Heading to DemoFESTx East? Stop By and Say Hi!

  

I’ll be presenting “Essential Elements of Discovery (Dimensions of Discovery).”

 

And in between sessions I’ll hanging out in the Partners area – please drop by! I’d be happy to chat, answer questions on the methodologies, explore new ideas, and just catch up. 

 

Additionally, I’ll have signed copies of Great Demo! and Doing Discovery available for purchase.

 

I’ll also be taking orders for signed copies of Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned), due out shortly!

 

You can register for DemoFESTx East here: https://goconsensus.com/demofestx/demofestx-east-coast/ 

Demos and the Principle of Parsimony

  

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

 

“Simplification is one mark of real genius”

– Dan Ariely

 

“Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

– Albert Einstein

 

“Our lives are frittered away by details; simplify, simplify.”

– Henry David Thoreau

 

“Simple messages travel faster, simple designs reach market faster, and the elimination of clutter enables faster decision-making.”

– Jack Welch

 

"Nature operates in the shortest way possible."

– Aristotle

 

“Execute all pathways with the fewest number of clicks.”

– Me

 

Cohan’s Razor: “Given the choice of multiple paths in a demo, choose the shortest.” 

(Apologies to William of Occam.)

Demo and Presentation Guidance from 1903

 

“Be terse in style, vigorous of phrase, apt, concretely apt, in similitude. Avoid platitudes and commonplaces. Exercise selection. Seize upon things salient, eliminate the rest, and you have pictures. Paint those pictures in words … Tell it all in the opening paragraph as advertisement of contents, and in the contents tell it all over again. Then put a snapper at the end, so if they’re crowded for space they can cut off your contents anywhere, reattach the snapper, and the story will still retain form. There, that’s enough.”

– Jack London, Amateur Night, 1903

 

And that’s Great Demo!

 

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

A True Story of Stunningly Awful Harbor Tour Demos!

 

“What’s he doing?” whispered my colleague in my ear…

 

I was a third party joining a demo presented by a partner vendor to a large pharma prospect in Basel, Switzerland. The lead prospect player was the Head of Research IT, and he had assembled his team of a dozen folks for the demo, held in one of the prospect’s large conference rooms.

It was billed as an overview demo and was scheduled for two hours. My organization was present as we had a significant part to play, and we had the last twenty minutes in the meeting for our segment.

 

The vendor salesperson started the meeting by introducing their team and then began a corporate overview presentation. After ten minutes of slides, the Head of Research IT stood up, walked a few paces to the wall of the room, and methodically began to bang his head against the wall…!

 

Everyone in the room gasped as they watched this taking place. My colleague whispered, 

 

“What’s he doing?”

 

I responded, “I think he’s suffered through so many of these that he’s giving our partner a clear message: ‘Stop!’”

 

I asked the head-banger, in my limited Swiss German, “Would you like them to get to the software?”

 

He answered, “Ja, bitte…!”

 

The meeting went forward reasonably smoothly from there, but we all certainly learned a lesson! And here, for your inspection and amusement, are more lessons (and solutions)!

 

https://greatdemo.com/the-anatomy-of-a-typical-web-overview-demonstration/

Harbor Tour? Sigh…

Today I heard a DemoFest presenter say, “you can always use a Harbor Tour demo for those situations where you’ve been given short notice for a demo.”

 

Please don’t.

 

Harbor Tour demos are the opposite of a Great Demo! 

Harbor Tours are the ineffective approach that new presales folks apply when they’ve had no training on better methods. 

Harbor Tours are the lazy alternative for seasoned presales veterans who should know better.

Harbor Tours bore audiences and drive more costly methods of proof.

Harbor Tours result in Buying It Back, losses to competitors, and No Decision outcomes.

 

Consider: Real-life harbor tours start and end at the same place, accomplishing nothing but consuming a few hours of sightseeing.

 

See Chapter 11 “Vision Generation Demos” in Great Demo! for an effective, elegant, validated approach. It is the direct path from the start of an opportunity, to and through discovery, to and through a successful Technical Proof Demo that completes the technical sale.

 

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

Beware Presales Hubris: An Open Letter to Presales

 

[Read this BEFORE DemoFest…!]

 

“Clueless.”

“Technically inept.”

“Lying”

“Manipulative”

“Untrustworthy”

“Annoying”

“Greedy”

“Verbose”

“Pushy”

“Self-centered”

“Unethical”

“ADD”

 

These are just some of the descriptions of salespeople that presales folks posted on LinkedIn. And here are how presales people describe themselves on LinkedIn:

 

“Authentic”

“Trusted advisor”

“Highly competent”

“Expert”

“Customer Focused”

“Problem solver”

“Collaborative”

“Honest”

“Highly skilled”

“Consultative”

 

Yes, a great many of the LinkedIn posts by presales folks tout their technical acumen, authenticity, being a “trusted advisor,” and other skills and attributes. Many of these claims are true for a portion of the presales population. However, some of the negative characteristics assigned to salespeople are also found in presales.

 

Wait. What?

 

How is this possible? Well, first, we need to stop the name calling.

 

Here is what you’ll find in this Open Letter to Presales – please read it and reflect!

 

-       Stop Bashing Salespeople

 

-       Sales Is a Tough Role

 

-       Prima Donnas Are Everywhere

 

-       Introverts vs Extroverts

 

-       Everyone Was New Once

 

-       What About Scheduling?

 

-       Don’t Know Much about History

 

-       Roles and Experience

 

-       Look in the Mirror

 

You can find the full article here: 

https://greatdemo.com/beware-presales-hubris-open-letter-to-presales/ 

Learning: Random vs Structured Approaches

 

“Ooooo – that’s a great tip!”

 

“Interesting!”

 

“Love this!”

 

These are the kinds of comments we see on posts that offer an interesting demo tip, or a clever discovery question, or an inspiring sales adage. Some are useful, on their own, but many others require richer development and context to be truly valuable.

 

“No disco, no demo!” is a perfect example.

 

Sounds great, by itself, but it completely misses the extensive nuances of real-life use. Even worse, folks who follow this dictum rapidly become members of the “Sales Prevention Team!”

 

These small, bite-size posts support and encourage a random approach to learning that has serious flaws. Here are a few analogies as examples:

 

-       You can’t create a great product by coding a few random features.

-       You won’t compose a compelling piece music by picking a few random notes.

-       It will be tough to prepare a good meal by picking up a random ingredient here and there.

 

Picking up a few random tips is a similar recipe. You won’t become an effective presales person, salesperson, customer-success player, or marketing individual with a random approach to learning.

 

So, what’s a solution? Invest in yourself.

 

Good: Allocate (or carve out!) just fifteen minutes each day to invest in a structured approach to your personal development. Select an article on a topic of interest or importance to you and read it thoughtfully and completely. A ten-page article only takes about fifteen minutes to read yet addresses a topic in sufficient depth to set context and address the nuances.

 

Better: Read a book. A 200-page book takes about five hours to read, so investing fifteen minutes each day would complete the job in about three weeks. Books enable rich exploration, explanation, and development of topics. And for many people, certain books have changed their practices and their lives significantly for the better!

 

Best: Take a workshop; get trained. You cannot have a conversation with an article or a book. You cannot get feedback, tuning, or ongoing coaching from written words or audio recordings. It is only when you put new ideas into practice, under the guidance of a skilled facilitator, that you can make meaningful change and know that you are doing it correctly.

 

Many people whine, “I don’t have time to read an article; I don’t have time to read a book! I’m too busy to attend training!” Frankly, to achieve the kind of growth and development most customer-facing folks desire, you can’t afford not to dig in more deeply!

 

For those of you who still prefer the “nugget by nugget” approach, explore our blog here: https://greatdemo.com/blog/ 

 

For you who quest for more in-depth guidance, choose from the rich selection of articles here: https://greatdemo.com/learn/articles/ 

 

For you who wish to make a more meaningful investment in yourselves, consume our books: https://greatdemo.com/learn/books/

 

And for the wisest of you who choose to empower yourselves with training, you’ll find our workshops here: https://greatdemo.com/training/ 

 

There’s an entire gold mine of learning options available for you!

 

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

— Benjamin Franklin

 

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Autodemo Hell (Cluelessness in Automated Demos)

 

Symptoms:      

 

Automated demos lack context, relevance, and rationale. Patient assumes that all prospects have the same problem, the same challenges, and the same objectives. Attempts to create a “one-size-fits-all” demo despite serving multiple markets and job titles. Ignores why a user might need the software and what gains and value are possible. Shows far too many options; neglects to communicate an effective and compelling “Monday morning” storyline.

 

Viewers habitually drop-out of the recording early. Delusions and hallucinations may occur, with the victim calling anyone who watches a portion of the automated demo a “highly qualified, hot lead.”

 

Examples:        

 

“Now we’ll show you how to build a ___.”

 

“And here is another way you can do this…”

 

“There are several options to put this together; we’ll go through each of them!”

            

Cure:   

 

Create a cocktail of use cases organized by market vertical and job title, then distill carefully to concentrated Situation Slides and corresponding Illustrations. Craft focused, specific demos for each situation and provide a menu to guide prospects to the relevant use cases. 

 

For the full cure, make sure to address the key characteristics of successful automated demos, including:

 

-       Setting Context

-       Problem Identification

-       Solution Presentation, Advantage and Value Communication

-       Length, Call to Action

-       Simplicity

-       Clarity

-       Engagement

 

You’ll find the complete cure here: https://greatdemo.com/automated-demos-best-practices/ 

Repeat as necessary!