Once upon a time, our product manager and development team created a chemical drawing capability that enabled chemical structures to be generated with a single mouse click. It was fabulous! You could click, hold your mouse button down, and draw out the complex hexagonal structures of chemistry in a single fluid motion (think “di-methyl-chicken-wire”).
It was, truly, way cool! And so it was named, the “Way Cool Tool.”
As soon as it was released, we showed it in every demo to both new prospects and existing customers. We reveled in showing it. We found every possible reason to show it, over and over, because (of course) it was way cool!
One day, several months after its release, a long-term customer took us aside after a demo and said, “I’m sorry inform you, but we never use your ‘Way Cool Tool.’ We are almost always working from existing structure templates, which we then modify with a few additions or changes. But we never use the ‘Way Cool Tool.’”
True story!
The moral?
Seek to understand – and gain a clear understanding – of how your customers actually use your software. Those are the best pathways for your demos!
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