What Does Insufficient Discovery Yield?

 

Insufficient discovery causes:

 

-       Delayed Decisions

-       No Decisions

-       Unwarranted Discounting 

-       “Buying It Back”

-       Slowed Sales Cycles

-       Wasted Sales Cycles

-       Harbor Tour Demos

-       Stunningly Awful Demos

-       Wasted Demos

-       Poor Proposals

-       Wasted Proposals

-       Inaccurate Forecasts

-       Overly Optimistic Forecasts

-       Living in the “Land of Hope”

-       Inaccurate Pipelines

-       Overly Optimistic Pipelines

-       Opening Doors for Competitors

-       Negative Differentiation

-       Poor Product Recommendations

-       Poor Product Fit

-       Unhappy Prospects

-       Burn-Victim Prospects

-       Insufficient Value Perceptions

-       Insufficient Business Cases

-       Money Left on the Table

-       Piles of Objections

-       Poor Relationships

-       Distrusted Vendors

 

Any more to add?

 

Which are your top three?

 

And here’s how to avoid insufficient discovery!

 

Doing Discovery book:

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

 

And the upcoming Doing Discovery Semi-Private Workshop (June 3-5):

https://your.greatdemo.com/course/doing-discovery-ilt 

How Much Discovery Is Enough?

 

Vendors constantly struggle to answer this question – so let’s address it!

 

How much discovery is enough? Is it…

 

When you have a qualified Lead?

 

When you have completed a list of questions? How many?

 

10 questions?

20 questions?

50 questions?

 

When you’ve done thirty minutes per person? One hour per person?

 

When you have a clear definition of “Pain”?

 

None of these are sufficient!

 

Here’s a practical measure – you have done enough discovery when two criteria have been met:

 

1.     When you, the vendor, have sufficient information to confidently and clearly propose a precise solution;

 

AND

 

2.     When your prospect is confident that you have a sufficient understanding of their situation to be able to confidently and clearly propose a precise solution.

 

Both conditions need to be satisfied!

 

(And here’s how to accomplish this:

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

 

Multitask?

Multitask? Heck, I have trouble even single tasking…!

Software Demos by Musicians: Musicians Have an Advantage!

 

Why?

 

Musicians understand dynamics (louds and softs). They know when and how to drop their voice to a whisper or deliver a forceful phrase.

 

Musicians understand the power of the pause. They know how a pause adds punctuation and generates intrigue.

 

Musicians understand the importance of phrasing. They know when a short phrase is appropriate and when a longer statement should be made.

 

Musicians understand how to listen. They know that listening should be constant, whether or not they are contributing to the overall sound.

 

Musicians understand how to respond. They know how to take turns and how to support and encourage their colleagues.

 

Musicians understand how to blend. They know how harmonies are built and change.

 

Musicians understand how to lead. They know how and when to establish or further develop a theme.

 

Musicians understand live performance. They know how to connect with and react to an audience.

 

Musicians understand the importance of having a plan. They know when the score is to be performed precisely and when to improvise; and groups of musicians know they need to agree on parameters such as timing, key, and instrumentation.

 

Musicians know how to end. They understand the importance of the last chord, phrase, and dynamics, and how that finish impacts the audience.

 

And each of these has its equivalent in presenting demos!

 

 

"It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play."

– Miles Davis

 

If you are a musician, take advantage of these attributes when you are presenting demos. If you are not a musician, see Chapter 15 “Style” in Great Demo! for many of these ideas, but without the music!

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

Using AI to Annoy Prospects?

 

AI personalizes but often without correct context. 

 

I can’t tell you how many LinkedIn messages I get that are “personalized” but ignore key information. For example, they personalize based on me being a founder and demo/discovery skills training but ignore the fact that I’m not producing software, taking external funding, or hiring employees. Similarly, they all assume that I’m an early-stage company. 

 

Yes, I’m the Founder, but I founded the company 23 years ago. Definitely not early stage!

 

Yes, I work with software but not producing software. Stop offering me development services!

 

And no, I’ve never taken external funding for this business and never will!

 

And no, I don’t have or want any employees (led a team of 120 folks before and don’t need the whining or headaches!).

 

“Quick chat?” I don’t think so!

 

So: Either train your AI to dig deeper and assess more effectively or suffer the consequences!

Do Best Practices Age?

Of Course! 

Best Practices Are Just Local Maxima…

 

Five thoughts:

 

1.     What is currently considered a best practice today will likely be exceeded by another practice; today’s “best” is accordingly just a “better” practice.

 

2.     Nevertheless, organizations and individuals should continue to perfect their application of current best practices.

 

3.     Organizations and individuals should be on the lookout for new best practices that replace or complement existing practices. Note that some of the most fertile ground for finding new best practices may include your competition, partners, and customers!

 

4.     Early explorers of new best practices need to remember that early application may not yield results representative of their full potential (you may be on a shoulder or slope that needs further exploration, testing, and improvement).

 

5.     Organizations and individuals need to carefully assess AI-defined best practices:

a.     Is the data really representative (or is AI recommending a safe mediocrity)?

b.     Are important outliers being ignored (that may represent new or different best practices: other local maxima)?

 

Any ideas to add?

More Premature Elaboration: A Competitive Oops! – Another Sales Prevention Team True Story

 

“Competition whose motive is merely to compete, to drive some other fellow out, never carries very far. The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.”

 – Henry Ford

 

 

I was the prospect listening to a vendor present their offering. The salesperson was working his way through their product presentation and entered a section on “Competitive Differentiation.”

 

One slide listed several competitors, and the salesperson began to discuss how his product was superior to the others. I perked up and made a quick note.

 

Seeing this, the salesperson asked me what I thought about the various competitors.

 

I responded, “Well, I didn’t know that [Vendor C] had an offering in this space. Many thanks for letting me know – I’ll check them out!”

 

And [Vendor C] did have an excellent product that, for our needs, was the best fit – which we purchased and enjoyed for years!

 

Moral? Beware of Premature Elaboration!

 

Resources: 

Stunningly Awful vs Truly Terrific Competitive Differentiation – What, When, and How?

https://greatdemo.com/truly-terrific-competitive-differentiation/ 

 

And for more Sales Prevention Team stories, see:

“Stunningly Awful Sales Prevention Demos: Real-Life Examples of What Not to Do!”

https://greatdemo.com/stunningly-awful-sales-prevention-demos-real-life-examples-of-what-not-to-do/ 

 

Premature Elaboration – Another Sales Prevention Team True Story!

“Chirp chirp chirp chirp…”

 – The sound of crickets in an empty room

 

Because he’d heard prospects ask certain questions repeatedly, he chose to incorporate the answers into his demo “script.” 

 

The result was not what he expected! The more questions that he addressed in advance, the less successful his demos were. 

 

Before making this change, his audiences were engaged as they asked their questions. But now prospects were quiet and seemed uninterested. By pre-answering questions, he had turned his demos into monologues, removing the possibility for a two-way, bidirectional conversation.

 

Moral: Encourage a real conversation by letting your prospect ask their questions!

 

Resources: 

The Elegant Art of Managing Questions and Time

 

And see the stories in “Suspending Disbelief” for more engaging lessons learned!

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

 

Founders’ Frustration – Another Sales Prevention Team True Story!

“But there’s so much to show…!”

 – SaaS Founder in year two

 

“When you first released your MVP [Minimum Viable Product], how much time did you schedule for your demos to prospects?” I asked this of a founder who told me her demos weren’t getting the job done.

 

“An hour,” she replied, “and we generally used all of that time.”

 

“And how long are your demo meetings now?” I enquired.

 

“Still an hour…” she noted, “and I’m rushing through the software, but I can’t show everything I want to show!”

 

I pursued this with, “How often do your development folks release new features?”

 

“Every few weeks,” she responded.

 

“And do you incorporate these new capabilities in your demos?” 

 

“Oh yes! I try to show everything!” she confirmed.

 

“I believe we’ve found the problem,” I told her. “It’s like you’re trying to pack two weeks of clothes for a trip into a bag that only holds one week’s worth.”

 

I continued, “You’re going to have to prioritize what you show based on your prospects’ needs and wants. Show the most important capabilities first and confirm that they solve the problems. Then show the next sets of relevant features in accord with your prospects’ interests and the meeting time constraints.”

 

“Just like that too-small travel bag,” I explained, “you’re going to have to leave some things out of your demo!”

 

Resources: 

Why Structure Demos Like a News Article?

https://greatdemo.com/why-structure-demos-like-a-news-article/

 

Great Demo! Chapters 5-9

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

 

And see the stories in “Suspending Disbelief” for more engaging lessons learned!

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

Do Real-time AI Coaching Tools Inhibit Active Listening?

What’s your experience?

Diagnose and Ignore? Another Sales Prevention Team True Story!

 

"You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."

 – Ayn Rand

 

 

The prospect had invested in several hours of discovery with the vendor, but the vendor’s demo didn’t reflect any of what had been learned…

 

I was preparing to coach this vendor’s sales and presales teams and had been reviewing a number of discovery conversations and associated demos. In this particular case, I felt the discovery calls (there were two) were quite good. They had uncovered and confirmed several important use cases.

 

Unfortunately, it appeared that either this information wasn’t communicated to the demo presenter, or the presenter chose to ignore discovery and present their standard demo.

 

Fascinatingly, about forty minutes into the demo meeting the prospect lead player said, “So, we spent hours with your team outlining our needs and situation. You appear to be ignoring everything we said!”

 

He paused, looked annoyed, and observed, “You’re showing use cases that are irrelevant and referencing scenarios that we don’t need. You’re like a doctor who did a terrific job diagnosing a specific illness, but your prescription is for diseases that we don’t have!” 

 

He then terminated the demo meeting, ending the sales process for that vendor.

 

Moral: Map your demos to your discovery information!

 

Resources: 

 

Situation Slides: A Swiss Army Knife for Sales and Presales

https://greatdemo.com/situation-slides-sales-and-presales-swiss-army-knife/ 

 

Doing Discovery

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

 

And see the stories in “Suspending Disbelief” for more engaging lessons learned!

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy