Remote Demos Team Practice

Here’s a simple, pragmatic tip: I have seen geographically distributed sales, presales and marketing teams use WebEx/GoToMeeting/Live Meeting (etc.) to conduct their weekly status/progress meetings on-line. This is a great way to build skills with the tools, with passing control among meeting attendees and practicing the use of the various annotation, white-boarding and other capabilities.

There is often a great deal of cross-learning that takes place – “Wow, I didn’t know WebEx/GoToMeeting/Live Meeting (etc.) could do that… Please show us how you do that!”

Remote Demos – the Role of the “Active Conduit”

[I'd promised to publish a more complete version of this some time after my initial post - here it is.  It is also available in article format as a PDF - send me an email at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com and I'll send it to you.]


The (very) best practice for Remote Demos is to split your forces – to have a representative from your organization at the customer site to serve as the eyes for the person presenting the demo remotely. The person at the customer site needs to be an Active Conduit of information to the demonstrator – he/she needs to be the demonstrator’s “eyes” on-site.

The lack of this Active Conduit feedback results in poor communication, confused presenters and audiences, and inconclusive results. Executing the role of the Active Conduit is critical to the success of Remote Demos – a passive representative from your company at the customer site is insufficient and a waste of resource!

For many vendors it is the sales person who typically sits with the customer at the customer site. Next best, if you cannot have one of your representatives present, is to ask your champion or coach to be your “eyes” for the meeting.

Here’s a brief list of the items that need to be communicated by the person at the customer site to the remote individual:

Before the demo:

1. Arrive at the customer’s conference room 15 minutes before the formal meeting is scheduled to begin to get things set up and operating correctly:

a) Start the collaboration tool (e.g., GoToMeeting, WebEx, Live Meeting, etc.) session on the customer side.

b) Help test and confirm screen resolution issues – “Yes, I can see your mouse across the full diagonal and we’ve maximized the screen here on the receiving end”.

c) Help test and confirm audio – “Yes, I can hear you fine… Here, let me move the conference phone microphones to better positions so that you can hear us better.”

d) Help test “latency” – “Looks like we have about a 2 second delay right now…”

2. Plan for managing questions – “Can you please plan to capture questions in a Word document from your laptop during the session?”

3. Review any other pre-meeting plans or issues.

During the demo:

1. Alert regarding “latency” – “Looks like you are about 3 seconds ahead of what we are seeing here… You may need to slow down.”

2. Somebody new arrives at the meeting – “Before you go on, we have a new participant in the room…” [And to ask the three questions:

a) What is your name?

b) What is your job title?

c) What would you like to accomplish during our session today?]

3. Somebody leaves – “Just to let you know, Bob had to leave the meeting….”

4. Unspoken questions – “Hang on, it looks like Jennifer has a question [furrowed brow, raised hand, look of confusion, etc.].”

5. Inability to hear – “John, let me repeat that question for you…”

6. Manage and alert during side conversations – “Hold on, we have a side conversation going on about the capability you just presented…”

7. Provide “color” commentary, as appropriate, e.g., “I want to let you know that they are all smiling and nodding their heads…!”

After the demo:

1. Debrief with the customer – face-to-face feedback provides nuances often missed via the phone.

2. Listen for “casual” conversations – what else are the audience members saying about the demo, the product, the company…

3. Afterwards, communicate this information back to the balance of the selling team.

You can train your own representatives to execute these items – or your champion/coach – by reviewing this list with them ahead of your demos. Following these practices will improve the outcome of your Remote Demos markedly!

Demo Self and Team Improvement Suggestion

Participants at Great Demo! Workshops often note that they rarely have a chance to see one another deliver demos to customers – to see and hear how colleagues present, and manage questions and situational challenges – and that this cross-exposure is often one of the most interesting outputs from Workshops.

Here’s a simple (but surprisingly effective) recommendation: schedule to do at least one “ride-along” on another team member’s demo each quarter. Ride-alongs can be done face-to-face or, much less expensively, via a remote demo using WebEx, GoToMeeting, or similar tool. The folks who participate in these sessions should also schedule time for a mutual debrief discussion: “What do we do well; what could we have done better?”

Some presales managers also include this idea as a quarterly

Pre-Filled Login Dialog – Fewer “Clicks” and No Errors

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a demo begin with, “Now I’ll log into the application…” – followed by one or more rounds of typing, correcting, being rejected (miss-entered login or password), followed by more typing (much more carefully the second – or third – time around)! I often suggest to start your demo already logged in, as a result.

However, many applications will time-out and require you to log in again if you don’t start your demo rapidly enough after introductions, etc. Here’s a simple solution to minimize the typing seen by the customer and to reduce the risk of login errors: enter your login and password – but don’t click on “login”. Simply leave it so that you have only a single click to login once the demo “proper” begins. Nice!

RFP – Acronym Alternative

Just heard at a recent Great Demo! Workshop:  RFP = “Request For Pain”.

A Cure for Zippy Mouse Syndrome

Record a few of your demos using Camtasia (or similar tool) to track your mouse movements – play them back and be prepared to be shocked...! Use what you learn to adjust and to slow your mouse movements down to make them smooth and d-e-l-i-b-e-r-a-t-e.

Remote Demos – the role of the “Active Conduit”

I note that the (very) best practice for Remote Demos is to split your forces – to have a representative from your organization at the customer site to serve as the eyes for the person presenting the demo remotely. The person at the customer site needs to be an active conduit of information to the demonstrator – he/she needs to be the demonstrator’s “eyes” on-site. Here’s a brief list of the items that need to be communicated by the person at the customer site to the remote individual:

Before the demo:

1. Arrive in the customer conference room 15 minutes before the formal meeting is scheduled to begin…
2. Start the collaboration tool (e.g., GoToMeeting, WebEx, Live Meeting, etc.) session on the customer side.
3. Help test and confirm screen resolution issues – “Yes, I can see your mouse across the full diagonal and we’ve maximized the screen here on the receiving end”.
4. Help test and confirm audio – “Yes, I can hear you fine… Here, let me move the conference phone microphones to better positions so that you can hear us better.”
5. Help test “latency” – “Looks like we have about a 2 second delay right now…”
6. Plan for managing questions – “Can you please plan to capture questions in a Word document from your laptop during the session?”
7. Review any other pre-meeting plans or issues.

During the demo:

1. Alerts regarding “latency” – “Looks like you are about 3 seconds ahead of what we are seeing here…You may need to slow down.”
2. Somebody new – “Before you go on, we have a new participant in the room…”
3. Somebody leaves – “Just to let you know, Bob had to leave the meeting….”
4. Unspoken questions – “Hang on, it looks like Jennifer has a question [furrowed brow, raised hand, look of confusion, etc.].”
5. Inability to hear – “John, let me repeat that question for you…”

Any others?

Dessert Tray – Terrific Example of Vision Generation

A waiter in a nice restaurant wants to sell desserts to a dining party at a table. Compare the following approaches:

Option 1: The waiter says, “Are you interested in dessert? We have some really nice ones…”

Vs.

Option 2: The waiter brings a tray of fabulous-looking desserts to the table, presents them for visual inspection to the dining party and says, “Are you interested in dessert? We have some really nice ones…”

Which approach will generate more sales of desserts? Why? How can we apply this to demos? (Hint: Think Illustrations and the “Menu Approach”)

Demo Calendar Madness

Many presales people find that they are often overscheduled with demos – I’ve heard numerous situations where demos are scheduled back-to-back. This can be particularly challenging for teams with highly transactional sales processes. Here’s some self-defense against Demo Calendar Madness (a horrifying affliction!):

Block your calendar with buffer time both before and after each demo.

[After you’ve said, “Duh…!”, allow me to continue…]

In my experience, sales people will hungrily consume all possible demo time from their presales counterparts. And any unoccupied calendar time is considered fair game. Sales folks often don’t know (or care) that the slot before their desired demo is a really tough two hour demo for one our your roughest prospects. They simply see the open slot – and grab it!

So, consider blocking 15-30 minutes ahead of any upcoming demo as your time to prepare – and another 15-30 minutes after each demo to debrief, decompress and restore your laptop/files/demo image to its normal pristine condition.

Your sanity will thank you for this…

Are You a Demo Expert? – Why Experts Should Feel Uncomfortable

That’s right. If you are a Demo Expert, you should be consciously uncomfortable. You should always be alert to find ways to improve your practice.

Some seasoned veterans – those with 5 or more years of experience – are often the least likely to change their ways. Many perceive themselves at the top of their game; many believe they are experts. They are the skeptics in many training workshops, the ones who arrive thinking, “I’ve been doing this for 10 years – what could they possibly teach me?”

Given the (shockingly) large number of demos that don’t achieve the desired objectives, is it possible that some seasoned veterans – the putative experts – are part of the problem?

 
[This is the intro to an article I just completed - it is too long to post in a blog - but send me an email PCohan@SecondDerivative.com and I'll send it to you...]

Public (Open) Great Demo! Workshop

[Warning: Shameless Self-Promotion Alert!]

Our next Public Great Demo! Workshop is scheduled for September 15, 2010 in San Jose, California, co-sponsored by SKMurphy (www.SKMurphy.com). This is a terrific opportunity for individuals or small groups to learn how to put Great Demo! ideas into day-to-day practice. An overview, agenda, location and pricing information is available here: http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/04/14/great-demo-workshop-on-sept-15-2010/.

Post-Demo Email Practices

What should you include in a post-demo email to the customer, beyond “thank you”?

Clearly, it should include any materials or information promised during the demo meeting – or, at minimum, a listing of the items promised. It should also, in my opinion, include any action items promised by the customer, along with the dates agreed upon for completion of both sets of items (vendor and customer).

A more “complete” version of a post-demo email can include a summary of the key capabilities that were demonstrated. This listing helps to reinforce the customer’s memory and can also serve as a vehicle to support vision generation, up-selling/cross-selling and out-flanking competition.

Additionally, I often suggest wording along the lines of “I’m glad we were able to invest the time together yesterday in our demonstration meeting…” as opposed to “Thank you for giving us your time yesterday”.

Any other ideas?

Getting CBI’s Right

I note that Great Demo! Workshop participants often write Critical Business Issue (CBI) statements for their Situation Slides that are too low level or too detailed – and that we need to remind them to think in terms of a job title’s quarterly, annual or project-based objectives. What is initially written as the CBI turns out to be the Reason/Problem.

A simple solution is to go online to find example job descriptions for target job titles – this is a terrific way to ensure that CBI’s are at the right level.

I just did this earlier this morning, when I felt a bit uncomfortable about the CBI I had written for a Payroll Manager. It only took a few minutes and now I’m confident I have the right verbiage for a good Vision Generation demo Situation Slide.

Very Interesting Demo – What Did You Like; What Could Have Been Done Better?

A colleague forwarded me this link to a recent video-recorded demo – it is about 10 minutes in length – and has some wonderful examples of good practices and classic demo challenges:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/08/how-to-pitch-a-product.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AVc+%28A+VC%29

[You might watch it first before reading my observations…]

Observations – What I Liked:

- Very engaging style and personable.
- Cool to see him writing code in front of the audience.
- Very cool to engage the audience (on both the “call the number” and “it is calling you…” segments).
- Clever set-up (“Turn your ringers on…”).
- Great interaction with audience.
- He is clearly enthusiastic and in love with his technology.

Observations – What Could Have Been Better:

- VERY interesting to hear audience question, “Why do you need it?”…! This is a fine demo for Early Adopters (most likely much of the audience in the video), but would be a failure for everyone else. In the demo portion, the presenter never explained what applications his app could be used for!
- Should have increased his session time-out time so that he didn’t have to log in again…
- Should have used a 518 number at first (rather than finding that there were no 212 or 646 numbers available…).
- Should have tested his AT&T connection and/or used another phone that did work.
- He noted that a pile of apps are available (~85) but didn’t cite what any of them do…

The moderator, at the end, asked for an example of a use-scenario for the application – and the presenter finally offered one brief example (voting by phone).

In summary, a wonderful demo for technical early adopters but, potentially, a failure for most others. Comments?

Methodology Workshop Trainees’ Three Typical Groups – Coaching Suggestions for Managers

Participants completing training workshops tend to cluster into three rather distinct groups (based on our experiences with Great Demo! Workshop and other workshop trainees):

- Group 1: Those who “get it” and put the ideas into practice right away

- Group 2: Those who understand the concepts and are interested, but need encouragement to try out the new methods

- Group 3: Those who don’t care and aren’t going to change (“no-how, no-way…”)

Group 1:

The first Group generally leave Workshops motivated, willing and able to put the ideas into practice right away – they may even seek opportunities to try out the new methods as soon as possible. They are typically confident enough in their own capabilities to move forward on their own.

Coaching members of this group is easy and a delight: support their efforts, highlight their successes (extremely important), and promptly respond to their questions as they encounter new situations or challenges. Enable this group to lead the way and establish credibility for the new method and ideas. Publishing their successes both within the team and beyond is a key tactic to achieve this. Managers who hold weekly team conference calls will often use these calls as opportunities to poll for success stories and to address questions.

Group 2:

Members of this Group often like the ideas and are interested in trying them out, but may lack sufficient confidence to try them out in front of customers. They need to be gently (but firmly!) pushed, pulled and encouraged. Success stories coming from their peers (initially from Group 1 members) is one of the strongest ways to help Group 2 people move forward. Proactively harvesting and publishing successes (both verbally and in various written formats) from others is a critical step in achieving substantive implementation, particularly for Group 2.

Group 2 people can also be encouraged to “pick one idea and try it” – as opposed to putting an set of methods into practice. Success with one idea often

Managers often also use quarterly or annual objectives to drive Group 2 member behavior. For example, in Great Demo! methodology, many managers establish quarterly objectives for presales team members to harvest one or more Informal Success Stories per quarter, and/or to publish one or more Situation Slides and accompanying Illustrations to their peer group on a quarterly basis. Both of these objectives drive the behaviors needed to achieve methodology implementation.

Group 3:

Sigh. In a typical normal distribution of people there will nearly always be a few percent who simply won’t change, in spite of encouragement – even in the face of specific quarterly objectives. Members of this Group may or may not understand the concepts from the training – they simply don’t/won’t change the way they operate. They will often articulate this as, “I’ve been selling/demoing/marketing for 20 years and nobody can tell me how to do it…!”

Coaches and managers of Group 3 people generally are left with two options… If the employee is consistently achieving the key objectives (e.g., achieving sales quota if he/she is in sales), then the employee may be allowed to simply continue to produce. If the employee is not generating the desired output, it may be time to help them find a new position…!

Phone Numbers and Conference Call Code Numbers – Terrific Examples of Chunking/Consumable Components

Recently, I noticed that I often insert spaces in conference call entry codes – and suddenly realized why I do this..! For example, I received a calendar appointment for a conference call with the following information [numbers are scrambled to protect the innocent]:


Phone Number: 800 692-5505

Meeting ID: 8931271475

Just before calling in to join the session, I quickly edited the Meeting ID number by adding a few spaces:

Meeting ID: 893 127 1475

This edited version is, in my opinion, much easier to read and to enter on my phone. Why? Because the large, unwieldy number has been cut down into small, consumable components. Interestingly, phone companies already know this – and typically present phone numbers pre-formatted into similar small chunks. It’s another terrific example of other industries re-affirming Great Demo! concepts…!

Demo Methodology Implementation Tip

Many teams that have undergone Great Demo! training use their weekly team calls to help drive implementation – and report that this small tactic has yielded rich rewards. They use part of these calls to share success stories, discuss challenges, and review demo methodology components or tips that have worked particularly well.

In the case of Great Demo! Workshop participants, they often discuss Situation Slides that are proving to be reasonably homogeneous, they share Illustrations that have been particularly effective, and outline “Do It” and “Peel Back the Layers” pathways, in addition to discussing other tips and techniques.

From time-to-time, it can also be useful to have the trainer participate in these calls, as well, to help answer questions and address new challenges that team members have encountered (I do this on request, as part of my deliverables).

Sales Effectiveness Priorities

The recent CSO Insights report on Sales Management Optimization includes a very interesting finding:

In the section, “Sales Effectiveness Priorities Going Forward”, the results showed that “Improve Ability to Show our Strategic Benefit/Value” was top of the list – 34% of respondents rated this as their number 1 item and 68% included it in their top 3.

I’ll pose a question: How much of achieving this is embodied in presenting demos?

(And I’ll answer it…) In Great Demo! methodology, the value associated with the customer making the change from the current state to the desired future (aka the Delta) is a key component that needs to be uncovered and clearly articulated as part of the demo.

This is an area where many sales, presales and marketing organizations could clearly do better!

In traditional sales presentations and demos, the sales team often verbalizes something like, “…and using our offering will save you time and money…!” Participants of Great Demo! Workshops learn to uncover specific, tangible ways of articulating value, enabling selling teams to present information that is more concrete: “…and using our offering will enable you to redeploy 3.5 FTE and reduce your inventory by $275K on an annual basis.”

Which statement has more impact?



[The full CSO Insights Sales Management Optimization report can be purchased at http://www.csoinsights.com/Publications/Shop/sales-management-optimization]

Should Presales People Do Detailed Statement-of-Work Documents?

Question:


“Our company does something I have never heard of: The SC [“Solution Consultant” – our presales title] does a deep and detailed Statement of Work (SOW) for each serous prospect. The prospect typically never sees anyone from Professional Services until after the sale. Our company likes this approach – SC’s are perceived, by customers, as very detail-oriented and technically strong people, so they are trusted. The downside is that SC’s often spend a full week working on the SOW alone - which is not scalable.

Our company is now working to double in revenue in the near term. I’m concerned that we can't survive like this when the deal flow picks up. Have you ever encountered SC’s doing this level of real SOW’s?”

Answer:

Yes, I've actually seen a number of companies do extensive SOW (or similar name) work prior to a sale for each customer. The companies that do this work tend to enjoy very high win rates vs. their competition and comparatively high customer satisfaction and retention rates. It is a great approach for dealing with offerings that require a fairly intense implementation process (system set-up, data migration, customization/configuration, etc.).

The downside(s) are exactly what you note: it is very resource intensive AND there is an enormous requirement for excellent documentation and communication of the SOW information within the vendor's team (e.g., presales to professional services and customer service). At one level, this is the essence of good CRM practices (as opposed to simply a sales forecast system).

It this process scalable? Not really - you need to have a sufficient complement of pre- and post-sales people to support the required/desired sales project bandwidth, so "scaling" often means adding people.

What can be done to improve the process? A few things, possibly:

- Some of the information currently collected in the SOW process may not be material - this could be cut out of the process. You may have to look at a broad range of implementations to determine what could be cut out, however.

- Boilerplate: Good boilerplate text and structure for SOW's can save a great deal of time and effort in documenting the information. It might even get to the level of pre-defined items with check-boxes or similar to help speed the process. Take a look at how doctors document their diagnosis information as an example...

Any other recommendations or suggestions?

Real-Time vs. Time-Slice

Nice positioning/distinction I heard recently: What’s the difference between a dashboard and a report? Dashboards offer “real-time” views; Reports offer a “time slice”.

Great Quote

“It is easier to extract your own molars than to extract information from this system!”

(And imagine the visual image this suggests…!) A colleague offered this comment when talking about trying to find specific patents in the US PTO database – but you can simply fill in the blank with your product/system of choice…

How Do We Write vs. Read Journal Papers? And What Does This Have To Do With Demos?

[Note: Skip this post if you have never read a scientific, engineering, or other “refereed” journal article…)]

Consider: How do we write journal papers in comparison with how we consume what others write?

Scientists are typically taught a process to draft papers for scientific and other refereed journals. We review the existing research in an arena, focus on a specific problem area and explore the relevant history. After careful thought (hopefully!), we form a hypothesis. We then define an experiment to test our hypothesis, execute the experiment and, if the results are interesting, draft a paper to publish what we’ve learned.

We generally draft the paper following a step-by-step process:

1. Discuss the general problem, the previous work and existing thought.
2. Offer our hypothesis, with some level of support, and introduce our general plan to test our thinking.
3. We outline the experimental plan…
4. We discuss the specifics of the procedure, materials, and conditions.
5. We present the results, often in an initial “rough” set of data followed by “refined” results.
6. We offer a discussion of what we believe we are seeing in the results and…
7. Finally, we offer a conclusion – often followed by recommendations for follow-on experimentation.

Interestingly, the last thing we often draft, forced on us by the journal publishers, is the Abstract.

Now, consider how we read journal papers:

What do we do first? We read the Abstract! Why? To see if the paper is interesting to us. If it is, we often jump directly to the Conclusion section – to find out what was learned. If we are very interested, we then go back and read other parts of the paper…

Sadly, many of us with science or related backgrounds prepare and deliver technical, marketing and sales presentations following the same strategy that we follow to write papers: we develop a long, detailed story that puts the pay-off at the end – forcing the audience to wait 20 minutes, 40 minutes (or longer!) to find out if they are interested.

The key concept of Great Demo! methodology is to “Do the Last Thing First” – and, if the audience is interested, then peel back the layers in accord with the audience’s depth and level of interest. This maps very closely to the way we read (but not write) journal papers!

Demo Skills Assessment - Do It Now

Some people suggest that delivering a terrific demo is an art. While there may be components of creating and presenting demonstrations that are intangible, many other demo skills can be measured. Multiple measurements done over time provide an understanding of strengths and growth opportunities; and, of course, measurements done by yourself may offer differ from those done by others!

 

[If you already agree that demo skills assessment is a good thing, you might cast your eyes to the bottom of this post where I offer an assessment tool in Excel format for your use.]

I recommend performing an assessment of your current state of practice on a regular basis. A first assessment provides a baseline; subsequent reviews can offer insight into areas of strength or opportunities for improvement:

If you are an Individual Contributor:

• To provide a qualitative/quantitative set of measurements of your own performance for goal-setting, personal growth and to seek coaching in areas where you can improve
• In order to compare pre- vs. post-Workshop results, if you plan attend a Great Demo! Workshop
• In order to compare pre- vs. post-event results, if you plan to attend other related skills training (presentation skills, sales skills, etc.)

 If you are a Team Leader:  

• To provide a qualitative/quantitative set of measurements for managing performance, goal-setting and coaching of your team
• In order to compare pre- vs. post-Workshop results, if you plan to provide your team with a Great Demo! Workshop
• In order to compare pre- vs. post-event results, if you plan to provide your team with other related skills training (presentation skills, sales skills, etc.)

In some organizations, assessments are done on a regular basis (quarterly, for example) and are often tied to quarterly or annual goals and objectives. There are (at least) 5 assessment perspectives worth considering:

• The individual’s view of his/her own performance
• His/her manager’s perspective
• Another member of the selling team’s viewpoint
• A customer’s assessment (it is tough to get unvarnished opinions from customers, but terrific when you can!)
• A relatively disinterested 3rd party deeply skilled in assessing demo skills performance across a broad range of demos types, sales situations, and delivery mechanisms (e.g., me).

You are welcome use my existing Demo Skills Assessment to help “kick-start” your own assessment process. It provides a range of skills and topics rated on a 10 point scale, on either an individual or team basis, in Excel format. Contact me at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com if you’d like to receive a copy. You are also welcome to edit the Assessment as desired for your own specific situation.

Memory Embedding – And Its Impact on Demos

What are a few of your oldest memories? Interestingly, many people describe swimming at the beach or swimming lessons when they were very young children as some of their oldest and yet most strongly retained memories. Why is this?


It has been suggested that the strength of long-term memory is at least partly due to the degree of “embedding” that is done by our brains. Embedding includes repetition of the memory and the number of senses that were involved in the original event, plus the emotional impact of the event. For a swimming experience as a young child, then, it isn’t surprising that the memory can be strong. Consider the senses involved for child at a swimming class in a pool:

• Sound: The sounds of splashing water, other kids yelling, the instructor’s directions…
• Sight: The vision of the pool and water, especially the distorted effect of what is seen under water…
• Touch: The feel of the pool water, churning, bubbles…
• Taste: The taste and texture of the pool water…
• Smell: The smell of chlorine and sun-block lotion….

 

Add to that other emotional components that might also be in play: the sense of accomplishment of your first lap across the pool; the desire to show your mother/father how well you can do; the fear of sinking… The sum is quite a compelling range of input which may all serve to embed that memory strongly.

An early visit to the beach may yield even stronger memories and embedding:

• Sound: Waves breaking on the beach, sea-gull calls, kids yelling…
• Sight: The ocean above water, the murky green underwater, breaking waves and foam, sand, birds…
• Touch: The cold water swirling up your legs, waist, shoulders; a wave breaking over you; foam around your legs; the hot sun overhead; the sand under your feet and the weird stuff you feel (shells, kelp…)…
• Taste: Salt sea-water, the grit of sand in your mouth…
• Smell: Sea-shore smells of ocean, decaying sea-weed and kelp, sun-block lotions…

Again, add to these senses the other emotional components: the accomplishment of your first forays into the surf; the fear of sinking, sharks, and other scary sea things…! It is not surprising that many people describe similar scenes as some of their strongest early memories.

What does the mean for software demos? It suggests that the more embedding that occurs during the demo, the more likely the audience will remember the demo. Most demos impact only two senses: sight and sound. The use of physical props and multiple pathways to embed ideas (stories, analogies, examples) – as well as emotional embedding (things that are perceived as fun, fearful, or fantastic) may help increase the strength of the retained memory of your demo.

Remote Demos: Turn Off Cell Phone (fer cryin’ out loud…!)

I’ve heard this happen 3 times in the past 2 weeks, so I guess it needs to be said: Remember to turn off your cell phone before beginning a Remote Demo…!