Origins of The Menu Approach: A Demo Survival Success Story

Origins of The Menu Approach: A Demo Survival Success Story

A Never Stop Learning! Article

“It’s a huge opportunity…”

• Inexperienced salespeople everywhere!

What’s in This Article for You?

• A fabulous set up
• A terrifying surprise
• An elegant solution
• An unexpected payoff

A Fabulous Set Up

Many years ago, I had been banished to Switzerland (OK, it was a delight!) serving in a combination of roles, including as a semi-super presales person for our recently released flagship product. One of our most experienced sales reps asked me to fly up to Uppsala, Sweden to “do a demo” for a major prospect on a certain date. We agreed to meet the evening before the demo at a restaurant to review the plan.

Tore G, our salesperson, was somehow unable to arrive that evening and left me a message to meet him the next morning at the prospect’s facility, about thirty minutes before the demo was supposed to begin. At this point, you (dear reader) have exactly the same discovery information that I had at that time: None!

The next morning, I arrived at the prospect’s entrance gate, went through security, and was escorted to the location where the demo meeting would take place. Interestingly, it was not a conference room, it was not a mid-sized meeting room; it was an auditorium already filled with 200 or more prospect participants.

I still had zero information from Tore about the plan for the demo and no idea about what to show.

Our flagship product was a rich toolkit that could do many things, ranging from databasing of pharma discovery information and research materials inventory to research intelligence and analysis and much more. I connected my laptop to the auditorium display system, tested a few of these applications, and let Tore know I was ready. I was still assuming that he had a plan.

A Terrifying Surprise

Two important notes:

First, the demo was scheduled to run from 8:30 AM to 12 Noon – three and a half hours.

Second, there were now about 250 people in the auditorium, all pharma research scientists across a broad range of job titles: medicinal chemists, synthesis chemists, bioassay, scale-up, metabolism and toxicology folks, and more. Each job title had their own specific needs and applications desires.

And I still had no info, no plan, and no agenda from Tore.

Precisely at 8:30 AM, Tore stood up and announced to the audience, “Good morrrrning ladies and gentlemen, I’ve brought my technical expert from California, Peter Cohan. Here he is!” And then Tore sat down…

You can find the balance of this story here – enjoy!