you need to show them the new biframulator tool – I promised them that we’d show it today.”
Presales Person: “Oh – that’s too bad; I don’t have it on my machine. Why didn’t you ever answer my email messages asking what we know about the account and what we need to show?!!”
Cure: Take two cell phones (or Blackberries) daily. Use to communicate pre-call information as needed – well before the demo is scheduled.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Debilitating Demo Diseases - Rampaging Pronouns
Rampaging Pronouns – Too Many Fictional Characters
Symptoms: Demo begins by introducing Mike the Manager, Eunice the End-User, Veronica the VP, Andrew in Accounting, Sally the Sales Director, and Ike from IT. Presenter immediately loses track of which pronoun to use: I, you, he, she, them, they, um, hmmm. Audience immediately loses patience. Sales rep loses deal, misses quota, and suffers Terminus Abruptus.
Examples: “Next, I’ll show you how Eunice enters the account information, which you can use to calculate the total so she can add the new lines which I need for the next section.”
Cure: Apply restraints; purge excess pronouns (may be painful – Pro-No™ and Pronoun-Be-Gone® are two products often recommended and can be purchased over-the-counter). Replace with “you”, exclusively.
Symptoms: Demo begins by introducing Mike the Manager, Eunice the End-User, Veronica the VP, Andrew in Accounting, Sally the Sales Director, and Ike from IT. Presenter immediately loses track of which pronoun to use: I, you, he, she, them, they, um, hmmm. Audience immediately loses patience. Sales rep loses deal, misses quota, and suffers Terminus Abruptus.
Examples: “Next, I’ll show you how Eunice enters the account information, which you can use to calculate the total so she can add the new lines which I need for the next section.”
Cure: Apply restraints; purge excess pronouns (may be painful – Pro-No™ and Pronoun-Be-Gone® are two products often recommended and can be purchased over-the-counter). Replace with “you”, exclusively.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Debilitating Demo Diseases - Auto-Demo Hell
Auto-Demo Hell – Cluelessness in Recorded Demos
Symptoms: See Vacuuosititis, below. Additionally, victim assumes that all prospects have the same problem, the same challenges, and the same objectives. Victim attempts to create a “one-size-fits-all” demo in spite of serving multiple markets and job titles. Viewers habitually drop-out of the 20 minute recording after only 2 minutes. Victim delusion and hallucinations may occur, signified by calling this a “highly qualified, hot lead”.
Examples: “Click here to watch our product demo.”
Cure: Create a cocktail of Informal Success Stories; then distill carefully to recover the High-Probability Sales Situations. Craft focused, specific demos for each targeted Sales Situation and provide a Menu to prospects browsing to guide them to the relevant Sales Situation by Job Title and/or Industry. Note: symptoms may reappear with each new software release.
Symptoms: See Vacuuosititis, below. Additionally, victim assumes that all prospects have the same problem, the same challenges, and the same objectives. Victim attempts to create a “one-size-fits-all” demo in spite of serving multiple markets and job titles. Viewers habitually drop-out of the 20 minute recording after only 2 minutes. Victim delusion and hallucinations may occur, signified by calling this a “highly qualified, hot lead”.
Examples: “Click here to watch our product demo.”
Cure: Create a cocktail of Informal Success Stories; then distill carefully to recover the High-Probability Sales Situations. Craft focused, specific demos for each targeted Sales Situation and provide a Menu to prospects browsing to guide them to the relevant Sales Situation by Job Title and/or Industry. Note: symptoms may reappear with each new software release.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Debilitating Demo Diseases - Vacuuosititis
Vacuuosititis – Cluelessness in Marketing Roll-out Demos (aka Feature Rash)
Symptoms: A rash of features and non-specific, buzzword-compliant benefit statements. Atrophied, disconnected, narcoleptic audience reaction. Snoring.
Examples: “Now I’ll show you our new biframulator tool, designed to save time and money.
“Next I’ll present all of the new capabilities we’ve put into the new release – shouldn’t take more than two hours…”
Cure: Apply Get-A-Clue™ topically. Gather Informal Success Stories from existing customers, pre-release and beta sites, and apply liberally to the affected presentation. Replace feature-orientation with Critical Business Issue/Solution scenarios. Repeat as necessary until feature rash disappears.
Symptoms: A rash of features and non-specific, buzzword-compliant benefit statements. Atrophied, disconnected, narcoleptic audience reaction. Snoring.
Examples: “Now I’ll show you our new biframulator tool, designed to save time and money.
“Next I’ll present all of the new capabilities we’ve put into the new release – shouldn’t take more than two hours…”
Cure: Apply Get-A-Clue™ topically. Gather Informal Success Stories from existing customers, pre-release and beta sites, and apply liberally to the affected presentation. Replace feature-orientation with Critical Business Issue/Solution scenarios. Repeat as necessary until feature rash disappears.
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