Friday, August 24, 2012

Great Demo! Public Workshop – More Details

Our next Great Demo! Public Workshop is scheduled to take place October 10-11 in San Jose, California – and the format for the Workshop has a new component. 

Day 1 will focus largely on “core” Great Demo! concepts and will be similar to past Public Great Demo! Workshops.  The second portion of the Workshop, the optional additional ½ day on October 11, will provide time to address more advanced topics, such as:

-      Improving Discovery and Qualification:  Many demos fail due to a lack of customer information – we’ll introduce methods to uncover and organize the key information needed to prepare effective demonstrations.

-      Remote Demos (e.g., via WebEx, GoToMeeting and similar tools):  a topic of high interest – we share how to increase interactivity and improve success. 

-      Introducing New Categories and “Crossing the Chasm”:  “Wow – I had no idea this was possible…!”  How to engage audiences with products and solutions that have never been seen before. 

-      Making Demos Remarkable:  We explore, develop and document practices that help your demos stand out, positively.

-      Storytelling:  Strong stories improve demos and help customers better remember key messages.  We explore how to capture, create and deliver compelling stories for your customer demos.

-      White-boarding:  PowerPoint can be pedantic – we explore white-boarding and other “non-linear” presentation techniques to engage and refresh audiences and improve their retention of key points.

-      Out-flanking Competition:  Methods to anticipate, manage and overcome competitors in demo and related interactions.  How to bias qualification towards your capabilities and block competition.

-      POC’s, POV’s and Sandboxes Tools and Strategies:  The essence is Quid pro quo – how to manage the process overall to get the business; when to do and when not to do POC’s and Sandboxes; strategies to increase your success rates.

-      RFP’s and Scripted Demos:  Successful strategies and tactics to increase your success rates with scripted demos and RFP responses, including when to pursue, when to pull back, and how to gently subvert the process in your favor.

-      Managing Questions:  How to avoid getting dragged off-topic and how to deal with hostiles elegantly and effectively.  

-      Team Tactics:  Team-oriented methods and practices for presales, sales and marketing staff in preparing and delivering demos.  Roles and guidelines are developed and practiced for the selling teams to improve results – when demos are delivered face-to-face as well as via a remote connection.

-      Trade-show demonstration techniques and interactions:  Trade-shows are phenomenally expensive – we’ll work through clever methods, tips, and best practices to help you get the best return on your investment.

-      New Product Roll-outs:  Vision Generation at its most challenging – we’ll help you create your go-to-market messaging and demos for new products, and shortening the time to getting your first real reference customer!

-      Reference Selling and Informal Success Stories:  These are the lifeblood of a software sales and marketing organization!  We’ll develop the structure and methods to capture this key information and create a set of your own.  The team will be ready to leverage these immediately.

-      Transition Vision:  Differentiating by helping prospects visualize how they can move from their current problem situation to the future state represented by your solution. 

We’ll address many of these (as well as other topics raised by the participants) in accord with participant interest and the time available.  These segments are often some of the most interesting portions of Great Demo! Workshops, enabling participants to apply the methodology to range of real-life situations and challenges.

Registration information and can be found here.

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