Stunningly Awful Demos – The Painful Irrelevance of Setup Mode

 

Stunningly Awful Demos – The Painful Irrelevance of Setup Mode

Or

How to Make Your Software Look Complicated, Confusing, Overwhelming, and Expensive

Or

How Setup Mode Is Destroying Your Demos!

 

A Never Stop Learning! Article

 

Vendor: “Programming this system is so simple a six-year-old could do it!”

Prospect: “Great: Find me a six-year-old!”

 

What’s in This Article for You?

 

-       An Astonishing Demo

-       A Few Thought-Provoking Questions

-       What Is Setup Mode?

-       Monday Morning

 

An Astonishing Demo

 

I watched a ninety-minute recorded demo and noted two rather astonishing things:

 

Astonishing Thing Number One:  

 

Approximately half of the demo was consumed by setup and configuration items, including setting up the environment, configuring the application, creating and editing templates, forms, reports, dashboards, etc.

 

This wasn’t astonishing on its own, perhaps, until…

 

Astonishing Thing Number Two:  

 

At the end of all this setup activity the vendor said proudly, “Of course, you won’t have to do any of this. We take care of it during implementation. It’s all done by our Professional Services team…”

 

Wait. What did you say?

 

You just spent forty-five minutes showing stuff your prospect will never need to use?  (Enter your choice of an appropriate exclamation of surprise and astonishment here ______.)

 

But wait, there’s more: A bonus Astonishing Thing!

 

(And you’ll find the answer here – enjoy!)