Great Demo!

I’ve heard a number of advantages and trade-offs regarding using virtual machines when presenting demos remotely (e.g., over WebEx or GoToMe...

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

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 deliv...

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 p...

[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 a...

[Warning – shameless self-promotion alert!] Our next public Great Demo! Workshop is scheduled to take place February 29 in San Jose, Cali...

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 Dem...

“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 ...

For some people presenting demonstrations, moving the mouse smoothly and deliberately occurs naturally.   For others, it can be a real cha...

How do we assess the skills and competence of candidates for presales positions?   I look carefully at resumes, but there is a wonderful exp...

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 e...

‘Twas the Night Before The Big Demo (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)   ‘Twas the night ‘fore the demo and all throug...

As someone starts up PowerPoint (or Keynote) and opens their presentation, have you ever noticed that you rapidly scan to see how many slid...

We should be cognizant about our audiences’ backgrounds, training and educational/cultural experiences and perceptions, because the words we...

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...

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

I’ve found that providing question-and-answer sessions to Great Demo! Workshop participants a few months post-event has been very effective ...

Scenario 1: Imagine walking into a doctor’s office and, before you can open your mouth, the doctor immediately writes prescriptions for...

It shouldn’t be surprising that many sales and presales people are not be particularly skilled at doing Discovery…   Why?   When interviewin...

A number of Great Demo! Workshop participants and their managers have asked for help in improving their practices, particularly with applyin...

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

The process of gathering information about customers’ situations is variously labeled “Discovery”, “Qualification”, “Analysis” and other ter...

“We need a new system…” says the customer.   “Great!” says the sales person, “We’ve got several possibilities for you…!”   And the discussio...

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

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