Poll on Buyer Experience: Please vote!

You can find the poll in the Great Demo! LinkedIn Group (and happy to have you join if you are not already a member). Here’s the poll (done in two parts, due to LinkedIn limitations):

What has been your involvement in a buying process for enterprise B-to-B software:

I was on the buying committee

I was the sole decision-maker

I was a key influencer

I was part of the evaluation

 

I was asked my opinion

I was an end-user

I was not directly involved

Other (please comment!)

Great Demo! Resources Pages

 Explore the wealth of tips, ideas, articles, blog posts, webinar and podcast recordings on the Resources Pages at https://GreatDemo.com. 

You’ll find quick tips on demos, doing discovery, buyer enablement, POCs, personal development and more.

Grab an insightful article for deeper exploration – there are dozens on a wide range of presales, sales, and customer success topics.

Or sit back and watch/listen to a webinar or podcast recording while you eat lunch.

Use the Search dialogs on the Resources pages to find exactly what you want. This free library is currently available to all – enjoy!

Webinar Recording: Rescue from the Tyranny of Traditional Demos

Ask yourself:

• Have you ever felt like you have far too much to show in a demo – and insufficient time to show it?
• Have you ever said, “I’d like this to be interactive…” but you don’t get many questions?
• And when you ask, “Any questions so far?” you hear, “Nope, we’re good…”
• Have you even run out of time before you got to the best stuff?
• Have you ever felt like your audience just didn’t “get it”?

You are likely suffering from the tyranny, the terror, and the trap of traditional demos.

Watch the recording as we explored these challenges and presented intriguing, effective, and validated approaches as solutions! 

Webinar Recording: Storytelling and Demos

 

What makes an engaging story? How do you use stories in your demos in a way that connects to your audience? Join Demostack’s Master Storyteller, Nick Capozzi, as he and expert demo coach and founder of Great Demo!, Peter Cohan, break down what it takes to craft a compelling story around your demo.

You’ll Learn:

• How to wrap a story around your demo – or not!
• How great discovery leads to better storytelling.
• What makes a story great?
• How to use stories to support key concepts, pain points, solutions, and expertise.
• Why stories can be the most memorable parts of demos – and how to take advantage of this!

You can find the recording f - enjoy!

Could Your Demos Be Better?

Consider this a checklist and identify where you could do better:

• You didn’t do any discovery
• You did qualification, but not discovery
• You have no clue as to the prospect’s needs and wants
• You did do discovery, but then ignored it in the demo
• You did do discovery, but didn’t summarize it before diving into your software
• You think you are doing “discovery on the fly” but it really is just your standard demo
• You don’t connect capabilities to solving prospect problems
• You don’t communicate business value
• You treat everyone the same and don’t differentiate by job title
• You think an “overview” needs to be at least an hour 
• You feel the need to pack as much into the time as possible
• You say, “Stop me if you have any questions” but you don’t mean it
• You ask, “Any questions so far?” over and over and over, without realizing that there are other options to draw from
• You ask, “Does that make sense?” without realizing the consequences
• You suffer from rampaging pronouns
• You suffer from zippy mouse syndrome
• You don’t start with the most important deliverable
• You assume your prospect “gets it” and understands everything they are seeing
• You assume your prospect can remember dozens of “important” things
• You show all of the if, or, and also pathways
• You turn a 3-click pathway into a 20-click ordeal
• You show detailed workflows to executives
• You show Setup Mode items to everyone
• You save “the best for last”
• You run out of time before you get to the best stuff
• You show the latest, coolest new features regardless of prospect interest
• You don’t ask your prospects, “Would you like to see…,” you just show it
• You don’t understand how to apply the Primacy-Recency Effect or the Serial Positioning Effect
• You don’t understand the power of threes
• You don’t understand inverted pyramid
• You show capabilities the prospect doesn’t need or want to pay for
• You don’t understand “Buying It Back”
• You say, “Remember when I showed you xx?” and they don’t
• You don’t actively encourage prospect questions and comments
• You don’t explore the “why” behind prospect questions
• You show detailed answers when “Yes” would have been sufficient
• You don’t “park” questions, when appropriate
• You don’t close questions
• You don’t customize the data to match the prospect’s industry/vertical
• Your data time-series, action items, and alerts are not realistic
• You use the phrase, “What we call a …”and assume your prospect will remember
• You don’t understand the power of the pause
• You demo on autopilot, with little enthusiasm
• You present from a large monitor to prospects with small screens
• You never use annotation tools
• You don’t use props or visual aids
• You think “a day in the life” is an effective story 
• You don’t use analogies or metaphors
• You don’t use mini-stories
• You don’t invite the prospect to “drive” by proxy
• You don’t operate as a team when multiple vendor players are involved
• You don’t prepare or plan roles when multiple vendor players are involved
• You “pile-on” answers to prospect questions
• You use American/UK/etc. colloquialisms with non- American/UK/etc. audiences
• You inflict corporate overview presentations on your prospects
• You inflict product overview presentations on your prospects
• You ignore the case studies, the single most valuable portions of corporate overview presentations
• You don’t dry-run important demos
• You offer trials and POCs without need
• You deluge “just browsing” prospects with hour-long “overviews”
• You don’t understand the difference between Vision Generation and Technical Proof Demos
• You understand the difference between Vision Generation and Technical Proof Demos, but don’t apply the principles
• You’ve been trained in “Tell Show Tell” but never do it
• You feel you're at the top of your game...

Any others to add?

To avoid the above, consider enrolling in a Great Demo! Workshop. For more demo tips, best practices, tools and techniques, explore our blog and articles on the Resources pages of our website at https://GreatDemo.com and join the Great Demo! LinkedIn Group to share your experiences and hear from others.

“Doing Discovery” is coming – expect availability in August!

Tell Your Prospects “It’s OK to say no…”

Most people, as prospects, don’t want to say “no” to salespeople. We are typically more comfortable to say “yes” to small commitments than to stop the process – even if we never intend to purchase. 

This is a serious time-sink for both prospects and vendors!

Consider the following engagement:

• Prospect reaches out to vendor asking to see a demo.
• Overview demo is delivered, and prospect doesn’t see the offering as a good fit, but doesn’t say so! 
• Vendor asks, “What did you think?” and prospect responds, “It’s OK…”
• Vendor says, “Well, let’s organize a deep dive demo for you – how is next week?”
• Prospect responds, “Um, sure…” 
• Vendor preps demo.
• Next week comes and vendor presents deep dive demo.
• Vendor asks, “What did you think?” and prospect responds, “Well…”
• Vendor says, “What you like to do a trial?” and prospect responds, “Well, OK…”
• Vendor sets up trial.
• Vendor and prospect run trial over a few weeks.
• At the end of the trial, Vendor asks, “What did you think?” Prospect responds, “Well, not really sure…”

This opportunity never closed and is probably listed as a “No Decision” outcome. That’s a big investment for no change. We might call this a “No-No” – there was no definite “No”!

Even worse, sales teams are taught to “handle objections” in an effort to convince a prospect to continue this unproductive process. This opportunity was not going to close for this vendor since the prospect didn’t see the product as a good fit, but was uncomfortable telling the vendor, “No”.

So, what if the prospect had responded, “No, this doesn’t look like a good fit” after the first demo and the vendor elegantly responded, “I understand. I’m glad we were able to invest the time together. Perhaps we can revisit this as our product evolves and your situation changes…”

That would have spared everyone the time and other resources consumed in a mutually non-productive process.

Here’s a thought: before pursuing “next steps” in a sales process, particularly if the prospect doesn’t seem compelled by your offering, consider saying, “If you’d like to continue this process, great. However, it’s also OK if you tell me ‘No, this isn’t a good fit at this time.’ That will help both of us…!”