Using a VM for Remote Demos – Comments and Experiences?

I’ve heard a number of advantages and trade-offs regarding using virtual machines when presenting demos remotely (e.g., over WebEx or GoToMeeting).  One advantage is that using a VM eliminates (or hides) the possibility of the audience seeing IM’s or email previews and related notifications.  It also provides the ability to show a “clean” desktop.  On the other hand, using a VM may add substantial start-up time and/or complexity to operating remotely.

What experiences and recommendations can you share?

Terrific Situation Slide Labels

For internal communications and “controlled vocabulary” within the vendor I typically recommend using the following labels for Situation Slides:

- [Job Title/Industry]
- Critical Business Issue
- Problem/Reason
- Specific Capabilities
- Delta
- Critical Date/Critical Event

While these labels are excellent for internal use, they may not resonate well with customers. Here are a set of labels offered by a recent Great Demo! Workshop team that were particularly well-received:

- Your Challenge
- Your Current Process
- Your Requirements
- Your Bottom Line
- Your Target Date

Wonderful!

Epic Poem Demos Delivered Remotely – Seriously Stunningly Awful

It is bad enough to have someone present a demo in “Epic Poem” format in a face-to-face situation – it is stunningly awful to see them delivered remotely, over the web (using WebEx, GoToMeeting or similar tools)!  I was watching a series of these during the past couple of weeks and have a few observations:

Does the audience really need to be there? 

Far too often demo presenters launch into their “Epic Poem” patter and talk/demo for an entire hour, with nary a pause (other than to periodically ask, “Any questions so far?”).  The audience could be completely unengaged – and off doing other (more productive) activities such as reading email, browsing the web or writing a novel.  The only requirement on the audience’s part is to be able to respond “Nope” when the presenter asks “Any questions so far?” and/or to make the occasional “uh-huh” grunt to give the presenter the impression that the audience is still paying attention. 

Does the presenter feel he/she has done a good job because he/she made it through the material (the complete Epic Poem demo) within the allotted time? 

Unfortunately, this often appears to be the presenters’ measurement of success.  The format for these 1-hour demos seems to follow a rather consistent path: 

-          Corporate overview – 5-10 minutes (boring and unnecessary)

-          Product overview – 5-10 minutes (largely boring and unnecessary, and generally includes the traditional boring vendor product-centric architecture slide)

-          Demo presented in Epic Poem format – fills up the entire balance of the hour, often running a few minutes over, leaving no opportunity for audience interaction or questions

Is the presenter as bored as the audience?

It is likely that the presenter delivers this same PowerPoint slides and demo over and over – perhaps several times a week or more – and so it is likely the presenter is as bored with the content (and its delivery) as the audience is! 

The moral? 

Get out of Epic Poem mode and reconstruct demos to map to audience interests, needs and time-constraints.  (For those already familiar with Great Demo! methods, you know what to do – for those who are new to these ideas, I can offer a few articles and resources that may help ...

Stunningly Awful Demos – As Epic Poems

Have you ever heard phrases such as, “Show them the demo…”,  “This is our demo…”, or “We’ll need 2 hours to do our demo…”?

These are phrases that suggest that the vendor has produced a single, all encompassing, one-size-fits-all demo designed to (try to) meet the needs of a broad range of customers and audience members.  They are like epic poems (e.g., the Odyssey, the Iliad, Beowulf, etc.) –  in many frightening ways.  Let’s explore…

An epic poem is “a lengthy narrative… containing the details of heroic deeds or events…”  Some attributes of epic poems include:

-          The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe

-          Contains long lists (epic catalogue).

-          Features long and formal speeches.

Sound like a few demos you’ve experienced?

Interestingly, storytellers learn and teach epic poems through constant repetition – they hear and tell them over and over (and over and over), in exactly the same order, with exactly the same words.  And, if interrupted, the storyteller has to return exactly to where he or she left off to continue…

Have you ever seen this happen with demos? 

Epic poems are terrific when told over (several) cold winter evenings to a willing and interested audience.  But presenting demos in epic poem format?  That’s the making of an epic failure!

Stunningly Awful Demos – Insufficient Discovery

[Send me an email at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com if you'd like a PDF copy of this article]

Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and, before you can open your mouth, the doctor immediately writes prescriptions for a broad range of drugs…  The doctor then says, “Let me know if any of these drugs seem to help address any problems you have.”

Or:

Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and (again), before you can open your mouth, the doctor immediately writes prescriptions for a broad range of drugs…  A few days later you come back, at which time the doctor says, “So what seems to be the trouble?”

How are these different from presenting a demo to a customer before doing any Discovery?

“No Decision” Rates Too High?

A sadly terrific way to increase the number of “no decision” outcomes is through insufficient Discovery.  The result is a long, painful and expensive path to nothing…

Consider a typical Situation Slide with its six elements:

Job Title and Industry:

Critical Business Issue:
Problems/Reasons:
Specific Capabilities:
Delta:
Critical Data or Event:

Most vendors do gather a portion of the Problems/Reasons statement:  “We need a new system…,” says the customer.  “Great!” says the vendor, “We’ve got a whole range of those to choose from…!”

What’s missing? 

No Critical Business Issue:  means there may be a lack of a strong driving force for change.

No Specific Capabilities:  without these, what do we show in a demo?  The result is often the horror of the “Harbor Tour” demo…
No Delta:  means there is no articulated value equation on the part of the customer.
No Critical Date:  means this sales opportunity could go on forever!

Want proof?

6 to 1 – that’s the ratio of successfully closed sales using Great Demo! vs. “Harbor Tours”, as tracked by one Great Demo! Workshops customer. More specifically, he reported that for business that closed during a 12 month period, 62 sales projects used Great Demo! Discovery, preparation and delivery methods vs. 9 sales projects where Discovery was deemed insufficient and the resulting demos were Harbor Tours. Sales projects ranged from approximately $200K - $1.5M in deal size.

Equally (or more) interesting were the numbers reported for “No Decision” outcomes: For those sales projects that had a complete Situation Slide for each key player, No Decisions ran at less than 10%. For sales projects that had incomplete Situation Slide information No Decision rates were above 60% (ick).

Forecast Failures and Pipeline Pain

Far too many sales organizations equate “activity” with “progress”.  For example, some sales managers track (and often incent) the “number of demos delivered” as a measure of forecast and pipeline activity. 

In the situation above, sales people were incented to schedule demos (as many as possible!) as a key indicator of overall pipeline activity – which resulted in a negative feedback spiral of doing more and more unproductive demos, resulting in less closed business per demo, causing management to increase the number of demos per sales person per quarter to try to increase pipeline.  There was much moaning, whining and gnashing of teeth…

When senior sales management reviewed the data in the situation above, they made two very interesting process changes:

First, it was mandated that adequate Discovery information be uncovered prior to scheduling a demo – specifically including review of Situation Slides prior to agreement to proceed with a demo. (There were some loopholes for extenuating circumstances, but the gross majority of demos are now preceded by what is considered adequate Discovery).

Second, sales pipeline measurements were changed – from the “number of demos scheduled/completed per sales person” (a measure of activity) to the “number of demos completed per sales person per $ of revenue” – a very clever way of measuring the effectiveness of Discovery, demo preparation and delivery.

The bottom line?  This particular team will be having one terrific “President’s Club/Sales Kickoff” in a wonderful location this year!

New Hire Candidates – Where It All Begins

Are we surprised when we find that sales and presales people (those already hired) are not particularly strong at doing Discovery?  We shouldn’t be.  Most candidate interviews don’t explore the candidates’ Discovery skills.

Interestingly, we often ask candidates to deliver a brief presentation to test their ability to present information clearly and compellingly – we test their ability to “tell”.  However, we rarely invest similar energy in asking candidates to perform a Discovery session of some kind – to evaluate their ability to “ask”. 

No wonder we end up with new hires that tend to talk first and ask later (if ever…)!

OK, fine.  But what about folks already on-board?  Here are a few ideas to consider…

Early Adopter vs. Majority:  Features vs. Solutions

Early Adopters and Technology Adopters love to talk about features – and often identify problems themselves that can be solved, synthesizing solutions from the feature set.  They embrace change and are excited about exploring on their own.

Everyone else – the Majority – is not interested in change, typically, and needs to feel that a problem is critical before choosing to address it – they are interested in solutions, not features and functions.

Early Adopters and Technology Adopters are great, as customers, but they inadvertently train us to skip Discovery.  They simply ask us for a traditional product presentation.  We get comfortable “selling” this way and so we present the same product feature/function overview to Majority prospects – who may not even realize that they have a problem – and who then wonder why we are wasting their time…

Majority customers need to have Discovery done, both for our sake – and for theirs, to help them understand the depth and breadth of their problems.

Provocative Questions – Starting Discovery

Using provocative questions is a great way to start conversations and move a discussion into Discovery.  A good provocative question causes your customer to:

-          Rapidly qualify himself in or out as a reasonable prospect

-          Agree that there is a problem to solve

-          Open up to further questions

For example, imagine you sell sales process management/automation software and are at a conference with piles of prospects present.  You join a table for lunch with 8 other people and everyone introduces themselves briefly.  Someone asks you, “What do you do?”  Your response can range from boring to intriguing:

Boring:  “We sell sales process automation software.”  (Yawn…)

Typical:  “We help sales teams improve their processes.”  (OK thanks, next…)
Provocative:  “Have you ever seen a sales team document their opportunities consistently?”  (Not typically – hmmm, I’m interested…!)

For the provocative option above, a “No” response (often accompanied by a wry smile or wince) tells you that the prospect has that problem – and the prospect may immediately volunteer more information, “No, in fact our sales people ‘sandbag’ on deals they are confident about and have ‘happy ears”’ on far too many opportunities that never close…!”  At this point, you can comfortably launch into Discovery questions about the team, sales cycles, current processes and tools, etc.

The key to formulating strong provocative questions is to take a key indicator or qualitative measurement of what you do and rephrase in the form of a question. 

For example, in the world of demos, I love to ask, “Have you ever seen a bad software demo?”  If the response is yes (and it often is…), we are off and rolling comfortably into a Discovery conversation.

“Why” Questions – Uncovering the Drivers in Discovery

“We need a new system…” says the customer.  “Great!” says the sales person, “We’ve got several possibilities for you…!”  And the discussion then proceeds to explore lists of features and functions, needs and use cases.  This is all wonderful, but what’s missing?

“Why do you need a new system?” is a critical question to ask, when appropriate.  The answer to this question may change the entire dynamic of the Discovery discussion and the resulting sales process.

For example, if the customer responds, “Well, we’ve been interested in a new system for some time…” it may suggest that the customer is not really serious and that solving the problems inherent in the old system are not sufficiently important – it is not a Critical Business Issue.  This sales opportunity is a good candidate for a “no decision” outcome.

On the other hand, if the customer responds, “Well, the COO has mandated implementing a new system to drive down costs and she wants it in place before we complete an upcoming acquisition…,” then you have identified a Critical Business Issue (“reduce costs”) and a Critical Event (before the acquisition takes place).  This sales opportunity is much more likely to end with a completed order.

Burn Victims

“Have you tried to fix this before?”  Answers to this question can yield interesting and sometimes surprising information. 

Customers who tried to address problems previously and failed are known as “burn victims” – and they tend to be very careful about subsequent solutions!

A “Yes” response requires careful follow-up questions.  “What happened?” is a good starting point.  You want to understand what actions were taken, what tools were purchased, what was implemented, when this all took place – and what were the outcomes for the organization and those who were impacted. 

If the answer is “No,” your response could be “Why not?”  It might be that the problem was never big enough to address (but now it is) or that prior solutions were perceived as insufficient (in what ways?).

What’s in a Name?  More Than One Might Expect

The process of gathering information about customers’ situations is variously labeled “Discovery”, “Qualification”, “Analysis” and other terms.  Interestingly, the name used by your organization may encourage or discourage the effectiveness of the process.

Consider:  “Qualification” is (often) about putting boundaries around a sales opportunity:  “Is it adequately qualified?”  This may yield a limited set of answers to questions such as:

-          “Does the customer have a problem – have they admitted ‘pain’?”

-          “Is there budget allocated?”

-          “Is there a time-frame in mind?”

-          “Do we know the pathway to purchase – who will make the decision?”

-          “What alternatives or competitors is the customer also considering?”

The answers to these questions tend to focus inwards on getting the deal done for the vendor.

“Discovery”, on the other hand, is all about exploration and suggests images of uncharted waters, novel vistas, new viewpoints and ideas.  Discovery is a process of asking questions – that may lead to more questions.  It should be perceived as an “Archimedean Spiral” of exploration, covering more and more territory (for those who are inclined, here’s the Wikipedia reference:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_spiral). 

One nearly consistent attribute of very successful sales people (those who consistently make or exceed their numbers and are a pleasure, generally, to work with…) is their ability to perform broad and deep discovery.  They ask “Why, who, when, where, what, and how” questions.  They plumb for details and search for high-level drivers.  To paraphrase a famous outdoors equipment company (The North Face), they never stop exploring.

Interestingly, people who are known as Discoverers or Explorers are often perceived as heroes – those who opened new worlds or brought new knowledge to light:  Captain James Cook, Louis Pasteur, Madame Curie, Captain James T. Kirk (who was also known to boldly discover splitting infinitives…).  Contrariwise, the list of heroic people who were known for qualifying or putting boundaries around things may be much shorter!

 

A Few Stunningly Awful Analogies

Presenting a demo to a customer without performing any Discovery is like:

-          A doctor prescribing before doing diagnosis… (bad)

-          A surgeon cutting random openings before doing diagnosis… (really bad)

-          Getting in one’s car and driving with no destination in mind… (clueless)

-          Punching-in random telephone numbers in hopes of getting connected to a specific person… (really clueless)

-          Presenting a 62 slide product and technology presentation on the 27 modules of a vendor’s offering, preceded by a 14 slide corporate overview (after spending 10 minutes introducing the vendor’s team and their individual backgrounds)… (completely clueless – and all too common!)

Other analogies?  Let me know…!

More Discovery – Less Demo

The phrase “less is more” is often applied to Great Demo! methodology – and refers to the idea that demonstrating exactly what is needed for a customer’s specific situation yields crisper, shorter and much more successful demos. 

Interestingly, with respect to Discovery, one might say that “more requires less” – meaning that the more Discovery that is done with the customer, the shorter the resulting demos will need to be to secure the business.

Copyright © 2012 The Second Derivative – All Rights Reserved.

Great Demo! Public Workshop February 29

[Warning – shameless self-promotion alert!]

Our next public Great Demo! Workshop is scheduled to take place February 29 in San Jose, California – registration and additional information can be found here:  http://greatdemo120229.eventbrite.com/

This is an excellent opportunity for individuals, small groups or for teams that have new hires. 

We’ve found that these events are most productive when there are two or more participants from each organization (singletons are also fine).  This helps to mimic real-life interactions as much as possible, both when preparing demos and delivering them in the role-play sessions.

21 Clicks Is Too Much – Stop the Demo!

Yes, people do count clicks during demos – and this is the true, brief horror story of too many clicks (I heard this from a recent Great Demo! Workshop participant): 

During a demo – and not very far into it, the head of a group of National Account Managers suddenly said, “Stop the demo – 21 clicks is too much!”  And that was the end of that sales opportunity…

His point was very simple:  any task that takes 21 clicks to complete is probably going to be too difficult and too complicated to do for the average person (and in this particular case the audience and expected users were sales people…).  For this senior manager, 21 clicks was (beyond) his threshold for an acceptable number of steps for this particular task. 

 

The moral? 

Take that path that is the fewest number of steps to complete the task. 

“Before I demo to you, why don’t you demo to me…?”

“Before I demo to you, why don’t you demo to me what you are currently using?”  If a customer has an existing software system, this can be a wonderful way to understand the strengths, weaknesses and gaps in their current system – particularly from the customer’s point of view.  They’ll tell you what they like, what they hate, what’s missing and a range of other delightful Discovery information.

Additionally, this also inverts the traditional process of the vendor presenting to the customer, to one of the customer presenting to the vendor – an experience often remembered by the customer as remarkable and interestingly different!

Practice Your Mouse Movements… All The Time!

For some people presenting demonstrations, moving the mouse smoothly and deliberately occurs naturally.  For others, it can be a real challenge!  Here’s a quick tip:  practice moving your mouse as if you are delivering a demo all of the time.  The “muscle memory” associated with constant practice will reward you when you are in the heat of a tough demo – and can’t invest time to think about how best to move your mouse.   

When we are mousing for ourselves, our mouse movements tend to follow the motion of our eyes.  So, if we are hunting for a specific command or tool, as our eyes flit back and forth across the screen so does our mouse!  Instead, think (first) about where we want the mouse to go, then move it smoooooothly and deliberately to that specific location.  And don’t move it again until you’ve identified the next specific destination…!

A Novel Thought About Screening Candidates For Presales Positions

How do we assess the skills and competence of candidates for presales positions?  I look carefully at resumes, but there is a wonderful expression that “you are perfect twice in your life:  once when you are born and the second time on your resume…”  References are important, of course, as are typical interview questions.   However, I like to ask candidates for three additional opportunities to evaluate them:

1.       Ask them to do a presentation on a subject near and dear to their hearts to evaluate their ability to “tell” (many hiring managers do this today).

2.       Ask them to perform a Discovery session with you, on a topic they know intimately such as their current company’s offerings, to evaluate their ability to “ask”.  This is rather novel, I think, and may help to uncover presales people that are particularly strong at doing Discovery.

3.       As them to present a demo based on what they learned in their Discovery session with you, to see how well they listened and incorporated what they learned into their demo – and to evaluate their demo-specific delivery skills (extra points for structuring their demo in a Great Demo! format, of course!).

This strategy gives you an opportunity to evaluate candidates’ ability to “tell”, “ask”, “listen”, and “show”. 

Early January Is Demo Skills Assessment Time!

The start of the New Year… what a terrific time to perform an assessment of your own or your team’s demo skills!  Doing an assessment now establishes a baseline for measuring change and improvement during the course of the year – and it only takes about 10 minutes per assessment.

For Yourself:  Do an assessment of yourself.  Have your manager do an assessment of you.  Have your peers do assessments of their perceptions of your skills.  Then compare…

For Your Team:  Do the same process, essentially – have each team member do an assessment of their own skills; do assessments yourself of each member’s skills; and consider having peers do assessments of one another.

In addition to establishing a baseline for the year, gaps that are uncovered between individuals, peers and managers can be quite illuminating and represent opportunities for discussion, coaching, mentoring or other skills development possibilities ([warning:  shameless self-promotion alert!]  e.g., Great Demo! Workshops, Master Classes, Coaching, etc.).

When should you do your next assessment?  I’m glad you asked that question…  Next year?  Far too long between assessments to be of sufficient value.  Twice per year?  Still too infrequent.  I’d recommend re-assessing skills every 2, 3, or 4 months and setting small, incremental goals for improvement accordingly (by the way, there is nothing sacred about quarters for skills development – sometimes picking an interval that is NOT tied to quarters can be much more effective!).

Where can you find a good demo skills assessment template to use (or to use as a starting point)?  Feel free to send me an email at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com and I’ll send you ready-to-use (also new and improved!) demo skills assessments for individuals and/or for teams.  You are welcome to use these directly or edit as desired.

‘Twas the Night Before The Big Demo

‘Twas the Night Before The Big Demo

(with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

 

‘Twas the night ‘fore the demo and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, ‘cept my SC and his mouse;
I’d proposed a big licensing deal with great care
In hopes a big order soon would be there;

Management was restless and not in their beds

As visions of bonuses danced in their heads;
And my VP with his forecast and me with my own,
Had just started a long EOQ roam,

When out from my mobile there came a great ring-tone,

I sprang from my chair to answer my phone,
What could it be?  Was it good news or no?
A last-minute order?  A contract?  PO?

Greetings, said my assistant, who spoke on the line,

It was someone to see me, offering help at this time!
Who could it be at this late eleventh-hour,
To make the deal sweet and avoid something sour?

Away to the door I flew in a flash,

And swept it open in my quest for fast cash,
When who to my wondering eyes should appear,
The DemoGuru! And standing so near!

He came in my office and, while dusting off snow,

Said, “I have some news that you’ll want to know.”
He drew up a chair and asked for some tea,
And said to my VP, SC and to me:

“Your deal is in trouble and I’ll tell you now,

Your demo’s confusing, complex and lacks ‘Wow!’
It’s riddled with features and functions and more,
And too many cool things, mouse clicks galore,

Don’t flog them with features and other neat stuff,

Stick with the substance, stay away from the fluff,
The more that you show is not always nice,
Customers may say, ‘Please lower the price!’

The Buzzword-Compliant Vocabulary list,

Are words, I’m afraid, that are better-off missed,
Not Flexible, nor Powerful, nor Easy-to-Use,
Not Robust, nor Seamlessly Integrated abuse,

And no corporate overview, please don’t do that,

After ten minutes they’re grabbing their hats,
Present as a team, so if things get hairy,
Sales folks aren’t lost in the back with Blackberry.

Your customer’s queued and ready to go,

They love the vision you’ve built with them so
They want Technical Proof in the demo you’ve planned,
Just the key capabilities, everything else banned.”

“But how can we do this?” I heard myself cry,

“We’re victims of momentum, we’re nervous to try,
Another approach, a new way to go,
We have to admit we’re just a bit slow!”

“Do the Last Thing First!” he said with a smile,

“Then peel back the layers, and Do It with style,
Peel it back in accord with their interest,
Stay focused and execute, and you’ll find it best,

Your customer’s Situation is a great way to intro,

Their Reasons and needs, from CBI flow,
Review these and check – is this still the case?
Are we aligned or are we off-base?

Start with the end, that big pay-off piece,

Illustrate and describe, those are the keys!
Capture their interest, compel their attention,
Make sure it aligns with their mode of consumption.

When it clicks and they’re hooked, they’ll then ask for more,

There’s absolutely no way that they’ll head for the door,
They’ll say, “Please show us, prove that it’s so,
Show us the rest, please do demo.”

Then Do It, just Do It, with no extra clicks,

To return to that Illustrative image that sticks,
Make it simple, make it fast, make it easy and clear,
Then they will realize they’ve nothing to fear,

Encourage their questions, most are not new,

Good ones and Great ones and Stupid ones too,
Treat Hostiles with courtesy, use your Parking Lot so
Those mean, nasty folks can’t damage your flow,

Peel back the layers, Do It Again,

Show only what’s needed, put nothing else in,
Let them drive the demo, let them think they’re in charge,
While their Vision Solution you work to enlarge!

Summarize, summarize, tell them again,

‘Cause adults do learn by repetition,
And when you show a key take-away screen,
Leave it up, let it linger, so they’ll know what they’ve seen!
 
“I get it – I’ll do it!” exclaimed my SC,
“This is all so obvious, it’s way clear to me!”
And he sprang into action, his mouse flew like lightening,
(Frankly, his speed was a little bit frightening!)

And with that the DemoGuru smiled and he said,

“Your way is now clear, put that baby to bed,
Your deal’s now on track, your order secure,
You’ll make your numbers at the end of the year,

Then he strode from my office in a blink of a pun,
Turned ‘round and he said, “My job here is done,”
Ere he drove out of sight, I did hear him say,
“Great Demo! to all and to all a Great Day!”

Copyright © 2005-2010 The Second Derivative – All Rights Reserved.

How Many Slides Long IS It?

As someone starts up PowerPoint (or Keynote) and opens their presentation, have you ever noticed that you rapidly scan to see how many slides long it is?  And what is your reaction when you realize that the deck is 30, 40 or more slides long, and the individual slides look rather thick with text, data and charts?  Terror?  Denial?  Acceptance and preparation for boredom?

Morals:

If you are the presenter, don’t let them see your slide deck in any preview mode that shows the length – or (much better) trim it down to the actual number of slides that are really needed (and/or that can be consumed by your audience).

If you are an audience member and the presentation is scheduled for an hour or more, prepare yourself accordingly!  (E.g., think of synonyms for “boredom”; write haiku poems on painful presentations – and don’t forget the “seasonal reference” required in real haiku; have a smart-phone ready and out of sight for some surreptitious web browsing, etc…)

The Words We Choose To Use...

We should be cognizant about our audiences’ backgrounds, training and educational/cultural experiences and perceptions, because the words we use in our demo delivery (and Discovery conversations) can have strong impact on perceptions of our offerings and solutions. 

 In a study done on potato chip bag labeling, it was found that there were two general types of packaging, with respect to vocabulary:

The first used 8^th grade vocabulary and focused on appearing to be “plain-speaking” and “genuine” – these packages were for lower-end chips (Lays, Utz, etc.) and targeted buyers of same.

The second packaging used 10^th-11^th grade vocabulary with phrases like “hand-raked” and “crafted” – this packaging was used for the higher-price chips (Boulder, Kettle, Terra, etc.). 

Not surprising, perhaps, but fascinating in any case!

The study was done by Dan Jurafsky, at the Stanford University Department of Linguistics.

Demos and Discovery – Interesting Metric

For those who like to track things, here’s an interesting demo success metric to consider:  compare the amount of Discovery done prior to a demo (in minutes) to demo length (also in minutes).  One should expect the ratio of these will typically be >1 for successful demos – those that result in a sale (or movement to the next stage in the sales process).  For organizations that choose to track this, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the ratio is actually >>1 (much much greater than 1) for demos that result in a sale…!

“Slide Number 37…”

It fascinates me that in so many sales-oriented technical presentation slide decks, the biggest “pay-off” or “Wow!” slide appears about 7/8 of the way through the deck…

“Ask the Author” Office Hours

I’ve found that providing question-and-answer sessions to Great Demo! Workshop participants a few months post-event has been very effective in helping teams and individuals to implement the ideas and improve personal practices. I’d like to propose offering these to the broader Great Demo! community.

Specifically, I’d like to suggest setting up regular conference calls that anyone in the community can join.  We might schedule these to occur on a monthly basis, for example, and have each call run an hour in duration.  Participants could send me topics ahead of time or voice them during the call.  I’d expect we would discuss and share success stories, challenging situations, questions, tips and ideas on demos and closely related topics.

These could be, essentially, informal users’ group meetings.

If you are interested, please send me an email at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com, along with any suggestions or preferences on how to make this work well.  We can then look at specific timing and mechanics.

Insufficient Discovery – Great Doctor Examples

Scenario 1:

Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and, before you can open your mouth, the doctor immediately writes prescriptions for a broad range of drugs…  The doctor then says, “Let me know if any of these drugs seem to help address any problems you have.”

Scenario 2:

Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and (again), before you can open your mouth, the doctor immediately writes prescriptions for a broad range of drugs…  A few days later you come back, at which time the doctor says, “So what seems to be the trouble?”

How are these different from presenting a demo to a customer before doing any Discovery?

Discovery - It Shouldn't Be Surprising That...

It shouldn’t be surprising that many sales and presales people are not be particularly skilled at doing Discovery…  Why?  When interviewing candidates for new sales and presales positions, we don’t explore their Discovery skills nearly in the same depth with which we evaluate other skills, such as the ability to deliver a credible presentation. 

Consider the typical process for assessing a new sales or presales candidate:

-          We review their resume and cover letter (note:  people are perfect twice in their lives – at birth and on their resumes!).  It is very rare that anyone claims to be proficient in doing Discovery as a resume “bullet”.

-          Next, we bring promising candidates in for an interview, in which we ask many questions about them and allow them some questions about us and our organization – this is typically as deep that our evaluation of their Discovery skills ever goes – a handful of questions about the position, responsibilities, objectives, the company, etc.

-          Candidates that survive an initial interview are often invited back to deliver a 30-60 minute presentation (on a topic of their choice) – we want to make sure that they have sufficient presentation skills, since it is an important skill for their role.

After a discussion with their references, we make a final decision, draft an offer letter and, once accepted, welcome the new hire on board.

Our assessment of candidates’ Discovery skills was limited to a few questions, mostly about the job and related topics.  We never really explored candidates’ ability to execute real Discovery.  We are much better at assessing candidates’ abilities to tell than to ask!

Here’s a recommendation:

For candidates that survive the interview (and presentation, if desired), invite the candidate(s) back to perform a Discovery session with you as the customer.  Let the candidate use their current company/offerings as the basis (and candidates can tell you what role you should play in terms of job title and other situational information).  This provides you with a direct method of evaluating their Discovery skills and methods, giving you much clearer insight into how each candidate may perform when working with real customers.

If you feel that strong Discovery skills are an essential part of your team members’ toolkit, then consider including a critical review of these skills during the interview process.  [Note:  if you have existing team members whose Discovery skills are less than desired, that’s where I may be able to help!]

Improving Demo Delivery – Great Demo! Self and Team Coaching Tools

A number of Great Demo! Workshop participants and their managers have asked for help in improving their practices, particularly with applying Great Demo! core principles to demo delivery.  Accordingly, here are two tools to help individuals self-coach and managers coach their teams (in addition to the Assessment tools already available).

The first is a Great Demo! Demonstration Delivery Review Sheet.  This is a simple template that enables individuals or managers to review the results of specific demos in terms of the key Great Demo! delivery components.  Tracking these over time can provide a wonderful understanding of what learnings were retained and put into practice, what each individual is doing well and where there are opportunities to improve.

The second tool is a Great Demo! Key Attributes listing, which roughly assigns relative importance to each delivery element and aligns with the Delivery Review Sheet.

Send me an email at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com and I’ll send you these tools – I can also send the Assessment tools as well, if you don’t already have them.

Discovery - Burn Victims

Customers that tried to address problems previously and failed are known as “burn victims” – and they tend to be very careful about subsequent solutions!

“Have you tried to fix this before?”  Answers to this question can yield some interesting and sometimes surprisingly information. 

A “Yes” response requires careful follow-up questions.  “What happened?” is a good starting point.  You want to understand what actions were taken, what tools were purchased (if any), when this all took place – and what were the outcomes for the organization and those who were impacted. 

If the answer is “No,” your response could be “Why not?”  It might be that the problem was never big enough to address (but now it is) or that prior solutions were perceived as insufficient (in what ways?).

What’s in a Name? More Than One Might Expect – Consider “Discovery” vs. “Qualification”

The process of gathering information about customers’ situations is variously labeled “Discovery”, “Qualification”, “Analysis” and other terms.  Interestingly, the name used by your organization may encourage or discourage the effectiveness of the process.

Consider:  “Qualification” is (often) about putting boundaries around a sales opportunity:  “Is it adequately qualified?”  This may yield a limited set of answers to questions such as:

-          “Does the customer have a problem – have they admitted “pain”?
-          “Is there budget allocated?”
-          “Is there a time-frame in mind?”
-          “Do we know the pathway to purchase – who will make the decision?”
-          “What alternatives or competitors is the customer also considering?”

The answers to these questions tend to focus inwards on getting the deal done for the vendor.

“Discovery”, on the other hand, is all about exploration, and suggests images of uncharted waters, novel vistas, new viewpoints and ideas.  Discovery is a process of asking questions – that may lead to more questions.  It should be perceived as a “Archimedean Spiral” of exploration, covering more and more territory (look it up:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_spiral). 

One nearly consistent attribute of very successful sales people (those who consistently make or exceed their numbers and are a pleasure, generally, to work with…) is their ability to perform broad and deep discovery.  They ask “Why, who, when, where, what, and how” questions.  They plumb for details and search for high-level drivers.  To paraphrase a famous outdoors equipment company (The North Face), they never stop exploring.

Interestingly, people who are known as Discoverers or Explorers are often perceived as heroes – those who opened new worlds or brought new knowledge to light:  Captain James Cook, Louis Pasteur, Madame Curie, Captain James T. Kirk (even fictional explorers may be heroes!).  Contrariwise, the list of heroic people who were known for qualifying or putting boundaries around things may be much shorter!

“Why” Questions – Uncovering the Drivers in Discovery

“We need a new system…” says the customer.  “Great!” says the sales person, “We’ve got several possibilities for you…!”  And the discussion then proceeds to explore lists of features and functions, needs and use cases.  This is all wonderful, but what’s missing?

“Why do you need a new system?” is a key question to ask, when appropriate.  The answer to this question may change the entire dynamic of the Discovery discussion and the resulting sales process.

For example, if the customer responds, “Well, we’ve been interested in a new system for some time…,” it may suggest that the customer is not really serious and that solving the problems inherent in the old system is not sufficiently important to change – it is not a Critical Business Issue.  This sales opportunity is a good candidate for a “no decision” outcome.

On the other hand, if the customer responds, “Well, the COO has mandated implementing a new system to drive down costs and she wants it in place before we complete an upcoming acquisition…,” then you have identified a Critical Business Issue (“reduce costs”) and a Critical Event (before the acquisition takes place).  This sales opportunity is much more likely to end with a completed order.

Discovery - Fail Early, Fail Cheaply

Far too many sales opportunities run far too long, for a range of reasons.  One simple example is not asking questions about “show-stopper” requirements early enough. 

A show-stopper issue is exactly that – is it an issue or requirement on the part of the customer that is:

1.       Absolutely required
2.       Non-negotiable
3.       Not available from you, the vendor (and there is not reasonable work-around)

A simple example of this is a customer who absolutely, positively desires an in-house implementation installed on their own servers (and you only offer SaaS, with no possibility for installation on customers’ servers).  For some customers, this might be a objection that can be overcome, but for others their position may be fixed and unchangeable.

It is best to understand this early in the sales process, during Discovery, rather than later on, to avoid unnecessary investment by both the customer and the vendor in demos, additional meetings and other discussions.  Imagine how the customer Champion would feel, after organizing a series of demo meetings for key players in multiple departments, to learn that the solution simply won’t fit!  (Very angry).  And then imagine what that ex-Champion would tell his or her peers at the next conference about that vendor…!

Contemplate making a list of show-stopper questions or issues to add to your Discovery documents and outlines – and be prepared to ask these questions during Discovery.

Provocative Questions – Starting Discovery

Using provocative questions is a great way to start conversations and move a discussion into Discovery.  A good provocative question causes your customer to:

-          Rapidly qualify himself in or out as a reasonable prospect
-          Agree that there is a problem to solve
-          Open up to further questions

For example, imagine you sell sales process management/automation software and are at a conference with piles of prospects present.  You join a table for lunch with 8 other people and everyone introduces themselves briefly.  Someone asks you, “What do you do?”  Your response can range from boring to intriguing:

Boring:  “We sell sales process automation software.”  (Yawn…)

Typical:  “We help sales teams improve their processes.”  (OK thanks, next…)
Intriguing:  “Have you ever seen a sales team document their opportunities consistently?”  Hmmmm, interesting…!)

For the intriguing option, a “No” response (often accompanied by a wry smile or wince) tells you that the prospect has that problem – and the prospect may immediately volunteer more information, “No, in fact our sales people “sandbag” on deals they are confident about and have “happy ears” on far too many opportunities that never close…!”  At this point, you can comfortably launch into Discovery questions about the team, sales cycles, current process, etc.

The key to formulating strong provocative questions is to take a key indicator or qualitative measurement of what you do and rephrase in the form of a question. 

For example, in the world of demos, I love to ask, “Have you ever seen a bad software demo?”  If the response is yes (and it often is…), we are off and rolling comfortably into a Discovery conversation.