Another Face-to-Face Demo Tip: Not a Fan of Laser Pointers!

 

Why? Numerous reasons:

• There is a terrible tendency for presenters to circle the spot around and around and around, leaving the audience watching the moving spot as opposed to taking in the area on the screen.
• Most people cannot use laser pointers smoooothly and deliberately and instead have the laser spot whipping all over the place.
• They are often too bright, making it difficult to see the area on the screen.
• They don’t work well on many flat screen and TV displays (the displays have coatings that disperse the laser light, as opposed to direct reflection).
• Their batteries die just when you need them most.
• They are illegal in a number of countries, particularly the more powerful varieties.

Recommendations for pointing instead of laser pointers?

1. Use your hands: They travel easily, they are readily available, and can be used expressively. I also recommend the “Two-Finger” pointing method (or the Full-Hand method) for maximum precision and clarity.
2. Use a telescoping pointer: Again, easy to transport as well as to deploy, use, and return to a “ready” position. Also great as swag or a give-away item to the best performers on the team (some readers may recall the highly coveted Great Demo! emblazoned “Encrispenators”).
3. Use an old-school stick pointer: You are able to point smoothly and precisely, and they can double as a tool to whack audience members who get out of line!

An Occasional Daily Quote

 

“Don’t sell me a product, sell me an experience!”

  - Anonymous

“Two-Finger” Pointing in Face-to-Face Demos

Have you ever noticed how airline flight attendants point during their safety briefing? Most use the “Two-Finger” method. Why? Because it is the clearest method of pointing without the risk of offending people!

I recommend the same pointing method in face-to-face demos for similar reasons. Point precisely!

An Occasional Daily Quote

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”

- Leonardo da Vinci

Remarkable Demos: What Makes a Demo Truly Memorable?

A Never Stop Learning! Article

“I get paid to point, click, and talk…”

- A senior presales practitioner ruefully describing his traditional demos…

What’s in This Article for You?

• Why being boring is bad (as if this even needs to be said!)
• A SAD true story (SAD = Stunningly Awful Demo)
• Some basic practices for improved results
• A better baseline
• What about personality?
• Moving towards remarkable
• A collection of remarkable examples

Reading note: The ideas get more remarkable as you go deeper into this article…!

Boooooring…!

When was the last time you saw a demo that was really engaging, thought-provoking, or memorable?

As a vendor, how many times do you find that you are bored by your own demos (or your team’s demos)? After all, you’ve seen them over and over and over, with basically the same talk-track and sequence of steps.

Be honest: How many of us, in the midst of a colleague’s demo, are exploring something on the web or on our phones?

Even worse, contemplate your prospects’ perceptions as they listen to these same cookie-cutter demos, watching as the presenter methodically clacks the same clicks and plods the same paths they’ve followed dozens of times before!

You can find the balance of this remarkable article here. Enjoy! 

An Occasional Daily Quote

 

“The right word may be effective, but no word was as effective as a rightly timed pause.”

 - Mark Twain

An Occasional Daily Quote

 

“There are three types of people in the world: those who can count precisely and those who cannot.”

- Anonymous

Establish a Never Stop Learning Habit

The Great Demo! website Resources pages are packed with fresh ideas, pragmatic practices, insightful observations, and detailed studies providing you with unlimited access to over twenty years of thought-leadership on demos, discovery, and related disciplines.

Establish a habit to learn a fresh tip, acquire or improve a skill, or investigate an intriguing topic on a regular basis:

• Once a day: Invest just three minutes to read an intriguing Blog post – there are literally hundreds of tips, tricks, and ideas to explore that can advance your practices

• Once a week: Carve out ten-fifteen minutes to consume and contemplate the ideas in an engaging Article – here’s a selection from the dozens available to get you started:

Avoiding No Decision Outcomes

Let’s Talk About Value

Death by Corporate Overview

Uncovering Critical Business Issues

Rescue From the Tyranny of Traditional Demos

• Once a month: Grab your favorite beverage, settle in and enjoy a spirited and thoughtful Webinar or Podcast

• Once a year: Open your mind to a new journey and read one of our transformative Books

Let us know if there are additional topics you’d like to see addressed – and Never Stop Learning!

Origins of The Menu Approach: A Demo Survival Success Story

Origins of The Menu Approach: A Demo Survival Success Story

A Never Stop Learning! Article

“It’s a huge opportunity…”

• Inexperienced salespeople everywhere!

What’s in This Article for You?

• A fabulous set up
• A terrifying surprise
• An elegant solution
• An unexpected payoff

A Fabulous Set Up

Many years ago, I had been banished to Switzerland (OK, it was a delight!) serving in a combination of roles, including as a semi-super presales person for our recently released flagship product. One of our most experienced sales reps asked me to fly up to Uppsala, Sweden to “do a demo” for a major prospect on a certain date. We agreed to meet the evening before the demo at a restaurant to review the plan.

Tore G, our salesperson, was somehow unable to arrive that evening and left me a message to meet him the next morning at the prospect’s facility, about thirty minutes before the demo was supposed to begin. At this point, you (dear reader) have exactly the same discovery information that I had at that time: None!

The next morning, I arrived at the prospect’s entrance gate, went through security, and was escorted to the location where the demo meeting would take place. Interestingly, it was not a conference room, it was not a mid-sized meeting room; it was an auditorium already filled with 200 or more prospect participants.

I still had zero information from Tore about the plan for the demo and no idea about what to show.

Our flagship product was a rich toolkit that could do many things, ranging from databasing of pharma discovery information and research materials inventory to research intelligence and analysis and much more. I connected my laptop to the auditorium display system, tested a few of these applications, and let Tore know I was ready. I was still assuming that he had a plan.

A Terrifying Surprise

Two important notes:

First, the demo was scheduled to run from 8:30 AM to 12 Noon – three and a half hours.

Second, there were now about 250 people in the auditorium, all pharma research scientists across a broad range of job titles: medicinal chemists, synthesis chemists, bioassay, scale-up, metabolism and toxicology folks, and more. Each job title had their own specific needs and applications desires.

And I still had no info, no plan, and no agenda from Tore.

Precisely at 8:30 AM, Tore stood up and announced to the audience, “Good morrrrning ladies and gentlemen, I’ve brought my technical expert from California, Peter Cohan. Here he is!” And then Tore sat down…

You can find the balance of this story here – enjoy!

Face-to-Face Demo? Break Up the “We/They” Seating!

When you have multiple players from your team and the prospect’s team in the room, instead of taking seats with your team on one side of the table and the prospect’s on the other, mix it up! 

Why? While another member of your team is “driving” the demo, you are (literally!) positioned to quietly offer commentary and answer questions from the prospect player(s) immediately next to you. 

Bonus: You can often see your prospect’s notes and comments as they are writing them down!

Pro Tip: Position the highest-ranking person from your team next to the highest-ranking prospect player.

Do You Track How Much Discovery Is Done?

  

Are you? Can you? Should you? 

What would you learn if you do track it? What are you missing if you don’t?

Recommendation: At absolute minimum, track which elements of a Great Demo! Situation Slide are being captured adequately. Doing this will also help you understand (and reduce) No Decision outcomes!

The Doing Discovery book and Workshops provide skills, guidance, and the methodology to uncover what you need to complete Situation Slides, avoid No Decision never-endings, and outflank your competition.

Are You at the Top of Your Game?

 

I pity customer-facing folks who perceive themselves as “at the top of their game.” Why? Because that means there is only one direction they can go: down!

Never Stop Learning!

No Decisions: It’s not simply “the elephant in the room”, it’s an entire herd of elephants!

Gartner and others estimate that on average 45% of all forecasted sales opportunities end in a No Decision outcome. That’s an enormous consumption of resources! Would you like some of that time back in your life?

Check out this article and/or contemplate including an “Avoiding No Decisions” presentation at your sales kickoff or quarterly event.

“I’m not everybody…”

“I’m not everybody…”

That’s what a prospect senior manager said when responding to the vendor’s comment that “Everybody likes this feature…” during a demo.

There are over 8 billion people in the world, and each is an individual. Why would we expect that one type of discovery should fit all individuals? Why would we expect that one demo should fit all people?

What about narrowing the field based on “personas”? Well, that’s a start, but most organizations’ definitions of personas are too broad, too squishy.

Instead, take a page (or two!) from Great Demo! and Doing Discovery, and organize your population by Job Title coupled with Industry. This method provides surprisingly good homogeneity with respect to Job Title objectives, pains, and needs, and enables you to focus quite precisely while also embracing specific individual differences.

Doing a Great Demo! or Doing Discovery Book Club? Here’s an author offer!

 

I’d be happy to join a session with your team to answer questions or discuss examples. Please let me know if you are interested –  you can reach me at PCohan@GreatDemo.com. I can also offer suggestions regarding what has made book clubs particularly successful for other teams.

For example, I strongly recommend actually doing the exercises in the books! Why? Retention of ideas vs mode of consumption and practice reveals some very interesting results:

Reading: ~10% of what is consumed is retained

Seeing the idea(s) demonstrated: 30% retention

Discussing the idea(s): 50% retention

Putting idea(s) into practice: 75% retention (that’s by doing the exercises)

Teaching the idea(s) to someone else: 90% retention (best!)

Assessing Discovery Skill Levels – How Do You Rate?

 

A Never Stop Learning! Article

“80% of my team believes they do a good job with discovery, but sadly they do not. They don’t know what they don’t know…!”

 - Head of Sales

What’s in This Article for You?

• Assess your discovery skills level 
• The impact of insufficient discovery
• Discovery skills Levels 1-6 defined
• The importance of methodology
• And a medical analogy sprinkled throughout!

Initial Assessment

Many sales and presales practitioners say they are skilled at doing discovery, but are they? Are you? Here’s a simple method to assess, based on seven levels of increasing proficiency:

Level 1:  Uncovers statements of pain.

Level 2:  Uncovers pain and explores more deeply.

Level 3:  Uncovers pain, explores deeply, broadens the pain and investigates the impact.

Level 4:  Uncovers pain, explores and broadens, investigates impact, and quantifies.

Level 5:  Uncovers pain, explores and broadens, investigates impact, quantifies, and reengineers vision.

Level 6:  Applies these skills to the broad range of prospects represented across the Technology Adoption Curve, “burn victims,” disruptive and new product categories, transactional sales cycles, and other scenarios.

Level 7:  Integrates and aligns the skills above into a cohesive discovery methodology.

The Impact of Insufficient Discovery

Insufficient discovery is the leading cause of a multitude of addressable sales process errors and failures. 

For example, typical SaaS software vendors suffer No Decision rates at an average of 45% of their forecasted opportunities. That’s nearly half of the sales projects worked on each year that go … nowhere!

Similarly, vendors report that roughly 30% of all demos delivered were “wasted,” largely due to a lack of discovery. These are frequently “overview demos,” delivered to satisfy prospects’ desires to “see what’s possible.” (See Chapter 11 “Vision Generation Demos” in the Third Edition of Great Demo! for a delightful and effective cure to this problem.)

What is your current No Decision rate? What percent of your demos are wasted?

You can find the balance of this article here – enjoy!