How Old Is Presales?

 

While listening to Demofest presentations and perusing LinkedIn posts, I’m amused to see claims that “the presales function began…” with dates that correspond to that person’s first experiences with presales!

 

People talk about “Presales 1.0, 2.0, 3.0,” etc. based on their personal histories. They ignore or are unaware of other prior experiences.

 

In my case, my “journey” with presales began in 1984. Yep, that’s when dinosaurs walked the earth in the form of companies like IBM, DEC, HP, and others. (Note that the Macintosh was first released in 1984, signalling the rise of “mammal” computers that could compete with the dinosaurs!)

 

I’m confident that the presales function actually began much earlier. Even the term “sales engineer” suggests that the function arose from pre-software industries such as automobile, manufacturing, and related where there was a need for a “technical” person to perform demonstrations, support trials of equipment, and answer questions.

 

Along similar lines, “Field Application Scientist” was (and still is) a presales job title used in scientific instrumentation and applications sales, both before software existed and afterwards.

 

I suspect that Archimedes, around 250 B.C.E., employed sales engineers to support sales of his screw pump, compound pulleys systems, and claw and heat ray weapons!

 

Presales likely has a long, deep, proud history with hidden learnings waiting to be unearthed!

Great Demo! and Doing Discovery Book Clubs: Here’s an Author Offer!

I’d be happy to join a session with your team to answer questions and provide examples. I can also offer suggestions regarding what has made book clubs particularly successful for other teams. We’ve enjoyed some remarkable results and outcomes!

 

If you are interested in exploring this or other options, you can reach me at PCohan@GreatDemo.com.

 

After all, you can’t have a conversation with a book, but you can have a conversation with the author!

Great Demo! or Doing Discovery – Which to Read First?

Many people have asked, “What’s the best way to consume these books? Which should be first?”

 

Here’s a recommended reading/listening plan: A combo approach!

 

Start with Doing Discovery and read through the end of the Discovery Methodology chapter. This provides you with the foundational skills and knowledge for everything that follows in a sales typical process.

 

Next, open Great Demo! and read all of Part 1, Core Methodology. Completing this positions you to prepare and deliver surprisingly effective demos following the validated Great Demo! methodology.

 

At this point you’ll have consumed about one third of Doing Discovery and half of Great Demo! You can now cherry-pick chapters and topics from both books in accord with your interests and typical situations. A few suggestions:

 

-  If you represent complex offerings, I’d suggest you continue with the “Elements of Discovery” chapter in Doing Discovery. Doing so enables you to outflank your competition who are likely operating at Level 1 or 2 of the seven discovery skills levels. 

 

“The vendor that is perceived as doing a superior job with discovery is in a competitively advantageous position.”

 

-  If you frequently present multiple-solutions demos and/or have mixed audiences with several job titles, choose “Multi-Solution, Multi-Player Demos” in Great Demo!

 

-  And if you are often asked to provide “overview” demos without having the chance to do any real discovery, study the “Vision Generation Demos” chapter in Great Demo!

 

Finally, I strongly recommend that you actually do the exercises in both books. We learn best by doing, by applying ideas in day-to-day practice. Additionally, Doing Discovery and Great Demo! Workshops offer you opportunities to refine these skills with guidance from knowledgeable facilitators.

 

You can find both books on Amazon, plus we provide discounts for volume purchases. Now is a great time to upskill yourself (and your team) – enjoy!

Recording: Seven VALIDATED Habits for Stunningly Successful Demos

 

We explored seven validated demo success factors that lead to closed business. These approaches map delightfully to Great Demo! and Doing Discovery principles while differing markedly from traditional demos. Thousands millions of demos were analyzed to uncover these seven success factors:

 

1.     Pre-Demo Discovery

2.     A Crisp Review of the Prospect’s Situation

3.     Do the Last Thing First

4.     Inverted Pyramid

5.     Peel Back the Layers

6.     Peel Back the Layers (reprised)

7.     Transition Vision

 

We examined each of these, plus some bonus ideas. How do your demos compare?

 

You can find the recording here (you may need to register for Demofest or confirm (“Create”) your Demofest profile to access it, if you’ve not done so already!). The actual session starts about 80 seconds in and my presentation begins at the four minute mark. Enjoy!

 

Presentation Link:

https://events.goldcast.io/e/253aa921-5ebe-4652-a15c-6835f4544be8/stage/broadcast/aed98cdd-8c53-4a01-b149-26cee20743d6 

 

Event Registration:

https://goconsensus.com/Demofest/ 

New Front-line Manager Tip: Ask Before Answering!

 

When a team member brings a problem or issue to us, most of us immediately offer a solution based on our experience. However, an effective alternative is to ask for your team member’s suggestions or ideas for a solution.

 

If it is in alignment with your planned response, then simply agree (and let them know what a great idea it is!). If it is different from the solution you have in mind, then discuss to find the best approach.

 

This tactic empowers your team members and enables broader exploration of possible solutions!

Critical Business Issues: A Brief Exploration of What, Why, When, and How

 

Check out this 4.5-minute video that examines the importance and use of Critical Business Issues in sales and buyer enablement processes.

 

Many thanks to the fine folks at Cuvama who produced these clips!

Repeat a Demo?

No human should do the exact same demo twice…!

Technologies Change But Problems Remain the Same

Technologies change over time but the problems remain the same…! 

Regardless of the technology, people and companies seek “better, cheaper, faster,” and “couldn’t be done before” solutions to their ongoing challenges addressing problems, seeking gains, and mitigating risk.

 

Keep this in mind when doing discovery, particularly with respect to uncovering prospects’ and customers’ Critical Business Issues!

Discovery Don’t: BANT!

Don’t rely on BANT (“Budget, Authority, Needs, Timeline”) to determine whether a lead is qualified or not. Why?

 

As the head of my business unit (President), I had discretionary budget that was not otherwise allocated. If there was an opportunity to pursue or a major new problem to address, I often had sufficient money to use!

 

"BANT" perhaps could be rephrased as: Bad Advice, Needs Tuning!

Precision vs Accuracy in Demos

 

What’s the difference between precision and accuracy – and how does this relate to demos?

 

“Accuracy is how close a given set of measurements are to their true value, while precision is how close the measurements are to each other.” (From Wikipedia)

 

In other words, being precise is the ability to hit the same area over and over, being accurate is the ability to focus on the specific target. Both are required, however, to be effective!

 

You could be wonderfully precise, but way off target; similarly, you could be accurate, but your spread could be disastrously large.

 

In the world of demos, we need to be both precise and accurate! 

 

Accuracy maps to understanding and targeting the Specific Capabilities desired by our prospects; precision is the ability to address only those Specific Capabilities and address them effectively.

 

Sadly, traditional demos can be both inaccurate and imprecise. At worst, they are like shooting at a target while blindfolded – good luck with that! At best, they are precise but inaccurate, for example, when the same overview demo pathway is followed repeatedly.

 

This analogy also provides an understanding as to why traditional overview demos are so ineffective. It is like having the ability to throw a tightly repeatable pattern of darts at any random surface (walls, floor, furniture, whatever…), while hoping to achieve a high score. The pattern of darts is always the same, but they end up far from the target!

 

Doing Discovery identifies the targets; Great Demo! enables accurate and precise demos to take place!

 

 

Presales Warning: beware!

Broad, generalized statements about presales are exactly as useful and accurate as broad, generalized statements about any other discipline! (Like this one!)

 

Why post this?

 

Recently, a presales tools vendor posted the results of their survey declaring that the average “Sales Rep:Sales Engineer Ratio” is currently 2.9:1. 

 

While this may be a general average based on the data they collected, it should NOT be accepted as the “right” way to manage resources. 

 

For example, there are vast differences in effective Sales:Presales ratios depending on:

 

-       Market and/or vertical

-       Complexity of products

-       Buying/sales cycles

-       Prospect/customer location on the Technology Adoption Curve

-       And many others

 

Even WITHIN a single vendor, Enterprise ratios could be closer to 1:1, Mid-Market might be 3:1, and SMB might be 6-10:1.

 

Analyze and understand your OWN space to determine the optimum sales:presales staffing!

 

(And try to ignore the Anchoring Effect of that vendor’s report…!)

Time Machines!

Save yourself years! These books (and corresponding Workshops) are time machines, compressing decades of learning, experimentation, improvement, and evolution into a few hours. You can learn these skills the long, painful, hard way, or you can leverage these learnings the fast, easy way!

 

You can find these resources here – enjoy!

 

Doing Discovery

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1U8XAZMG8HBYK&keywords=doing+discovery&qid=1659904849&s=books&sprefix=doing+discovery%2Cstripbooks%2C216&sr=1-1

 

Great Demo! Third Edition:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1688763837&sr=1-4 

 

Workshops

https://greatdemo.com/training/ 

Demo or Discovery Questions? The Answer May Already Be Here!

 

Do you have a question about demo or discovery practices, methods, or skills? Looking for a tip to improve? The answers may already be available!

 

The Great Demo! website Resources pages include:

 

-       Over four hundred blog posts providing easy tips and intriguing ideas

-       Over one hundred articles exploring specific topics in moderate depth

-       Over fifty webinars and thirty podcasts that often include practical examples

 

The wheel has already been invented: Take advantage!

 

And if you don’t find answers to your questions using the search tools or browsing, send me a note! (PCohan@GreatDemo.com)

Is “If it ain’t broke don’t fix It” Wrong?

Yes!

Consider:

 

“If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.”

 –  Henry Ford

 

“If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.”

 – Charles Kettering

 

What changes and improvements are you making to your sales and presales processes and practices?