Would you
like a horror story?
I do a lot of
“prep” demos with my customers, asking them to present live demos to me, over
the web. I had been working with a customer
and had seen demos from two presales folks up to this point, and both demos were
effectively the same. The only
differences were their styles of presenting – the content and the sequence of
steps were exactly the same for both.
We had organized
another demo, from a third presales person.
He starts off, over the web, with the classic phrase, “Can you see my
screen?” – I reply, “I think so…”
He says, “Great!”
and dives into his demo – and I
realize he’s doing the same pathway and talk track as his two predecessors. Ten minutes later he surfaces and asks, “Any
questions so far?”
I answer, “Nope,
I’m good…”
He dives back
into his demo, continues for another ten minutes, then resurfaces and asks, “Any
questions so far?”
I respond, “No,
it’s all clear…” And he dives back in…
As many
readers know, I time demos. I said to
myself, “I have to run the experiment.” I
grabbed my coffee, left my office, went to the kitchen, refreshed my coffee, looked
out at the view for a few minutes, relaxed for a bit – and at the nine-minute
mark I returned to my office. Sure
enough, in about 45 seconds, what do you think happened?
He resurfaces with, “Any questions so far?”
“Nope, I’m
good…” is my reply.
So, what is
the horrifying thing about this? He was
in his talk track, just talking and mousing, mousing and talking; the demo was
going perfectly, as far as he was concerned. But – his audience was gone – and he had no clue
I had left the room (and the demo)!
That’s one horrifying
example – here’s another:
You are
watching a vendor’s demo, over the web, and you are getting bored. Someone comes into your office – you mute
your phone and chat with your colleague for a few minutes. She leaves and you turn back to the demo,
still in progress, and un-mute the phone…
After another
few minutes of listening listlessly, you receive an email – you read and respond
to it, then you idly review your Inbox – while the demonstrator’s voice drones
on about, “Another really nice thing about our software is the preferences
options. Let me show you…”
Does this
sound familiar? Has the demo made a
strong (positive) impression with you?
Likely not!
Now turn the both
of these examples around and imagine that it is you or your organization
delivering the demo to one of your
prospects… Ouch!
If your Remote
Demonstrations are not as successful as you wish, consider using this list as an
assessment tool. If these items “ring
too true” then you may want to contemplate some changes…
The Stunningly Awful Demos (“SAD”) Remote
Demos Top Ten List:
1.
Don’t Learn
the Technology: “Gosh this is
boring…”
Assume that
delivering a Remote Demo should be nothing more than mouse and talk, mouse and
talk... Ignore all of the tools and
capabilities that the folks at WebEx, GoToMeeting, Zoom, et al have implemented to enable you to increase the level of
interactivity with your customers.
By all means,
do not set up a session ahead of time
with a colleague from your own company to try out and learn the capabilities in
your web tool. Ignore the possibilities for
driving interactivity offered by the various pointers, annotation tools,
sharing options, whiteboards, video, chat, etc.
Instead,
simply assume that your audience is paying rapt attention as you describe the
seven layers of set-up preferences in your application…
2.
Don’t Test
the Technology ahead of time: “Sorry,
we can’t seem to join the meeting…”
Schedule a
Remote Demo for, say, 11:00 AM with the customer – preferably with a large
audience – and spend the first 15 minutes “joining” the web session. This will ensure that your audience is bored
and already contemplating leaving for another meeting or back to their desks to
“get some real work done…”
To maximize
the potential negative impact, don’t have your customer test their firewall or
network/computing infrastructure to make sure that the collaboration software
will work in their environment. Leave
this until the start of the meeting to increase the probability of technical
challenges. After all, IT groups are
absolutely delighted to see their end-users downloading unknown components onto
corporate machines…!
Along the
same lines, pay no attention to checking screen resolution, color rendering,
sound level and clarity, font readability, full-screen mode and, of course,
latency. It is best to find out that the
audience can only see a fraction of your screen fifty minutes into the demo. Bonus points if they can’t hear you
adequately…!
3.
Use a Fading
Headset, Speakerphone or VOIP: “What…?
Huh…?”
Speaking of
audio (pun intended), to maximize miscommunication, use a headset with old,
dying batteries or VOIP with a poor connection on your end – or (gasp!) a speakerphone.
With a
speakerphone, you can appear to be yelling into the phone when you are speaking
directly into it – and your voice will fade to a mumbling whisper when you turn
back to your screen during the demo. Bonus points for imitating the sound in a
tunnel…
For those
using VOIP with non-terrific connections, welcome to the land of dropped
phrases, words and syllables, “Nic op bop tis pref ont sys…!”
4.
Present to a Large, Unqualified
Audience: “Why are we here…?”
Dramatically
decrease your success rates by presenting demos to large, unqualified audiences
– even better, encourage your customer to include people from multiple,
disparate sites and time-zones. For the
greatest (negative) impact, launch right into your demo without any mutual
introductions, review of objectives or any brief qualification or Discovery with
any new players (particularly high-ranking folks – best to fly blind and hope
for a positive outcome…!).
5.
Use a Flat, Monotonic, Passionless, Non-Stop
Voice Delivery: “Yawn…”
You’ll have
your audience sleeping peacefully in no time with this approach! Nothing says “boredom” like a flat,
passionless voice droning on endlessly…
It is always
best to assume that your audience can see your eloquent gestures and hear your
subtle changes in tone. And by all
means, don’t compensate for the inability of the audience to see you by putting
more energy and dynamics in your verbal delivery.
6.
Move Your Mouse Rapidly and Continuously:
“Where are the motion-sickness pills…?”
“Oh my God,
he’s got ‘Zippy Mouse Syndrome’…!” Few
things excite an audience as much as trying to track a mouse moving like lightning
via a web connection (or a house fly – fast ‘n’ random) – and lightning is a
good analogy. The mouse appears briefly,
then disappears, only to appear again in a flash somewhere else on the
screen. The element of surprise is high,
enabling customers to play Mouse Location Bingo. “I wonder where the mouse will appear next?”
Make sure to
click much faster than the collaboration software can keep up. This will enable you to finish the demo a
good ten minutes before your audience does…!
Finally,
remember to use your mouse to circle items on the screen – around and around
and around and around…
7.
Eliminate Interactivity:
“Any questions so far…?” [Sound
of crickets in an empty room…]
You’ve only
got an hour for this demo – and the first twenty minutes were consumed with
people connecting late, introductions and a corporate overview. You now have to pack sixty minutes of demo
into the remaining forty left to you.
Move quickly! Don’t stop! You’ve got a lot to cover!
This plan will
ensure that you minimize any possible interactions with your audience. Don’t draw them into the demo, don’t make it
a conversation, and absolutely don’t use any of the tips or tools that might
generate real interactivity:
- Don’t ask specific questions, such as,
“Can you see my mouse pointing at the logo?”
- Don’t use the highlighter, arrow, pen
or other annotation tools, as they only mess-up an otherwise pristine screen.
- Don’t ask the audience to raise
their virtual hands or use the chat dialog – doing so would only interrupt your
flow.
- Don’t offer to let someone in the
audience “drive” – this would be far too exciting for the audience and might
risk real engagement.
- Don’t ever record and play back your
sessions later on – you are already at the top of your game, so there is no
reason to improve…
8.
Don’t use an Agenda or Roadmap:
“Where is this going…?”
It is best if
your audience has no clue as to your overall plan for the demo – that way,
every topic will be a wonderful surprise.
To ensure this, eliminate presenting an agenda or meeting plan.
Even better,
present your demo as a long, complex story, with multiple fictional characters
and a storyline that braids together several subplots. Jump back and forth between these characters
as you present the benefits to their counterparts in the audience. Make sure to move seamlessly from section to
section, module to module, while applying the other techniques in this article.
This strategy
should have your audience completely lost by the ten-minute mark. Even better, the lack of any clear
demarcations between demo segments (such as returning to an agenda) will ensure
that once lost, your audience will never be able to rejoin the story. The good news is that they will be able to
use the time in the demo to get their email and web browsing done...!
9.
Don’t Split Your Forces:
“All for one and none for you…”
Don’t take
advantage of having someone from your company actually in the room at the
customer’s site (e.g., salesperson).
This approach enables you to eliminate distractions, including:
- Managing introductions
- Testing and confirming technology
operation
- Communicating tone and how things are
going
- Alerting and managing when new people
arrive late / leave early
- Managing (and repeating) questions
- Handling side-bars
Similarly,
when you are unable to have someone from your company on-site with the customer,
don’t consider asking your champion or key contact to be your “active conduit”
for you. [See my article “Remote Demos –
The Role of the Active Conduit” for more details on this…]
10. Don’t
Turn Off Email and IM Alerts: “Ohhhh, my….!”
Few things
engage and entertain an audience as completely as seeing compromising email
previews and embarrassing instant messages appearing on the presenter’s screen
during a demo.
It gives the
customer a good feeling to see notes between members of the selling team
describing certain customer players as “idiots”. [Note:
real case – I saw this!]
Bonus: pay no attention to your webcam and whether
it is sharing live video of you…
Double Bonus: dress inappropriately. [Question:
is the urban legend true about the web participant with insufficient
clothing coverage – who’s webcam was on?]
Top Ten – And More!
Practice and
perfect the items on this Top Ten List and you’ll join the hallowed ranks of
the SPT (that’s the “Sales Prevention Team”) at your organization. In any case, following these guidelines will certainly
increase the probability that your demos will not help you achieve your goals.
Note: the list above is just a starting point – you
can explore the articles on our website for constructive ideas on how to drive
interactivity when you can’t see your audience.
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