"The Difficulty Lies, Not in the New Ideas..."

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.” 

– John Maynard Keynes

Automated Demos: Garbage In, Amplified Garbage Out?

  

Too many automated demos are uncompelling and ineffective. Why? 

 

If you’re just presenting features, your automated demos will fail.

 

When you create automated demos, consider the following: 

If your live demos aren’t driving CONVERSATIONS, 

your automated versions will be equally poor at driving CONVERSIONS.

 

The most successful automated demos present capabilities 

as BENEFITS based on DISCOVERY.

 

Join Paul Pearce and me as we discuss this and more 

on Tuesday February 10 at 12:00 PM ET in our DemoFest session 

 

“Demo Automation Is the Ultimate Presales Power Play:

Turning Discovery Into After-Hours Deal Momentum”

 

And here are two resources to get you started:

 

https://greatdemo.com/demo-automation-insights/

 

https://greatdemo.com/automated-demos-best-practices-specific-guidance/ 

 

Enjoy – and let us know if you have questions or topics you’d like us to address!

"Who Dares to Teach..."

"Who dares to teach should never cease to learn"

– John Cotton Dana

How Is Memory Strength Like a Spiderweb?

The more strands and attachment points the better!

 

Have you ever seen a spiderweb in a good breeze and been amazed at its tenacity? Each individual filament isn’t particularly strong, but when they come together from multiple anchors and interconnect, the overall web can be impressively strong!

 

Memory works similarly.

 

Offer a fact or list a feature and you have a single strand from a single anchor. Not particularly strong, and it can easily be blown away in the breeze of business.

 

Communicate an Advantage Statement and you establish something stronger.

 

Include a Benefit Statement and you now have two interconnected fibers from two anchors.

 

Describe an analogy or metaphor and you’ve got the beginnings of a satisfactory memory web.

 

Tell an effective story, and your web stands strong in all kinds of business winds!

 

What makes a good story? See this article:

https://greatdemo.com/effective-storytelling-in-discovery-demos-and-more-a-never-stop-learning-article/

 

Want some example stories?

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy 

SKO Swipes: Revenue Leaders LOVE These!

 

Revenue Generators: You won’t like this while it is happening, but you’ll thank your leaders afterwards!

 

“Now THIS is different…!” I thought.

 

I was sitting in the back of the room at my customer’s sales kickoff meeting and noted that their team was frequently writing down key ideas from the presentations, capturing much more than at a typical SKO. I could see several folks who had already jotted down a dozen or more ideas.

 

What was going on? Rick, their head of sales, was using “Swipes.”

 

The idea is very simple and tremendously effective! At the end of the day, Rick goes around the room (or virtual room) and has each person state something that he or she took away from the sessions.

 

That’s seemingly easy, but he adds a twist: Each idea can only be used once!

 

If someone else verbalizes your take-away, you’d better have a backup. Or two. Or many more… Now you can guess where the name “Swipes” comes from!

 

Participants know, ahead of time, that they need to recall and retell at least one idea at the end of the day that hasn’t already been presented by someone else. To be safe, each person tends to write down a LIST of take-aways. 

 

Additionally, I noted that participants tend to pay better attention during the sessions, since they need to listen to collect Swipes candidates.

 

Works wonderfully: What a terrific way to ensure that your SKO participants remember the key takeaways! 

 

Pragmatic Note: Swipes are wonderful for groups of fifty or so but could be challenging for larger teams. An elegant solution for larger groups is to do Swipes in breakout sessions or similar smaller subgroups.

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly..."

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know”

— Mark Twain

Uncovering Critical Business Issues: A True Story

One day, a head of sales called me, out of the blue, and opened the conversation with, “Our demos suck…!” 

 

This was one of the most fascinating openings I had ever heard coming from a prospect. We moved into a very productive discovery conversation that ran for about an hour.

 

We had largely completed our conversation and were in the wrap-up phase. However, while I had terrific insights into his team’s demos and related factors, his organization’s culture, products, sales process steps and more, I hadn’t actually heard him articulate a Critical Business Issue.

 

Even though I was confident I already knew his CBI, I wanted to hear it from his lips.

 

I asked, “So tell me, what caused you to pick up your phone and call me today?”

 

He answered, “Well, I’ve been given a sales quota for next year that is 20% higher than this year’s – and I know we won’t make those numbers with our current demos…!”

 

Fabulous! In that one sentence he communicated both his CBI and a Delta – what a delight!

 

Learn more about Critical Business Issues, Deltas, and more in Doing Discovery here:

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

When Should Value Be Communicated?

When should you communicate tangible, specific value in your demos? Frequently!

 

In Great Demo! methodology, our guidance includes:

 

·      Right at the beginning of the demo, when presenting your Situation Slide(s).

·      When you describe Illustrations (which should include What the audience is seeing, How it helps to solve their problems, and the tangible Value associated with make the change).

·      In interim summaries.

·      In your Final Summary.

 

In comparison with mere words, crisp communication of value using numbers elevates your prospects’ understanding and dramatically increases the utility of the information. Numbers enable a magic that words alone cannot achieve!

 

 

Note: This is the last in a series of posts that are delightfully combined in a single article with additional insights and links which you can find here!  https://greatdemo.com/the-magic-of-numbers-in-communicating-value/  

I Am Continually Surprised…

 

I am continually surprised

At how much I’ve learned

Since yesterday!

Value: A Bit LESS About Numbers?

 

How many digits of Pi do you remember?

How many digits of Pi do you use?!

 

The math constant π (Pi) has an approximate value of: 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197… 

 

For many calculations we round this down to 3.14, but for a quick estimate of a circle’s circumference or area we simply use 3. Why? Because the single digit is much easier to remember and use!

 

In our doctor-patient interactions example (see previous posts below), the actual first-year net gain was $11,738,000. This is the correct number, but it is hard to remember (try saying it rapidly several times…!). 

 

$11.7 million is quite a bit easier and saying ~$12 million is even more so.

 

Along similar lines, if you found that your prospect could redeploy 5.27 FTE to other, more productive tasks, you have several choices of what to communicate:

 

·      5.27 is the exact number and is generally what you should use in detailed cost-benefit calculations.

·      5.25 (or 5¼) is easier to articulate and grasp.

·      Rounding down to 5 is the simplest form and represents a safe, conservative approach.

 

In most situations, simple numbers are the recommended approach. However, there may be situations where the impact of a very specific number is particularly memorable and effective. 

 

For example, in a study of demo effectiveness, the authors analyzed 67,149 demo recordings. When presenting the results of the study, saying the precise number of 67,149 appeared to have more impact than rounding it down to “about sixty-seven thousand.”

 

Bonus: For a terrific book on communicating numbers, read Making Numbers Count by Chip Heath and Karl Starr. Many of the ideas in this series of posts are drawn from their work. 

 

Double Bonus: Chip and his brother Dan also wrote that seminal book on storytelling, Made to Stick, which should be required reading for all customer-facing folks! 

And here are the other posts in this series so far – enjoy!

 

https://greatdemo.com/calculating-value-numbers-you-should-know/

 

https://greatdemo.com/which-vendor-statement-has-more-impact/

 

https://greatdemo.com/arithmancy-the-magic-of-numbers/

 

https://greatdemo.com/making-monetary-numbers-tangible/

 

https://greatdemo.com/value-statements-need-to-align-with-job-title/

 

https://greatdemo.com/annualize-your-value-statements/

 

Perception

 

We note the presence of something new much more acutely 

than the absence of something old.

Calculating Value: Numbers You Should Know

 

Value calculations rely on a number (pun intended!) of constants that every customer-facing vendor player should learn and memorize! Here are a few:

 

·      Working Days per Year: About 238 for the average U.S. company (that’s 365 days minus weekends, holidays, two weeks of vacation, additional personal time off, sick leave, etc.). The specific numbers will vary depending on industry and region. For example, in France the number is about 216 and in Germany it is about 230. Of course, people at start-ups work about 400 days per year!

 

·      Working Hours per Year: This is dependent on the number of working days per year, and the number of hours worked each day. Someone who works 238 x 8-hour days per year spends about 1900 hours laboring annually; those who have a bit more time off and work 220 x 8-hour days invest about 1760 hours in their firms each year. 1800 hours is a reasonable average, but again you should investigate the specific numbers for your prospects’ situations.

 

·      FTE Rates: FTE is “Full Time Equivalent”, which translates to the full cost of an employee. This includes salary and other compensation, benefits, and the portion of the business’ overhead that is attributed to that employee. This last component might include office space, office equipment, and associated services. 

 

In simple terms this can be broken into two components: compensation and burden (or “overhead”). Knowing typical rates for both enables the kinds of calculations we’ve enjoyed (ahem) earlier in this series of posts. Burden rates generally range from about ¼ to ½ of the employee’s salary for office-based businesses but can go up much higher for industries that have more equipment or supplies required, such as in manufacturing and healthcare.

 

So, once you know the average compensation for your prospects’ employees and their typical burden, you can quickly calculate their FTE rates. For example, someone who makes $100,000 annually and has a 1.5x burden has an FTE rate of $150,000. Simple arithmancy!

 

Are there other numbers or “constants” you should know? Yes, most likely, and these will depend on the nature of your offerings and your prospects’ industries and locations. In the world of chemistry (my background), one can expect that a typical traditional bench chemist can complete about one experiment per working day (depending on the type of chemistry, of course!). You can probably find these constants for your situation in a few web searches. 

 

For more, see "Let's Talk About Value" starting on page 156 in Doing Discovery:

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

 

Annualize Your Value Statements!

How is 1 day per week worth 2 FTEs?

 

When communicating value, we need to present the largest reasonable figures. One simple way to accomplish this is to annualize our calculations.

 

Let’s say that during a discovery conversation, we learn that our prospect can save one day each week by implementing our software. We could leave it at that, but it isn’t very compelling!

 

On the other hand, if we annualize our finding, it amounts to about fifty days per year. That’s much more interesting: That’s nearly a quarter of an FTE (Full Time Equivalent)!

 

But wait: The prospect was simply describing one individual on a team, and it turns out that there are ten people all suffering the same issue. On a weekly basis this amounts to saving ten days for the team. Annualizing the calculation, we find that our prospect can recover 500 days annually. That’s a lot more! (Flick your wand and say, “Engorgio!”)

 

We glance at our prospect, a middle manager, and realize that they can’t really visualize what 500 days saved can mean. We say, “500 days – that’s a bit over two FTEs, so that’s like freeing up two members of your team to focus on other, more valuable activities.” Our prospect immediately “gets it” and starts thinking about other neglected tasks that could be addressed.

 

Annualize your value statements!

For more, see "Let's Talk About Value" starting on page 156 in Doing Discovery:

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