How Many Mouse Clicks Are in Your Demos? Beware the Horrors of Click Fatigue!

  

Perform and record your typical demo and count the mouse clicks. How many clicks were there?

 

10-25? Bravo for you!

50? OK…

100? Oh oh…

200? Ugh…

300? Ouch!

500? Zzzzzzz….

 

Each additional click makes your software look more and more complicated, confusing, and hard to use. 

 

Evaluate your demos: If you click an average of once every 10 seconds, then in a 1-hour demo your prospects will see 360 clicks. Every click you execute is tacitly asking your prospect to remember that action, but humans have a very limited capacity for short-term memory. That’s a lot to remember! It’s tiring and it causes “Click Fatigue!”

 

Very simply, the more clicks, the more confusing and complicated your software will appear to your prospect. To paraphrase Sting in an old song,

 

“Every click you make, 

Every tap you take…” 

 

is making your software look harder to use and putting you at risk of Buying It Back.

 

In Great Demo! methodology we say, “Use the fewest number of clicks to execute every demo pathway!” 

 

Ask yourself, “Am I really presenting our software in the best possible way? Am I really using the fewest number of clicks?”

 

You’ll find many more pragmatic tips and practices in Great Demo!

Doing Discovery – The Importance of “Why” Questions

    Prospect asks, “Can your software do X?”

 

    Vendor replies, “Yes, absolutely.”  

 

I can’t tell you how many times that brief conversation has occurred without any followup questions from the vendor! What’s missing? 

 

Asking “Why?”

 

Far too often vendors execute discovery by simply asking questions about the prospect’s needs, without asking any clarifying questions. This is a huge lost opportunity!

 

Let’s review the conversation again, this time with a more engaged vendor:

 

    Prospect asks, “Can your software do X?”

 

    Vendor replies, “Yes, absolutely – but tell me, why is this important for you?”

 

    Prospect responds, “Oh, it’s really difficult to do today. It’s largely a manual process that takes hours and it is a key requirement for us.”

 

    “I understand,” says the vendor, “How often do you have to do this – and what else does it impact…?”

 

The conversation continues with two intriguing outcomes:

1. The vendor gains a much richer understanding of the prospect’s situation along with the associated value of a solution.
2. The prospect feels the vendor has much richer understanding of their situation, making the prospect much more comfortable about working with that vendor. 

“Why” questions are delightful triggers. Don’t miss these opportunities in your discovery dialogs!

 

You’ll find many more tips and practices in Doing Discovery!

Consistency of Passion: A Unique Attribute?

  

I’ve encountered numerous presales folks who say they are deeply passionate about what they do. That’s both terrific and desirable. However, I’ve also heard some of these same people claim that presales are unique in this regard.

 

I disagree. The best organizations have a consistency of passion, sometimes for a common goal, but very often for the specific practices of each team member. For example, implementation and professional services people can be just as passionate about seeing their customers successfully transitioned into production use. Customer success folks similarly focus passionately on seeing happy customers who renew, expand, and extol the virtues of the vendor. Passionate accounting folks strive to excel in making and collecting precise payments on time and correctly allocated. I’ve met people in inventory management and shipping who were equally passionate about their inputs, outputs, and workflows.

 

I’d hypothesize that some of the most successful companies see productive passion in every part of their organizations! Thoughts? 

Demos and Cooking Shows Part 4: “We Eat with Our Eyes First”

  

Compare: a blob of stew plopped onto a plate vs that same preparation ladled carefully into a large, artistic bowl, sprinkled with snipped greens, and framed with a graceful garnish. Which looks more appetizing to you?

 

In nice restaurants, a dish is plated carefully to make it look as delicious and appetizing as possible, and the waiter “sells” it when they present it to the customer. “Madame, here you have your free-range, organic, macro-chaotic, non-GMO young salad greens; they were grown in our own special garden, nurtured daily with lute music and gentle leaf massages; lovingly and tenderly selected and picked moments ago, and washed in pure Tahitian rainwater. Enjoy!”

 

The waiter is making the dish look and sound as delicious as possible. We can (and should!) similarly “sell” the key screens and deliverables in our software demos to make them appear as appealing and valuable as possible. We do this by communicating three ideas:

 

1.     “What” your audience is seeing in the screen: Describe it!

2.     “How” it enables your audience to solve their business problems: Make the connection!

3.     “How Much” value it can deliver for your audience: Make it tangible!

 

“We eat with our eyes first.”

 – Apicius

 

Make your demos yum!

 

You’ll find many more pragmatic tips and practices in Great Demo!

Webinar – Seven Validated Habits for Stunningly Successful Demos!

 

\Wednesday September 25 at 11:00 AM Eastern, 8:00 AM Pacific, 17:00 CET

Register Here! 

 

“You've prepared, you've practiced, you've poured your heart into your demo... and still, no sale. What gives? Peter Cohan, author of Great Demo! and Doing Discovery has analyzed thousands of demos to answer this specific question.

 

Join us on September 25, 11:00 AM ET for a conversation with Peter, where he’ll reveal the seven data-based success factors that turn ordinary demos into deal-closing machines.

 

If you joined us for Peter’s previous webinar on Successful Discovery, you already know he’s all about delivering practical tips you can start using right away. 

 

You'll learn:

 

·      The common pitfalls of traditional demos.

·      How to craft demos that speak directly to your prospect's needs and vision.

·      Seven essential habits that drive demo success.

·      Actionable techniques you can apply to your very next demo - instantly.

 

Let’s turn your prospects’ “maybe” into a definite “yes” 👍 – Register here!”

Are We Really Getting Better? A Sobering Analysis of Presales Practices!

 

“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
– Leonardo da Vinci

 

This article is for all of us who are experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect, have experienced it, or will experience it. And if you aren’t concerned, you should be!

 

What’s in This Article?

• A Story and a Harsh Lesson
• Competency, Complacency, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect
• Seven Levels of Skills – Before and After
• Four Stages of Learning
• Outflanking Dunning-Kruger
• A Summary and a Challenge! 

A Story and a Harsh Lesson

 

I will immodestly state, while simultaneously suffering from and defying Imposter Syndrome, that some years ago I was the “go to” person for our organization’s demos. If it was an important opportunity, it was “Call for Cohan!” I flew across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific delivering thousands of demos to prospects, customers, partners, and third parties, and enjoyed unrelenting accolades from my sales colleagues. Very frequently my demos “sealed the deal!”

 

I was at the top of my game. My demos were smooth, polished, precise, and practically perfect (or so I thought)! Until…

 

You’ll find the rest of the story here – enjoy!

Demos and Cooking Shows Part 3: Time Warping!

How long does it take to roast a turkey? Can you imagine a cooking show that made you wait hours to see the completely roasted bird? Nope!

 

Instead, they cook one turkey ahead of time and leave it in a warming oven. They have a second uncooked turkey that they’ll use to demonstrate the process during the show.

 

Cooking show chefs often use two ovens or pots/pans and prepare two instances of the recipe to warp time. They start their show by presenting the mouth-watering, beautifully plated, completed dish to engage the audience and generate interest to learn more. That’s the pre-prepared bird in our example.

 

Next, the chef walks through the cooking process’ key steps. For a turkey, they clean, season, and stuff the bird using pre-prepped ingredients, then slide it into an oven. They finish the show by pulling the already cooked turkey from the oven, plate it and enjoy!

 

You can apply the same idea in demos that have very long workflows or kick off processes that take a substantial amount of time to complete. Show the completed process and/or deliverables first. Then start the long workflow, but don’t follow it to completion. Just show enough for your audience to get the gist of what is involved. Finish by jumping to the end and show the completed process or deliverables again. Let your audience decide if they want to see more details.

 

It’s a very effective approach: It’s like cooking two birds with one demo!

 

You’ll find many more pragmatic tips and practices in Great Demo!

Demos and Cooking Shows Part 2: Nobody Wants to Watch You Chop Vegetables

 

Consider: You never see the chef chop onions on-screen! Instead, all the ingredients have been prepared ahead of time and made ready to use in bowls.  

 

You can (and should!) do the same in your demos!

 

Most vendors’ demos step through every possible aspect of a workflow, consuming as much time as is available. This is the demo equivalent of preparing and chopping onions, celery, carrots, peppers, etc. It’s boring and adds little or no value.

 

Instead, choose the fastest route through your workflow to complete it. Let your prospect decide if they want to explore the details. 

 

For long processes, consider preparing segments ahead of time that enable you to jump over the time-consuming segments. Alternatively, you can verbally describe them and again let your prospect decide if they want to see more. 

 

After all, what happens when you spend too much time chopping onions? You cry!

 

You’ll find many more pragmatic tips and practices in Great Demo!

Demos and Julia Child: What Can We Learn from Cooking Shows?

Julia Child brought French cooking dishes and methods into American households in the last century (1963-1973 or thereabouts) in her entertaining and educational cooking shows (see this link for an example). We can take away several clever ideas from cooking shows that can be applied to the wonderful world of demos.

 

Go find a recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon and DON’T look at the picture(s) – here’s one (no peeking!). Instead, read through the recipe ingredients and instructions and try to decide if the recipe looks interesting. 

 

Only then look at the picture of the completed dish. Which approach is more compelling: The finished product or the preparation process? (Hint: It’s the finished product!)

 

Flip the Script, Literally!

 

Cooking shows start by showing the completed dish, plated and ready to be served, beautifully delicious. They show us the result of the recipe, the “what,” and then they invite us to learn “how” it is done. The balance of the show takes us back to a logical beginning and guides us through the steps to complete preparation and plating of that appealing, delicious dish.

 

We can apply the same idea to demos by using Great Demo! Illustrations (the “Wow!” screens) to whet your audience’s appetite. This is the idea behind “Do the Last Thing First!” If the end result looks intriguing, then your prospect gets engaged and may want to see “how” that terrific end result can be generated.

 

Bon appétit!  

Tell Your Prospects “It’s OK to say no…”

Most people, as prospects, don’t want to say “no” to sales teams. We are typically more comfortable to say “yes” to small steps than to stop the process, even if we never intend to purchase their product.

 

This is a serious time sink for both prospects and vendors!

 

Consider the following engagement:

 

-       A prospect reaches out to a vendor asking to see a demo.

-       An overview demo is delivered. The prospect doesn’t see the offering as a good fit but doesn’t say so!

-       Vendor asks, “What did you think?” and prospect responds, “It’s OK…”

-       Vendor says, “Well, let’s organize a deep dive demo for you – how is next week?”

-       Prospect responds, “Um, sure…” 

-       Vendor preps demo.

-       Next week comes and vendor presents a deep dive demo.

-       Vendor asks, “What did you think?” and prospect responds, “Well…”

-       Vendor says, “What you like to do a trial or a POC?” and prospect responds, “Well, OK…”

-       Vendor sets up a POC.

-       Vendor and prospect run the POC over a few weeks.

-       At the end of the trial, Vendor asks, “What did you think?” Prospect responds, “Well, not really sure…”

 

This opportunity never closes and is eventually listed as a “No Decision” outcome. That’s a big investment for no change. We might call this a “No-No” as there was no definite “No!”

 

Even worse, sales teams are taught to “handle objections” in an effort to convince a prospect to continue this unproductive process. This opportunity was not going to close since the prospect didn’t see the product as a good fit, but was uncomfortable telling the vendor “No.”

 

So, what if the prospect had responded, “No, this doesn’t look like a good fit” after the first demo and the vendor elegantly responded, “I understand. I’m glad we were able to invest the time together. Perhaps we can revisit this as our product evolves and your situation changes…”

 

That would have spared everyone the time and other resources consumed in a mutually non-productive process.

 

Here’s a thought: Before pursuing “next steps” in a sales process, particularly if your prospect doesn’t seem compelled by your offering, consider saying, “If you’d like to continue this process, great. However, it’s also OK if you tell me ‘No, this isn’t a good fit at this time.’ That will help both of us…!”

 

Have you ever been uncomfortable saying “No…” to a vendor?