Disappearing Mouse in PowerPoint

Many people note, with annoyance, that the mouse cursor disappears after a few seconds when showing a presentation – and complain that you have to “shake” the mouse to get it to reappear. There is a fix for this…

In PowerPoint Slide Show mode, the cursor shows briefly, for about 5 seconds or so, and then disappears. This is the native operation for PowerPoint. To make the cursor show continuously, in Slide Slow mode move your mouse to the bottom left of the screen to show the Pencil-like icon (you may have to hunt a bit to find it) and then click on it. It will bring up a small menu with “Arrow Options” at the bottom. Choose this (“Arrow Options”) and then “Visible”. This should keep your mouse visible as long as you stay in Slide Show mode…

Screen “Background” for Demos

Many people’s laptops have photos of children, pets, or favorite vacation locations as the “backgrounds” of their screen.  While sometimes interesting, they may also be distracting or even (occasionally) embarrassing for the presenter.  One solution is to change the background to either a completely neutral screen (e.g., default Windows or Mac background) or to use the customer’s web home page. 

Speaking Clearly

It is hard to speak clearly and without ambiguity;

It is harder to decipher unclear and ambiguous speech.

‘Twas the Night Before The Big Demo

‘Twas the Night Before The Big Demo

(with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

  

‘Twas the night ‘fore the demo and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, ‘cept my SC and his mouse;
I’d proposed a big licensing deal with great care
In hopes a big order soon would be there;

Management was restless and not in their beds
As visions of bonuses danced in their heads;
And my VP with his forecast and me with my own,
Had just started a long EOQ roam,

When out from my mobile there came a great ring-tone,
I sprang from my chair to answer my phone,
What could it be? Was it good news or no?
A last-minute order? A contract? PO?

Greetings, said my assistant, who spoke on the line,
It was someone to see me, offering help at this time!
Who could it be at this late eleventh-hour,
To make the deal sweet and avoid something sour?

Away to the door I flew in a flash,
And swept it open in my quest for fast cash,
When who to my wondering eyes should appear,
The DemoGuru! And standing so near!

He came in my office and, while dusting off snow,
Said, “I have some news that you’ll want to know.”
He drew up a chair and asked for some tea,
And said to my VP, SC and to me:

“Your deal is in trouble and I’ll tell you now,
Your demo’s confusing, complex and lacks ‘Wow!’
It’s riddled with features and functions and more,
And too many cool things, mouse clicks galore,

Don’t flog them with features and other neat stuff,
Stick with the substance, stay away from the fluff,
The more that you show is not always nice,
Customers may say, ‘Please lower the price!’

The Buzzword-Compliant Vocabulary list,
Are words, I’m afraid, that are better-off missed,
Not Flexible, nor Powerful, nor Easy-to-Use,
Not Robust, nor Seamlessly Integrated abuse,

And no corporate overview, please don’t do that,
After ten minutes they’re grabbing their hats,
Present as a team, so if things get hairy,
Sales folks aren’t lost in the back with Blackberry.

Your customer’s queued and ready to go,
They love the vision you’ve built with them so
They want Technical Proof in the demo you’ve planned,
Just the key capabilities, everything else banned.”

“But how can we do this?” I heard myself cry,
“We’re victims of momentum, we’re nervous to try,
Another approach, a new way to go,
We have to admit we’re just a bit slow!”

“Do the Last Thing First!” he said with a smile,
“Then peel back the layers, and Do It with style,
Peel it back in accord with their interest,
Stay focused and execute, and you’ll find it best,

Your customer’s Situation is a great way to intro,
Their Reasons and needs, from CBI flow,
Review these and check – is this still the case?
Are we aligned or are we off-base?

Start with the end, that big pay-off piece,
Illustrate and describe, those are the keys!
Capture their interest, compel their attention,
Make sure it aligns with their mode of consumption.

When it clicks and they’re hooked, they’ll then ask for more,
There’s absolutely no way that they’ll head for the door,
They’ll say, “Please show us, prove that it’s so,
Show us the rest, please do demo.”

Then Do It, just Do It, with no extra clicks,
To return to that Illustrative image that sticks,
Make it simple, make it fast, make it easy and clear,
Then they will realize they’ve nothing to fear,

Encourage their questions, most are not new,
Good ones and Great ones and Stupid ones too,
Treat Hostiles with courtesy, use your Parking Lot so
Those mean, nasty folks can’t damage your flow,

Peel back the layers, Do It Again,
Show only what’s needed, put nothing else in,
Let them drive the demo, let them think they’re in charge,
While their Vision Solution you work to enlarge!

Summarize, summarize, tell them again,
‘Cause adults do learn by repetition,
And when you show a key take-away screen,
Leave it up, let it linger, so they’ll know what they’ve seen!

“I get it – I’ll do it!” exclaimed my SC,
“This is all so obvious, it’s way clear to me!”
And he sprang into action, his mouse flew like lightening,
(Frankly, his speed was a little bit frightening!)

And with that the DemoGuru smiled and he said,
“Your way is now clear, put that baby to bed,
Your deal’s now on track, your order secure,
You’ll make your numbers at the end of the year,

Then he strode from my office in a blink of a pun,
Turned ‘round and he said, “My job here is done,”
Ere he drove out of sight, I did hear him say,
“Great Demo! to all and to all a Great Day!”

Copyright © 2005-2010 The Second Derivative – All Rights Reserved.

How Do Customers “Score” Scripted Demos?

It can be very interesting to compare how different customers score scripted demos in general – and it is important to understand how your customers are planning to score your upcoming scripted demos…

There are at least three scoring methods that are typically used:

1. Efficacy: How well does the vendor’s offering match the requirements – often done on a 5-point or 10-point scale.
2. Ease-of-use: How easy does it appear to use to accomplish each task – again often done a 5-point or 10-point scale.
3. Counting Clicks: customers often count the number of clicks or steps required to complete particular tasks – often as a way of normalizing and removing some level of subjectivity.

Some customers will subtract “points” for not following the proscribed script or other perceived deviations from their process.

Any other scoring methods you’ve come across?

What’s the Difference Between a Business Issue and a Critical Business Issue?

If you have ever “lost” business to “No Decision”, the following may be one reason:

All of us have “Business Issues” that we face every day – and that we do nothing about. “My laptop is slow, my cube is small, the commute traffic is terrible…” and so forth. We just live with these Business Issues. We may not like the status quo, but we don’t take action. A Critical Business issue is one that we are willing to address through the application of tangible resource – time, people, or money – to get it fixed or solved.

Here’s a wonderful example of the difference:

How long would you continue to drive your car with a slightly annoying squeak coming from the front wheels? A few days? A week? Month? Longer? Very few people will take their car to have the squeak diagnosed right away. Many more will do nothing, unless the squeak gets (markedly) worse. Others won’t do anything until something overt (and most likely bad!) happens… It is simply another “Business Issue” as long as the situation doesn’t change.

On the other hand, what if the brake warning light came on or the squeak changed to a horrible howl? Most people would get their car looked at right away, even if it meant taking time from work or home life, and spending a few hundred dollars for the repair. That’s because the issue is now critical – a Critical Business Issue!

Many sales opportunities go to “No Decision” because the customer didn’t consider the problem to be sufficiently important to address – it wasn’t perceived as a Critical Business Issue.

Encrispen

I’d like to propose a new word: “Encrispen” and suggest defining it as “the process and action of making something crisp, clear and focused”. It is the essence of a Great Demo!

If you were trying to communicate this idea to others, what words or images might you use? Here are a few starters:

Words:
- Crisp
- Concise
- Pointed
- Quick
- Focused
- Clean
- Swift
- Short
- Get-to-the-Point
- Brief
- Succinct
- Terse

Images:
- A camera lens (expressing focus)
- A crisp handful of paper money folded in half
- Origami items, similarly crisply folded
- A raft of razor-sharp pencils
- Potato chips (“crisps”, in the UK)
- A raptor focused on its target
- A vanishing point (an empty subway tunnel that vanishes to a point…)
- The business end of an X-acto knife
- A dart about to strike a dart-board dead-center

What other words, images or ideas might you suggest?

Buying an ERP System – Recommendations for Customers

A recent checklist from Inside-ERP (“ERP To-Do Checklist: Things to Ask Before You Write That BIG Check To A Vendor”) included four items that really resonated with me:

“What are the specific business problems you need to solve with ERP? For instance, do you need to shorten product lead times or improve communications with your suppliers? Are there industry regulations to which your company must adhere?”

Sounds very much like statements of CBI’s (Critical Business Issues) or underlying Problems/Reasons, used in creating Situation Slides for demos.

“What are the goals and metrics that you will use to measure the business benefits of your organization’s new ERP solution? A good starting point for these metrics are the KPIs — such as inventory accuracy, cost reductions and month-end closing processes — that your company is already tracking.”

Wonderful examples of possible measurements of the Delta – the value of making the change.

“What features and functions do you need from a new ERP solution that will help increase users’ productivity and provide access to the business data users most need?”

Simple statement of the Specific Capabilities needed.

The fourth recommendation promoted the idea of an implementation timeline – Transition Vision – and the concept of Early Wins “to allow you to implement them in phases... Taking the implementation in prioritized steps gives IT managers and ERP users a chance to learn new processes.”

“That’s Too Bad…”

A number of years ago I was part of a sales team presenting a demo to a large prospect in Houston (no names…). Things were going great – the end-users were loving the software and management heads were nodding in agreement.

The prospect’s IT manager asked, “Can our users store their data locally, in addition to on corporate server?”

Our presales guy, who was presenting the demo, quickly responded, “Yes, absolutely. Users can download and save datasets locally on their laptops in a few simple steps. Here – let me show you…” And he did.

The IT manager then said, “That’s too bad… We have a strict policy of no corporate data on local machines. We won’t be able to use your software…!” [Ouch!] A sad example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory… What should the presales person have done?

Before jumping to answer “Yes!” (and rushing to demo the feature), he should have asked, “Why do you ask – what are you looking to accomplish?”

Making the Complex Seem Simple

In many demos, vendor software offerings are perceived by prospects as being “too complex; too complicated”. One of our objectives is to avoid this perception: Instead of making the simple look dangerously complex, we want to make the complex look wonderfully simple (while having great potential depth).

This is a key idea in Great Demo! methodology – and the “Do It” pathway is one example of how to achieve this. Another is to avoid words like “if” and “or” when presenting demos. What else can be done to help improve the perception of being wonderfully simple, yet with depth when needed?

New YouTube Great Demo! Videos

We’ve posted 4 new videos on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/PCohan.  The first three are testimonials from our recent Great Demo! Public Workshop (September 2010) and the fourth is an interview done by DreamSimplicity (www.dreamsimplicity.com) at the same event.

Remote Demos – What If the Host Isn’t There?

What if you have been scheduled to join or present in a Remote Demo, but find that the host is late and has not started the online meeting on time? (Has this ever happened to you?)

One simple solution is to ensure that the host grants alternative host rights to a second person (e.g., you) so that you can start the meeting even if the host is late. This is a current capability in many of the online collaboration tools (e.g., WebEx, GoToMeeting, etc.).

What Happens If You Peel Back the Layers Too Far?

A colleague once noted that Peeling Back the Layers is like peeling the layers of an onion – if you peel it back too far, you cry.  At a recent Great Demo! Workshop, a participant added that if you continue to peel, you not only cry but you’ll find you have nothing left!

Great Demo! Example of Using Prop/Technology

A recent Great Demo! Workshop participant presented a demo to a large audience using a wonderful prop/technology combination – she used a webcam to show the live use of an iPhone application.  While there are very nice emulators that could have presented the app, using a webcam from her laptop to show the live video of her hands and fingers running the iPhone was very compelling.  It had everybody’s attention riveted!

What’s the Opposite of “Dumb-it-Down”?

Frequently, I hear Great Demo! Workshop participants comment that their software is often perceived as too complex, as overkill for many prospects – and that they need to “dumb-it-down” in their demos.  I’d like to suggest that an alternative, potentially more apt phrasing could be to “Smarten-it-down”…! 

“How Many Sales People Work for You?”

When asked, “How many sales people work for you?”, a VP of Sales replied, “About half of them…”!

“What would happen if you do nothing?”

Far too often, sales opportunities result in losing to that most common of all competitors: “No decision”. During a discovery or qualification discussion, the question “What would happen if you do nothing?” is an excellent way to test the importance and impact of a situation – and to determine whether the business issue is sufficiently important to the prospect to pursue.

A follow-on question could be, “Would that be acceptable to you?” if the answer is “Yes”, then the business issue is likely not a Critical Business Issue – and would have a strong probability of resulting in “No decision”.

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”)