Great Demo!

Monday, July 13, 2026

A New Metric for Discovery Call Effectiveness?

A simple yet illuminating assessment!

Reviewing Discovery Calls with AI Summaries

A quick assessment of noun-verb pairs or the first few words in each summary section can be very enlightening:

- The more summary sections that describe the prospect’s situation, the better the call.

- The more summary sections that describe the vendor’s capabilities, the worse the discovery call.

Good calls have phrases like:

Prospect is seeking…

Current issues include…

Current challenges include…

Data is stored…

Prospect aims for…

Prospect aims to…

Prospect shares…

Prospect details…

Prospect detailed…

Prospect desires…

Prospect describes…

Prospect envisions…

Prospect mentions…

Prospect clarifies…

Prospect confirms…

Prospect needs…

Prospect expresses…

Prospect explains…

Prospect notes…

Prospect prefers…

The discussion…

Goals include…

Prospect highlights…

Prospect prioritizes…

Prospect currently…

Prospect uses…

Prospect is…

Prospect has…

Prospect is looking for…

Prospect inquired…

These phrases may also be indicators of good calls:

Vendor recaps…

Vendor confirms…

Poor calls include phrases such as:

Product is presented as…

Product offers…

Product is…

Product can…

Vendor introduces…

Vendor positions…

Vendor explains…

Vendor explained…

Product originated as…

Company originated…

Company is…

Vendor highlighted…

Consider a metric: The “Prospect:Vendor Statement Ratio” defined as the number of desires identified by the prospect vs the number of pitches by the vendor. Clearly, a good discovery call will have more prospect statements than vendor declarations.

Calculating the percent of prospect statements vs vendor statements can yield a rough but potentially illuminating metric.

For example, a call that shows 9 sectional summaries where 2 are prospect statements and 7 are vendor statements yields 22%:78% – that’s a pretty bad discovery call!

On the other hand, a call with 6 prospect statements and 3 vendor statements is quite a bit better: 67%:33%.

Of course, analyzing the full transcript may yield even more intriguing results, but I love that you can just scan the AI summaries and come to a rapid conclusion about the effectiveness of the call!

I’m sure this can be refined further… Thoughts?

Thursday, July 9, 2026

How Chunking Improves Demos – Part 8: Pro Tip – Apply Inverted Pyramid!

"The inverted pyramid doesn't bore the reader. It gives them what they want straight away.”

– The Writing Cooperative

Inverted Pyramid, developed by newspeople, organizes and presents information in alignment with how people want to consume it. The most important material is presented first, followed by the next most significant, and so forth.

This enables consumers to explore in as much depth as they desire, without getting bogged down by details. We can (and should!) apply this same approach to demos. Executives only want the headline and the lede; middle managers continue for another paragraph or two, and staff members often want the details.

In demos, you can apply Inverted Pyramid in two dimensions:

1. Across the entirety of the demo: Which chunks are most important? Which are secondary? Which can be left out? Inverted Pyramid helps you organize the overall structure of a multi-segment demo to align with your prospect’s interests.

And if you don’t already have your prospect’s priorities from discovery, you can use the Menu Approach to accomplish this on the fly.

2. Within each chunk: This enables your audience to explore each topic in as much detail as they have interest.

This demo structure models a news website (or for the ancient, a newspaper!). The headlines and photos enable you to choose which articles you want to consume. Many of us pursue some articles just that far: the photo and headline. That’s all we want to know.

For other articles, we read a bit further to get more context and development of the topic. And for a few articles, we read most or even all of the text (I hear this most frequently with sports topics!).

Also note that news services offer a Menu of their content: National, International, Politics, Business, Health, Entertainment, etc. The Menu lets you rapidly access the topic(s) of greatest interest to you.

There you go: Organizing in bite-size chunks and applying Inverted Pyramid make your demos surprisingly crisp, compelling, and successful!

Resources:

Why Structure Demos Like a News Article?

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

The Menu Approach – A Truly Terrific Demo Self-Rescue Technique

https://greatdemo.com/the-menu-approach-a-truly-terrific-demo-self-rescue-technique-3/

Bite-Size Is Better:

The Power of Chunking in Software Demos

https://greatdemo.com/bite-sized-is-better-the-power-of-chunking-in-software-demos/

How Chunking Improves Demos – Part 7: Can You Improve Your Chunking Practices?

https://greatdemo.com/how-chunking-improves-demos-part-7-can-you-improve-your-chunking-practices/

Great Demo! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

- Chunking – page 239, 249

- Refresh – pages 327, 371, 375

- Props and Visual Aids – page 376

- The Water Bottles Story – page 313

- The Menu Approach – page 285

- Inverted Pyramid – page 16

- Online Demos – page 306

Short Stories as Chunks!

Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales,

and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

How Chunking Improves Demos – Part 7: Can You Improve Your Chunking Practices?

Of Course!

"Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak."

– Epictetus

Analyze your demos in terms of the number of Speaker Switches and the length of time between Speaker Switches.

If you see just a handful of Speaker Switches in your demo, then you are overstuffing your prospect, like our previous food analogies. If the duration between Speaker Switches is six or eight minutes or (gasp) longer, you are at risk as well.

Your target should be three or four minutes; even shorter is better. This helps your audience stay engaged and pay attention.

The more Speaker Switches, the more you have enabled a real conversation to take place.

The more your prospect is asking questions, offering comments, and sharing observations, the more successful your demo.

That’s your objective, a rich, bidirectional conversation!

Practice delivering demo chunks that fit within these constraints and remember to conclude each chunk with a summary.

Next: Pro Tip – Apply Inverted Pyramid!

Resources:

Bite-Size Is Better: The Power of Chunking in Software Demos

https://greatdemo.com/bite-sized-is-better-the-power-of-chunking-in-software-demos/

How Chunking Improves Demos – Part 6: What IS a Good Chunk in a Demo?

https://greatdemo.com/how-chunking-improves-demos-part-6-what-is-a-good-chunk-in-a-demo/

Great Demo! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

- Chunking – page 239, 249

- Refresh – pages 327, 371, 375

- Props and Visual Aids – page 376

- The Water Bottles Story – page 313

- The Menu Approach – page 285

- Inverted Pyramid – page 16

- Online Demos – page 306

Short Stories as Chunks: Suspending Disbelief:

A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories

(and Lessons Learned)

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

How Chunking Improves Demos – Part 6: What IS a Good Chunk in a Demo?

“Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head”

– Bernard Kliban

The steps required to complete a simple task is a good candidate for a chunk. Accordingly, a chunk could be as short as a single mouse click, if that’s all that is needed to complete the task: That’s a great chunk!

Completing a typical workflow is also a good candidate for a chunk. But avoid driving yourself into the weeds by presenting “if” and “or” options.

For many SaaS applications, working within a single tab or module provides the outer frame for a chunk. When you move to a new tab or module, you are likely entering a new chunk.

Generally, the shorter the chunk the better. When executing any task or workflow in a demo, think in terms of how your current customers complete them: They use the fewest number of steps or clicks. No extra steps.

Another way to comprehend this is to remember the way you execute your required tasks on a daily basis. Do you add any unnecessary steps when you are working to get things done? Likely not!

Need to update the CRM after a call? That’s a chunk and you complete it with the fewest steps possible. File an expense report? Same process and that’s also a chunk.

Finally, consider breaking up long workflows into logical chunks. Handoffs, between people, systems, or tasks, represent ending and beginning new chunks.

In Great Demo! methodology, presenting a Situation Slide is a chunk. Presenting an Illustration is a chunk as well. And a Do It pathway is also a chunk, as are each Peel Back the Layers pathways. And note that the methodology prompts you to provide a summary and/or confirmation exchange at the close of each of these.

Now it’s time to put these ideas into practice and assess how you are doing.

Next: Can you improve your chunking practices?

Resources:

Bite-Size Is Better: The Power of Chunking in Software Demos

https://greatdemo.com/bite-sized-is-better-the-power-of-chunking-in-software-demos/

How Chunking Improves Demos – Part 5: Attention Retention!

https://greatdemo.com/how-chunking-improves-demos-part-5-attention-retention/

Great Demo! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

- Chunking – page 239, 249

- Refresh – pages 327, 371, 375

- Props and Visual Aids – page 376

- The Water Bottles Story – page 313

- The Menu Approach – page 285

- Inverted Pyramid – page 16

- Online Demos – page 306

Short Stories as Chunks: Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

Monday, July 6, 2026

How Chunking Improves Demos – Part 5: Attention Retention!

“It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so.”

– Mark Twain

Studies have shown that when presented with a list of ideas or facts, humans tend to remember the first one or two items quite well. They also recall the last element moderately well.

However, the balance of the list is remembered quite poorly. This suggests that each chunk should focus on no more than three specific ideas.

Even more concerning is how people “remember” information that was never presented! In these same studies, participants frequently invented or synthesized information on their own, yet believed that it had been presented.

Reducing the length of chunks helps to combat this, as does summarizing the (three) key points you want people to remember from each chunk.

Next: What IS a Good Chunk in a Demo?

Resources:

Leveraging Attention-Retention Curves in Demos

https://greatdemo.com/leveraging-attention-retention-curves-in-demos/

Monty Python “Three shall be the number…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IOMNUayJjI

Great Demo! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

- Chunking – page 239, 249

- Refresh – pages 327, 371, 375

- Props and Visual Aids – page 376

- The Water Bottles Story – page 313