The Menu Approach: A Few Important Subtleties

Not all votes are *ahem* equal!

 

When counting votes, remember that businesses are not necessarily democracies, and all votes are not necessarily equal! For example, if there is one C-level person in the room, and she is the only one who wants “Marketing Campaign Execution,” that topic moves (magically and mystically) to the top of the list.

 

Similarly, you can choose to bias the presentation (and subsequent scoring) of topics up or down in accord with your current understanding of your prospect’s situation: “Many of the other customers we’ve worked with in very similar situations to what you’ve shared with us so far found that the topic of “Analytics and AI Insights” was most important. They were able to save months of otherwise wasted effort as a result of what they learned. How many of you are interested in this?”

 

Finally, when you complete a topic, you can use strike-through text to show that it has been completed, giving you and your prospect a written record of what was completed and what is still open:

 

-       Analytics and AI Insights – 12 

-       Forecast and Pipeline Reporting and Inspection – 11 

-       Workflow Automation – 10 

-       Opportunity Management and Coaching – 7 

-       Improving Contact Management – 5 

-       Marketing Campaign Execution – 4 

-       Enablement Support – 4 

 

Pro Tip: Be Prepared!

 

Do menus need to be implemented on-the-fly?

 

Successful practitioners of The Menu Approach recommend having a menu (or two or three) previously prepared. Their starting point is to create an “uber menu” that includes a fairly long list of topics spanning the full set of expected audience member job titles, markets, verticals, and applications.

 

Next, they generate subset menus that are aligned with specific verticals and likely prospect interests. These get tuned over time to improve, add, or remove specific menu items. It’s like a restaurant, constantly seeking to improve their own menus!

 

And along those lines, draft your individual topics as solution phrases or problem statements, rather than lists of features.

 

 

If you missed the first or second posts, you can find them here: 

https://greatdemo.com/the-menu-approach-a-truly-terrific-demo-self-rescue-technique-2/ 

 

https://greatdemo.com/the-menu-approach-an-example/ 

 

 

And see “Origins of The Menu Approach: A Demo Survival Success Story” in Suspending Disbelief for a real-life successful example of The Menu Approach! https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy)

The Menu Approach – An Example!

More on a Truly Terrific Demo Self-Rescue Technique

 

You’ve been asked to present a demo to a prospect team of dozen people, about which you know very little. Instead of taking the prospect on a painful and boring Harbor Tour demo, you start by presenting a list of topics that you believe may be of interest. 

 

For a CRM system, a typical list of “menu items” might look like:

 

-       Improving Contact Management

-       Analytics and AI Insights

-       Workflow Automation

-       Opportunity Management and Coaching

-       Marketing Campaign Execution

-       Forecast and Pipeline Reporting and Inspection

-       Enablement Support

 

You say, “Here is a list of some topics we could cover. Let me describe each of these briefly and then I’ll ask for a show of hands, and each of you can vote for as many topics as you wish.”

 

At the end of the exercise, your list might look like:

 

-       Improving Contact Management – 5 

-       Analytics and AI Insights – 12 

-       Workflow Automation – 10 

-       Opportunity Management and Coaching – 7 

-       Marketing Campaign Execution – 4 

-       Forecast and Pipeline Reporting and Inspection – 11 

-       Enablement Support – 4 

 

You then re-order to yield a list that is rank prioritized in accord with your prospect’s interests:

 

-       Analytics and AI Insights – 12 

-       Forecast and Pipeline Reporting and Inspection – 11 

-       Workflow Automation – 10 

-       Opportunity Management and Coaching – 7 

-       Improving Contact Management – 5 

-       Marketing Campaign Execution – 4 

-       Enablement Support – 4 

 

Wow! You just accomplished several, truly terrific things:

 

1.     You’ve uncovered the prospect’s most important issues (they’re at the top of the list).

2.     You have a roadmap for the balance of your demo.

3.     You can organize your time to ensure you address the high-importance topics first (and it’s OK if you don’t have time to cover everything on the list). 

 

This third item also takes advantage the Inverted Pyramid structure, a fabulously successful method that enables you to align with your prospect’s depth and level of interest for the topics.

 

Additionally, you may have also expanded your prospect’s vision of what solutions and solution areas your organization can provide. It is possible that your prospect was previously unaware that you have solutions across this range of topics.

 

Give The Menu Approach a try!

 

Next: A Few Important Subtleties…

 

 

If you missed the first post, you can find it here: 

https://greatdemo.com/the-menu-approach-a-truly-terrific-demo-self-rescue-technique-2/ 

 

 

And see “Origins of The Menu Approach: A Demo Survival Success Story” in Suspending Disbelief for a real-life successful example of The Menu Approach! https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy)

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

  

Have you ever been in a situation where:

1. You find yourself in front of an audience about which you know nothing of their needs or interests – and they’ve been promised a demo?
2. You are asked to join a web session, right now, and the salesperson says, “They asked to see a demo…” (and again, you have zero information about the prospect)?
3. Someone walks up to you at a trade-show booth and says, “What do you guys do?” or “Show me a demo?”

If so, let me introduce you to a delightful self-rescue technique for situations like these: It’s called The Menu Approach! It is a logical, simple and surprisingly effective method for dealing with situations where you don’t know much about your audience and your audience doesn’t know much about you.

 

Hungry?

 

Imagine joining colleagues at a nice restaurant that you’ve never been to before. You sit down and a few moments later a waiter appears and asks, “What would you like?”

 

You have no idea what they offer, so you respond, “What do you have?” The waiter says, “Well, we have lots of choices: appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, drinks, and desserts.” The waiter repeats his question, “What would you like?”

 

You are both making no progress and it is very frustrating! 

 

This is the same situation as in demos where neither party has a clear idea of the other’s desires or capabilities. The result, in many cases, is a stunningly awful Harbor Tour.

 

Want a much better solution? Use a menu! A menu presents a high-level listing of the range of offerings.

 

In our restaurant scenario, the waiter says, “Here, let me get you a menu…” The menu provides a rapid way for the diner to assess what is possible, what sounds good, and what items or dishes to consider.

 

In demos, we can apply the same principle. Simple, elegant, and highly effective.

 

Tomorrow: An example!

Pivoting in Demos: Humans vs AI?

 

The ability to react and pivot in demos is often a key success factor.

 

Can humans pivot more effectively than AI-automated demos?

 

Can AI-automated demos pivot more effectively than many humans?

Do You Suffer from Platypus Demos?

 

The platypus has often been described as being “designed by a committee.” Many demos suffer similar challenges as they try to embrace the needs of too many players and options.

 

If your demo attempts to satisfy the needs and interests of multiple job titles and disparate sets of needs, you’ve got a Platypus Demo! You’ll end up satisfying no one and making your product look confusing, complicated, and even user hostile.

 

Instead, take a page (OK, it’s a chapter!) from Great Demo! and organize your multiple-player, multiple-solution demos so they align delightfully with your audiences’ specific interests.

 

How? Break your demo into “chunks,” bite-size pieces focused on one job title at a time.

 

And consider: The more user types or job titles your software serves, the more this principle applies! Typical CRM systems, for example, seek to embrace the needs of (at least!) 13 different job titles (can you name them?).

 

Back to the platypus… The "designed by a committee" label is because of the animal’s patchwork appearance that combines features from multiple animals: it is a venomous, egg-laying mammal with electroreception capabilities, a duck's bill, otter-like feet, and a beaver-like tail, leading 18th-century scientists to believe it was a stitched-together hoax.

 

Personally, I’m a platypus fan – they are fabulous creatures (but I’m not a fan of Platypus Demos)!

 

See Chapter 16 “Multi-Solution, Multi-Player Demos” here:

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

 

And learn more about the platypus here!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus# 

Assessing Discovery Skill Levels: Level 5!

This element of discovery results in deal expansion: Level 5 is all about Vision Reengineering.

 

Prospects don’t know what they don’t know…!

 

Frequently, prospects are unaware of what is possible with your offerings. Their understanding is limited to the information that you have made publicly available, which is almost certainly a subset of what your product(s) can do!

 

For example, in a discovery conversation the vendor asks the prospect to describe or share an example of a report currently in use. After viewing the report, the vendor realizes that it is lacking certain capabilities or possibilities, and explores these with the prospect:

 

Vendor notes, “It looks like you have a good basic view of the what’s working and what’s not in these reports, but they are static, if I understand correctly. Would it be useful or interesting to be able to drill down to find the root causes, right from the report?”

 

Prospect responds, “Wow, yes that would be terrific – that would save a lot of time…!”  (How much time savings should then also be explored here.)

 

Our vendor has now proposed an improved version of the report, and the prospect has agreed this would be better. This is one example of Vision Reengineering: Going beyond your prospect’s initial vision of a solution.  

 

The ability to execute this kind of Vision Reengineering is a Level 5 skill.  

 

But wait, there’s more!

 

Level 5 with a Differentiating Twist

 

Vision Reengineering is also an opportunity to outflank competition.  

 

Continuing the conversation, our vendor realizes that they have a relevant capability that is not matched by the competition and introduces it using a Biased Question:

 

Vendor notes, “Many of our other customers, in similar situations to what you’ve described so far, found it very useful to have these reports sent automatically to the consumers via an email link – but only when there was a problem to be addressed. Our customers report that they didn’t waste time accessing reports when there were no issues – in some cases, they reported saving several hours every week. Is this a capability you’d also like to have?”

 

Prospect answers, “Wow – yes, that would be really helpful for us as well…!”

 

Vendor offers, “Great – let’s plan to include it in the demo…”

 

Here, our vendor rep has introduced the alert-based capability – a key differentiator – and turned it into a Specific Capability that the prospect wants in their solution.  

 

Folks operating at Level 5 not only reengineer vision but also outflank their competition.

 

 

Wondering about the other Levels? See the full article here!

https://greatdemo.com/assessing-discovery-skill-levels-how-does-your-team-rate/ 

 

Want to improve your discovery skills?

 

Books:

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

 

Upcoming Public Workshops!

https://greatdemo.com/events/