Debilitating Demo Diseases – Crickets (Mors per Silentium)

 

Symptoms:      

 

The sound (or lack of sound) in the room after the presenter asks, “So, are there any questions so far?”

 

Examples:        

 

Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp….

            

Cure:   

 

Encourage, drive and generate interactivity. Turn your demo from a one-way monologue into a two-way conversation. Involve your prospect. Ask questions. Confirm interest. Invite your prospect to “drive.” Pause occasionally and summarize at the end of each section. Fumigate as needed to remove crickets.

 

Chew thoroughly and consume one each of the following:

 

- Humor

- Appearance

- Language

- Buzzwords

- Pace

- Presentation skills

- Linear vs non-linear presentation methods

- Letting your champion drive

- Confidence and poise

- Mouse movements

- Screen pointing

- Using props and visual aides

- Passion!

- Recovering from bugs, mistakes and crashes

- Team play

- Features vs Advantages vs Benefits

- Perspective

 

from Chapter 15 “Style” in Great Demo! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

 

For added engagement apply “Storytelling” (Chapter 14) liberally.

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Momentus Morbi

 

Symptoms:      

 

Doing things the same way, over and over, without exploring new options or making improvements. Also referred to as being “a victim of momentum.” Often suffers from the Dunning Kruger effect as well. At risk of being automated out of a job.

 

Examples:        

 

“I’ll just present our standard overview demo…”

 

“I’ve mastered delivering our ‘gold’ demo…”

 

“I could present our demo in my sleep!”

            

Cure:   

 

Try some new ideas. Talk with colleagues and explore their practices. Record yourself and look for opportunities to improve. Take a class, watch a webinar, listen to a podcast, read a book. Never stop learning!

 

https://greatdemo.com/training/ 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Tabbed-out (The Terrible Tabs Death March)

 

Symptoms:      

 

Presenter exhaustively (and exhaustingly) presents the contents of each tab in a row of tabs, one after another after another after another… Audience counts the tabs and calculates the time it will take to work through all of them, then gasps in horror when they realize how much time this will consume. Audience begins group text game, with the winner of each round guessing the closet time when the presenter begins to present the next tab.

 

Examples:        

 

“I’ll go through each of the tabs across the top here in order…” 

 

“Now in this first tab…”

 

“Now in this second tab…”

 

“Now in this next tab…”

 

Cure:   

 

Apply Great Demo! Situation Slides (Chapter 6, page 78) to the afflicted areas, show only the Specific Capabilities uncovered in discovery. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

Demologue Podcast - Discovery, Menus, Automated Demos and More!

 

I joined the fine folks at Demoboost for this 30-minute informative discussion:

 

“This one’s special! ✨

Peter Cohan has been an inspiration to us since the early days of Demoboost. As one of the first thought leaders in the presales space, he has continuously educated and guided us in the right direction.

It’s always a privilege to talk to him, and this time, we’ve covered everything we’ve discussed over the past three years!

In the third episode of Demologue podcast, we chat about:

✅ The key discovery principles every sales team should know
✅ What a "menu" is and how it differs from standard demo presentations
✅ How automated demos can help drive better discovery
✅ Best practices to get started with automated demos

…and more!

Tune in now!”

YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dBCayPT5
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dVCH_8Q3
Apple podcast: https://lnkd.in/dWJYCZ8D

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Feature Pox, Vomitus Munera

 

Symptoms:      

 

Presentation of waaaaaaaay too many features and functions. Severe boredom, ennui, and sleeping may ensue in your prospects’ ranks. Other symptoms include prospects’ stifled yawns, glances at phones, texting, and online shopping. Causes other complications, including Buying it Back and losses to more competent competition. Severe cases may include projectile feature vomiting.

 

Examples:        

 

“We’ve got over two hundred canned reports – let’s take a look…”

 

“And next I’ll show you our context-sensitive help system…”

 

 “Here are the seventeen file export options: I’ll go through each of them one by one…”

            

Cure:   

 

An initial high dose of Discovery Reality (available in visual capsules, electronic tablets, and audio waves), followed by rigorous completion of Great Demo! Situation Slides. Patient then must practice a strict regimen of presenting only the Specific Capabilities needed by prospects to address their problem(s). Hold everything else back to avoid recurring gag reflex.

 

Rx: https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/.

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Phonic Consumption

Symptoms: 

 

[Generally experienced in face-to-face demos, but virtual demos are not immune] Sales rep sitting in the back of the room completely focused on their phone during the demo; severely swollen thumbs; impaired ability to communicate in complete, grammatically correct sentences.

 

Examples:  

 

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tapity-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap… “Huh?”

         

Cure: 

 

Actively engage in the demo presentation; choreograph your team’s roles before the demo begins. As the sales rep, it is your role to:

         

1.     Perform the introductions, review the meeting objectives, and confirm time constraints.

2.     Present and review relevant Situation Slides and accompanying Illustrations.

3.     Help manage and capture “Good” (and “Stupid”) questions on a whiteboard, chat window, or similar vehicle.

4.     Redirect audience attention away from the scene of the disaster after a software crash or severe bug.

5.     Summarize when appropriate and/or inject pauses in the delivery.

6.     Identify next steps and summarize the overall meeting.

Begin treatment immediately starting with the Sidebar in Great Demo! on page 187 and “Team Play” on page 396. Repeat application as necessary until tapping ceases. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/ 

In the Spotlight Podcast – Doing Discovery

I joined Roi Carmel of Spotlight.ai for this delightful discussion:

 

“Join us for a masterclass in modern sales methodology in this pivotal episode of our ‘In the Spotlight’ series, featuring Peter Cohan - founder of The Second Derivative and architect of contemporary discovery practices. In this deep-dive conversation, the creator of the Great Demo! methodology reveals groundbreaking approaches to value selling and buyer enablement that are reshaping enterprise sales: 

• The evolution of value selling from business case development to full buyer enablement lifecycle strategies 
• Demo-qualified lead framework with its six critical elements for effective solution design 
• Vision Generation demos - the 5-minute alternative to painful ‘harbor tour’ presentations 
• Quid pro quo discovery techniques that transform interrogations into collaborative conversations 
• Future-proofing discovery through AI-supported processes and the critical role of human curiosity 
• DIKW framework (Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom) for modern sales enablement 

Special focus areas include:

• Building mutual solution validation between buyer and seller 
• Cultural assessment techniques for complex sales environments 
• The ‘myth of the informed buyer’ and vision re-engineering strategies 
• Practical examples from 25+ years of training global sales teams”

You can find this discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH_o8RJ8Lcs

 

Enjoy!

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Demo Dyspnea

 

Symptoms: 

 

No pauses or breaks in the delivery, followed by shortness of breath, flushed face and, finally, passing out. (Fainting is often an outcome of Rambleitis when compounded by Whooping If and Conjunctionitis.)

 

Examples:  

 

“And another really cool thing about our software is the ability to ____, or ____, and if you want to ____ then you can click here, or if you have to ____ then choose this, and the next thing I want to show you is our new import wizard, which has seven different options, the first of which is ____, which is really great if you need to ____, or ____ or ____, and if you need to… need to… need… uhhhhhhhhh…”  *Thunk*!

         

Cure: 

 

Breathe, fer cryin’ out loud! Put some pauses in your delivery; put some theatre and passion in your delivery. Put some dynamics (louds and softs) into your delivery.  

 

Reciting Shakespeare without pauses and dynamics makes for a very boring experience and the same is true for demos. Imagine the following scene:  

 

But-soft-what-light-through-yonder-window-breaks-it-is-the-east-and-Juliet-is-the-sun-arise-fair-sun-and-kill-the-envious-moon-who-is-already-sick-and-pale-with-grief-that-thou-her-maid-art-far-more-fair-than-than-tha… *THUNK*!

 

These lines from Romeo and Juliet are of course to be expressed with deep, fervent passion:

 

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

 

Begin treatment immediately with repeated applications of Doing Discovery (https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/) followed by daily doses of Great Demo! through page 236. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/.

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Morsover (Death by Corporate Overview)

Symptoms: 

 

Palpitation of the audience, sleeping audience and, eventually, severe audience loss.  Audience members doodle aimlessly, glance at watches or phones repeatedly, furtively use their phones, and, in one documented case, a prospect got up from the table to physically bang his head on the wall!

 

Examples:  

 

“Oh my God, no more slides…” 

 

“No, I’m not interested in their founding fathers, their revenues-to-date, the geographic locations of their offices, and I’m really not interested in their mission statement.”  

 

“Please let this be over…!”

         

Cure: 

 

Perform an immediate Radical Overectomy. Replace with two or three crisp, focused sentences, e.g., “Good afternoon. We’re ABC software, we’ve been in business twelve years, providing forecasting solutions to customers in manufacturing, high tech and other industries with over two thousand customers in eighteen countries around the world. Now, let’s talk about your situation.”

 

In extreme cases where there is clear and extensive Marketing Metastasis, a deep cut may need to be made into MarCom to help address the root cause.

 

Begin treatment immediately with repeated applications of Doing Discovery (https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/) followed by daily doses of Great Demo! through page 236. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/.