Thursday, December 27, 2018

Software Toolkit Companies: Take a Lesson From Home Meal Kits


Software toolkit companies often struggle to build a vision of what outcomes are possible using their tools.  Customers are often confused by statements from toolkit vendors such as:

Vendor Says:  “You can build anything you want…!”
Customer Thinks:  “I’m not sure what I need…”

Vendor Says:  “You can monitor nearly everything…!”
Customer Thinks:  “I don’t really know what to monitor – or why…”

Vendor Says:  “You can glue all these things together…!”
Customer Thinks:  “Why would I want to do that…?”

While Early Adopters “get it” – they have the ability to generate their own vision of how these toolkits can be used – sadly, nearly everyone else (roughly 85% of the population) don’t “get it” – they need to see examples of the end result.

Consider home-delivered meal kit companies – they have a similar challenge, but solve it readily – and what they do provides a great example for software toolkit folks…!

What home meal kit companies don’t do is to show a list of ingredients and invite consumers to decide what specific ingredients they want – and how to put them together.  That’s exactly one of the challenges that the home meal kit firms have addressed.  “I could go to the market and get a bunch of stuff, but I have no idea what to make…”

Instead, home meal kits engage by showing a weekly menu of completed, plated, delicious-looking meals – photos of steaming, mouth-watering dishes, carefully plated and often displayed on tablecloths with napkin, fork, and a glass of wine…  A complete vision of the end result.  No guesswork.

What does the customer receive?  The kit to make that specific meal – with exactly the right ingredients, in the correct amounts, with step-by-step instructions.

Software toolkit companies can apply these same ideas:

  1. Generate Vision by showing the completed entity that was built from the toolkit – with a clear description of what the end-result is, how it would be used, that the value gained through its use.
  2. Provide the “kit” that enables that end-result to be created, along with clear instructions on how to execute.

In Great Demo! methodology, these end-results are Illustrations – and showing a crisp example of a few steps in the creation process might be a typical “Do It” pathway. 

Bon appétit…!

Friday, December 14, 2018

Recent Webinar on Remote Demos - Recording Available


I joined the fine folks at Zoom for a crisp, delightful session on delivering Remote Demos…

The name of the game in Remote Demos is interactivity…!  We shared how to take your vibrant personality, push it through the internet, reach out to your audience, grab them, and bring them back with you.  We introduced the latest success practices for delivering crisp, compelling and effective demonstrations to audiences that you can’t see – and keep them engaged throughout.

The resulting Remote Demos are as close to being in-person as today’s technology allows.

You can view the webinar recording here.

Monday, December 10, 2018

“Customer Journey” Demos


Many software vendors produce software that enables a better, richer and/or faster “Customer Journey” to take place – in addition to benefits for the organization purchasing and implementing the software. 

For a Great Demo!, we suggest considering two Situation Slides with two sets of Specific Capabilities and two Illustrations (and/or at least embracing both scenarios in a single Situation Slide with multiple Illustrations):

  • One for the end-user experience – the Customer Journey
  • One for the back-end management/tracking/analysis/implementation experience

These situations are often found in HR software, banking software, IT endpoint software and many others.  For example,

HR Software: 
  • The Customer Journey portion presents the employ-facing portal, with information, timelines and tasks for the employee or new hire (benefits enrollment, certifications, courses, onboarding training, vacation requests, etc.)
  • The back-up experience shows the ability to track, manage, and implement processes and programs for the employees (onboarding, benefits, training, etc. similarly, but from HR’s perspective and managers’ perspectives).

Consumer Banking Software:
  • The Customer Journey portion presents the consumer-facing portal, with information and tasks for the consumer – accounts, balance, transactions, deposits, payments, loan applications, credit scores, etc.
  • The back-up experience shows the ability to track, manage, and implement processes and programs for the consumers (new consumer onboarding, marketing and new product offers, updates and alerts, etc. similarly, but from bank’s perspective).

IT Endpoint Software:
  • The Customer Journey portion presents the employee-facing portal, with catalogs of applications, hardware requisition, issue and trouble reporting, ticket tracking and related tasks/options for the employees.
  • The back-up experience shows the ability to track, manage, and implement processes and programs for delivery of applications, capacity management, license management, charge-back, etc.

Any other example scenarios to suggest?