Storytelling Umami!

What makes a good story great?

 

Your story might include the key storytelling elements and yet still not be compelling. Why? It lacks storytelling umami!

 

The way your story is told can have enormous impact on its reception and retention. Your word choices and delivery can make all the difference.

 

When we taste food, we encounter salt, sweet, sour, and bitter. But the fifth taste sense, umami, provides us with a richer experience, often described as savory, complex, “yum” or “om nom nom…!”

 

In storytelling, the same principle applies and makes the difference between “adequate” and “exceptional.”

 

Storytelling umami include your word choices and delivery: such tasty items as pitch, tone, speed, dynamics, pauses and other timing factors, your facial expressions, your posture, gestures and other movements, and props and visual aids. Simply raising an eyebrow or offering a wry smile can have surprising impact, for example.

 

Add a dash of storytelling umami to make your stories truly delicious!

 

Learn more about storytelling and demos in Great Demo! Chapter 11 “Storytelling” starting on page 332.

Forgotten vs Verbatim: A Storytelling Superpower!

 

Describe a key capability to a prospect as a “fact” or feature and it is often quickly forgotten.

 

Use a compelling analogy or metaphor and that capability will be remembered, and it can be recommunicated successfully.

 

However, when you wrap a good story around the capability, not only will retention be high, but your prospect will communicate that story to others with very high accuracy, often nearly verbatim!

 

What makes a story a good story? 

 

Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick identified five key elements:

 

-       Simple Message: The concept or message needs to be clear and easy to understand 

-       Real Experience: It must be believable and perceived as being true 

-       Element of Surprise: An unexpected twist, event or outcome generates interest and tension 

-       Evokes Emotion: The best stories are those that evoke an emotional response 

-       Relevant: Good stories relate directly to the subject or key point

 

A story with these five elements can take a boring idea and make it delightfully sticky!

 

Learn more about storytelling and demos in Great Demo! Chapter 11 “Storytelling” starting on page 332.

The Myth of the Informed Buyer

“They don’t know what they don’t know…!”

 

Analysts observe that buyers have often completed 67% of their buying journey before engaging with live sellers. This has resulted in an assumption (by both buyers and vendors) that buyers know all about vendor offerings before any buyer-seller conversations take place.

 

This is incorrect!

 

Buyers know a lot, but they don’t know what they don’t know. Frequently they don’t know about some of your most important capabilities.

 

Buyers gather information from websites and, to a lesser degree, from their peers. Website information and associated demos tend to be feature/advantage oriented and rarely share specifics. After all, vendors don’t want their competition to have deep insight into their offerings!

 

Further, buyers’ vision of solution possibilities is partly bounded by their past and current experiences. They tend to think in terms of what is hard to do using their current systems and have a limited view of what might be missing. It is much harder to visualize something entirely new than a fix to one’s existing problem.

 

Vendors, on the other hand, typically have a much richer picture of the possibilities and options available. And vendor product teams are constantly releasing new functionality that may represent dramatic breakthroughs or capabilities enabling solutions that are entirely new.

 

Additionally, most vendors have seen many implementations of their offerings, perhaps spanning dozens or hundreds of customers, and have the advantage of the experience represented in these use cases.

 

Buyers, conversely, are generally constrained to their first-hand experiences: an “N” of one. 

 

For example, a buyer’s current system lacks alerting functionality and the buyer thinks, “I need some way to alert our team when __ takes place.” What the buyer doesn’t know is that several vendors offer predictive alerting, based on trends and/or AI, that can generate alerts well before a threshold is reached, enabling buyers to act before it becomes a problem. These buyers never encountered this capability before and nor saw it in their online exploration.

 

Buyers don’t know what they don’t know…!

 

This means that Vision Generation Demos and discovery conversations are often the first (and sometimes the only) opportunities to expand or reengineer buyers’ vision of what’s possible. Accordingly, our job in these early conversations is to understand both what the buyer already knows about our offerings and what they don’t know.

 

We need to be prepared to use Biased Questions to (gently, but firmly!) introduce capabilities that buyers are unaware of, to build vision that may go far beyond the 67% starting point!

 

See the sections on Vision Reengineering and Biased Questions in Doing Discovery for details on how to apply these important and highly effective practices (pages 217 and 183, respectively, in “Elements of Discovery”).

 

https://tinyurl.com/bdz95b56 

Flip the Script on Your Internal Demo Training?

“It’s easier to learn than unlearn…!”

 

Imagine you’ve just hired a new group of presales folks, or you are running an internal presales academy…

 

Traditionally, one of the first things you have them learn is the standard end-to-end demo, often referred to as the “Bronze” or “Gold” demo. The good news is that they typically learn everything about the product this way.

 

The bad news is that they are set up to regurgitate that same boring, long, linear, traditional Harbor Tour demo when presenting to your prospects. They are “victims of momentum.”

 

Let’s contemplate flipping the script on this approach and explore a new model!

 

Start by providing your new team members with real-life discovery info collected from your prospect executives who became customers. Have the new folks digest that info and then ask them what they would show in a demo to one of these executives as a new prospect. This sets the stage for presenting crisp, focused demos, right from the very beginning!

 

Next, teach them how to demo the capabilities that match the discovery information. These demos will be short and directly to the point!

 

Once they have demos for executives under their belts, go one level down and give them discovery info from prospect middle managers who also became customers. Discuss and help them prepare focused demos for this group. These demos will most likely go a bit longer and deeper than those for the execs. Practice as necessary.

 

Who’s next? Discovery and demos for prospect staff members who, once again, became customers. These demos will get much more detailed and will likely focus on specific workflows.

 

Finally, provide discovery information from prospect system administrators (who also became customers) and challenge your developing team to present demos for this prospect subset.

 

Your team will ultimately learn everything they need to know about your product(s), and they’ll have a fabulous focus on what’s most important to each prospect cadre.

 

What’s the impact of this approach?

 

-       Your team is delightfully aligned to your prospects’ interests.

-       Your team doesn’t have to unlearn demo practices, which can be harder than learning things the right way first!

-       Onboarding time may be reduced, perhaps substantially, since everything that is being learned is relevant; no time is wasted on capabilities and workflows that aren’t used.

 

An additional bonus is the wonderful anchoring effect that takes place. Your new team “anchors” on two key practices:

 

1.     Working from discovery to demo as the right way to operate, and

2.     That short and sweet delivery is the norm, and longer demos are less optimal!

 

What about your “key differentiators?” Well, if these capabilities haven’t been in demand by your existing customers, then they aren’t positive differentiators! Conversely, if they are included in the discovery notes coming from real prospects, then you are in alignment with reality!

 

Thoughts? Please let me know if you are already doing this now (and the results) or the outcomes if you try this approach with an upcoming group of new hires!

 

“You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way.”

 – Michael Jordan

What Is Incremental Discovery?

 

It’s been a while, and you realize it’s time to check-in with an existing prospect or customer. You ask, “What’s changed since we last connected?”

 

The answer to this simple question may yield new sales or expansion opportunities, or the need to rescue a customer! Depending on the situation, there may be seven sets of possibilities:

 

Current Prospect:

 

1.     They say, “Things have gotten worse…!” This is an opportunity to explore and determine if your prospect is now ready to enter a sales or purchasing process. What’s changed and why? Do these changes impact a Critical Business Issue? Let’s revisit!

2.     They reply, Things are about the same…” While this may suggest “status quo” you should also examine their progress towards their Critical Business Issues, timing, and see if their value equation has changed.

3.     They respond, “Things are getting better…” This indicates that changes have taken place. What’s improved and why? Is this something that you can help to accelerate?

 

Current Customer:

 

1.     They say, “Things have improved!” This may be an opportunity to collect a success story and generate a reference. It may also open the door to expansion, as well!

2.     They reply, “Things are about the same…” This may indicate a need to bolster or restart an implementation and revisit plans and progress towards achieving your customer’s Value Realization Events.

3.     They respond, “Things have gotten worse…” Oh oh! You’d better jump on this right away, as this customer is at risk of churning or becoming a negative reference!

 

Prospect or Customer:

 

1.     They answer, “We have a new initiative…” Clearly, it’s time to do discovery!

 

How often do you check-in with your existing prospects or customers?

Discovery and the Visible Spectrum: What Do You See?

Imagine it is sunset… Beautiful colors ranging from brilliant oranges to deep violets: An entire spectrum!

 

Or is it?

 

Nope! We humans see only a very small fraction of the full range of light. How much? 0.0035% in fact. Literally a drop in a bucket!

 

Doing discovery is very similar. Most of us only “see” pain in our prospects and, because we haven’t trained our senses, we don’t observe the broad range of colors across the discovery spectrum.

 

To the untrained eye, we only see our prospects’ workflows and problems. This is as far as most observers explore. An even narrower portion is viewed as BANT: This is like seeing in black and white, and ignoring everything else!

 

What’s missed?

 

In the visible discovery spectrum, there are the significant yellows of Demographics, and the important oranges of our prospects’ Environment.

 

As we open our discovery eyes further, we take in the greens and blues of our prospects’ Major Pains, and the subtle shades of Impact and Value. 

 

Look a little bit more broadly and you’ll encounter the indigos of Related Pains and the Extended Environment. Interestingly, these colors often pack substantial energy!

 

Just beyond are the breathtaking violets of Culture, near the edge of our visible discovery range. These frequencies provide incredible insights into our prospects’ willingness to change.

 

Let’s open our eyes to doing discovery!

Ranging Probes – A Novel Discovery Probing Technique!

When doing discovery, Ranging Probes are a wonderful solution when dealing with “squishy” information or situations where your prospect’s answers might span a spectrum. Acting like a prism, Ranging Probes can separate intertwined answers into individual colors! 

Let’s follow an example conversation…

 

You ask, “What’s your typical sales cycle length?”

 

Your prospect replies, “Ummmm….” Your prospect is struggling to condense several possible situations down to a single choice. They’re thinking, “Well, it depends on the market and product…”

 

You cleverly rephrase, realizing that your prospect isn’t sure how to answer, “Okay, tell me, what are your fastest sales cycles, what are your longest, and what might be a typical average?”

 

Your prospect responds, “Oh, the shortest run a month, the longer cycles can be a year to eighteen months, and the average is around six months…”

 

Notice that you just been rewarded with three pieces of information on this topic: That’s an unanticipated advantage of Ranging Probes. Now you know much more about your prospect’s sales cycles than just a simple average.

 

Be prepared to rephrase a question as a Ranging Probe whenever there is potential flexibility or squishiness in the response. A long, “Ummmm…” from your prospect is often a good indicator of this situation!

 

You’ll find many more practical tips like this in Doing Discovery.

The Database Breakeven Point

How long does it take before a newly implemented, empty database becomes useful?  

 

The Empty Kitchen: A Story

 

Most of us accumulate and stock our kitchens slowly over time as we move away from our parents’ houses and launch ourselves into adulthood. Herbs and spices, canned goods and pasta, refrigerated staples, and seasonings and sauces are typically collected over time, often taking months or years.

 

Imagine what it would be like to encounter an entirely empty kitchen…!

 

After living in Switzerland for two years, we returned to our home in California. The folks renting our house had moved out a few weeks before our arrival and, as previously agreed, they had completely removed all food from the premises. The fridge was totally empty: There were no sauces, no jams, no jars, no food of any kind. The shelves were equally bare. Even the spices and herbs were all gone.

 

Without any food, our kitchen, while complete in terms of appliances, pots, pans, tools, and utensils, was effectively useless. It had potential, but that potential could only be realized once we had re-stocked it. 

 

Our first few uses were simply reheating restaurant leftovers and take-out meals. It took several trips to our local markets to put food on the shelves, literally! And it was only once a set of basics was accumulated that we were able to really use our kitchen to prepare meals. That represented a breakeven point: cooking in our kitchen vs going to restaurants and buying take-out meals. Several weeks went by before things were back to our pre-Switzerland inventory.

 

It was a significant event in our lives that holds strong memories!

 

The Challenge: Starved for Data

 

Empty databases are like that empty kitchen. Lots of potential, but without food to cook you’re going to have unfilled stomachs! Similarly, an empty database leaves your customers starved for data...

 

You’ll find the balance of this article here. Enjoy!

Signed Copies for Your Kickoff?

Sure! 

 

As you plan your 2025 sales kickoff or similar events, contemplate the impact of the team receiving signed copies of Great Demo! or Doing Discovery – or both!

 

Book Club Bonus: If you do a book club with either book, I’d be happy to join a session or two gratis to discuss the ideas, answer questions, and provide examples.

 

Contact me at PCohan@GreatDemo.com if you’d like to explore!