Surprisingly Distracting Webcam Backgrounds

I was watching a webinar and noticed something surprisingly distracting…  Here’s a screenshot:  what happens when your eyes scan the video panes?

Did you find yourself (almost immediately!) reading the “360” or “dare to lead” in the lower pane and then scanning more of the book titles?  And did you also find yourself trying to read the text on the poster behind the presenter in the upper-left pane?

During the webinar, I realized I was unconsciously trying to read the book titles in the lower pane and the poster behind the person in the upper-left pane.  And, while scanning these, I noted that I wasn’t listening to the presenter – the poster and the books consumed my attention!  

The upper-right background, on the other hand, is very clean and simple, with only the one book title in view – easy to consume rapidly and then turn attention back to the presenter.  

Take a look at your real or virtual background – will your audience be paying attention to you or focusing on your background?

New Great Demo! Certified Coaching Program

We are delighted to announce that Kerry Sokalsky of Presales Mastery is now a Great Demo! Certified Coach – and has launched an innovative program for Great Demo! Workshop graduates.  This is a terrific opportunity to achieve superior execution of the Great Demo! methodology in a 1-on-1 setting:

“Retention of even the best sales training can wane over time if not regularly practiced and reinforced.  Presales Mastery’s Great Demo! coaching program reiterates and builds on the concepts learned in Great Demo! Workshops by evaluating and coaching participants on their use and execution of Great Demo! practices in demos to actual prospects.  In doing so, clients both protect and augment their training investments.

Participants are coached on multiple demos over a 3-month period using an online coaching platform (to share and retain feedback) and live coaching calls.  The coaching spans three primary areas:

• Detailed Demo Feedback: 15-30 points of feedback that specifically target the greatest opportunities for improvement
• The Great Demo! Performance Scorecard: Over 75 metrics track participant’s adherence and execution against the methodology taught in Great Demo! Workshops
• The Presales Mastery Demo Performance Scorecard: 95 demo best practices metrics across 13 categories objectively measure each individual’s detailed performance and coaching progress, and allow for performance comparisons across the team

Participants of the Great Demo! coaching program see enhanced retention and superior execution of the Great Demo! methodology over time as core concepts are reinforced and coached in the context of real-world demos delivered to prospects.  Clients’ improved demo performance typically results in win and deal progression rate improvements of 10%-20%.

At the conclusion of the coaching program, detailed analyses of scorecard data are provided for each individual participant and the entire team, providing clients with blueprints for future enablement, and objective data for use in performance reviews and evaluations.”

Contact Kerry for more details!

Some Observations – Exploring the Data in Consensus’ 2021 Sales Engineering and Workload Report

 

Consensus graciously provided me with access to the data in their “2021 Sales Engineering and Workload Report" – here are some interesting observations.  (You can find the full report here:  https://demo.goconsensus.com/2021-sales-engineer-salary-compensation-workload-report-registration )

 

Do larger average deals yield higher compensation?  

Yes for Practitioners; No for Leaders.

 

Deals < $1M 

Practitioners Base:      $112K

Leaders Base:              $154K

 

Deals >= $1M

Practitioners Base:      $132K

Leaders Base:              $142K

 

Deals < $1M 

Practitioners OTE (On Target Earnings):       $152K

Leaders OTE:               $213K

 

Deals >= $1M

Practitioners OTE:       $185K

Leaders OTE:               $207K

Moral?  It is a sellers’ market for experienced presales practitioners! 

Do larger deals require more demos?  

Yes, but not conclusively…!

 

Deals < $1M 

3 demos per deal median

Deals >= $1M

4 demos per deal median

Moral?  Not sure – perhaps vendors in doing more Discovery and preparation for the larger opportunities (resulting in fewer demos per dollar).

Do larger deals require longer demos?  

Yes, indeed…!

 

Deals < $1M 

2.5 hours per demo (prep, delivery, follow-up) per deal median

Deals >= $1M

5 hours per demo (prep, delivery, follow-up) per deal median

 

Moral?  Again, not sure, but I hope vendors are doing more pre-demo prep, in particular, as opposed to simply delivering longer demos…!

Fewer demos per week for larger deals?  

Yes…!

 

Deals < $1M 

4.4 demos per week average

Deals >= $1M

2.3 demos per week average

 

Moral?  Not surprising…!

Interestingly, the total time doing demos is about the same – about 25% of workload

 

Deals <$ 1M 

11 hours per week average

Deals >= $1M

11.5 hours per week average

 

How about unqualified demos?  

Nope – no apparent difference.

 

Deals < $1M 

30% average

Deals >= $1M

28% average

Moral?  Many SDRs, BDRs, and salespeople still suffer from “happy ears…”!  (The use of Great Demo! Discovery methods and Situation Slides could dramatically improve these numbers.)

It was really interesting to see that Discovery (far and away) is the area people want to invest more time doing for all deal sizes, but it was especially high for large opportunities.  

Deals < $1M 

432 vs. 361 (the next activity item on the list)

Deals >= $1M

33 vs. 21 (the next activity item on the list)

Moral?  Vendor teams know that doing Discovery is important, but likely (1) struggle to understand what information needs to be collected and (2) how to go about collecting it.  (Great Demo! Discovery methodology training could be a high-value cure for this…)

 

Questions I’d Love to Ask:

 

What percent of (presales) time is customer-facing?

What percent of time is consumed by Discovery?

What percent of time is consumed by demos?

What percent of customer-facing time is Discovery?

What percent of customer-facing time are demos?

What investments are being made to support these?

And overall, how are all of the metrics changing year-over-year?

 

Automated Demo Content - Webinar Recording Available

 

You’ve been asked to put together the content for an automated or recorded demo – where do you start?  What should be included? 

In this webinar we discussed specific strategies and tactics for creating the content for automated demos – starting from goals and objectives, through a range of sales, presales and marketing use cases, down to explicit details for the content itself.

You can access to the recording here.

Enjoy!

Automated Demo Content – Getting It Right

Webinar This Thursday – 10 AM Pacific Time / 1 PM Eastern Time / 7 PM Central European Time 

You’ve been asked to put together the content for an automated or recorded demo – where do you start?  What should be included? 

In this webinar we’ll discuss specific strategies and tactics for creating the content for automated demos – starting from goals and objectives, through a range of sales and marketing use cases, down to explicit details for the content itself.

Register here for the live session and access to the recording!

Two PreSales in a Pod – Podcast

From the Podsters:

“This week we are joined by the oracle of PreSales, Peter Cohan!

Peter joins Adam, Don and Mark to talk vision generation demos. This is a topic that is hot in PreSales right now. It's also got huge benefits if you embrace this topic and can drastically improve your results.

How do you avoid average repetitive demos? How does discovery fit with vision generation demos? What is Peter's favourite thing about UK restaurants?! The answers to this and more in this week's show.

As always, share with your friends and colleagues, follow the LinkedIn page, and give us a review on your favourite podcast platform. We really do appreciate your support.”

https://lnkd.in/dGzH6Bx

Presales Engagement Webinar with Success – Next Thursday

Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan will join Vik A of Success.app (formally known as Pudding) for a two-in-one webinar on best practices for demos and POCs.  

Traditional approaches to demos and POCs are no longer sufficient.  We’ll discuss validated best practices to help you improve your presales functions and results:

• What makes or breaks the demo
• Incremental vs step change in demo practices
• What makes or breaks a POC
• What the key metrics are for sales engineering teams

Thursday June 10 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (1:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM Central European) – register here to join the live session and/or receive a link the recording.  

And send us any questions or specific topics you’d like us to address…!

DEMOFEST Recordings Available Now

Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan and Julie Hansen presented the following:

Discovery and Demo Strategies and Tactics for Transactional Sales Cycles – Peter Cohan

Is it possible to complete an introduction, present a Menu and Vision Generation Demo, segue into a Discovery conversation, deliver a brief Technical Proof Demo, and execute a soft close in a single 45- or 60-minute call?

Yes!

In this session, we explored the strategy and mechanics to accomplish this…

You can find the recording here – enjoy!

Dramatically Increase Interaction in Virtual Demos – Julie Hansen

Virtual audiences are notoriously passive during demos. Blank faces stare back at you. Your questions go unanswered. As an SE, hearing only your own voice is painful and rarely leads to a successful outcome. In this session you’ll learn subtle shifts and hard tactics that encourage greater customer interaction and engagement in your virtual demos.

Key Takeaways:

• How to read customer body language on video
• 5 ways to get your questions answered
• How to organize your demo for maximum engagement
• Your Virtual Engagement Toolkit – and when to use it
• 3 tips for managing large groups

You can find the recording here – enjoy!

DEMOFEST Passes - With a Corrected Link...!

Scheduled for May 12-13, Consensus’ DEMOFEST looks like it will be bigger (and better), with three sets of parallel tracks.  Use this code for free admission to the full event (along with the recordings): df21cohan

Note that this code expires May 5…

You can find registration and the full agenda here.  Looking forward to seeing you there…!

Seven Skills Levels for Stunningly Successful Discovery – Webinar – April 22

 

April 22 at 9:00 AM Pacific Time, 12:00 Noon Eastern Time, 18.00 Central European Time.  Register for this webinar here!

Many sales and presales practitioners say they are skilled at doing Discovery – but are they?  Where are you on this progression?

We’ll discuss a simple method to assess, based on six levels of increasing proficiency, culminating in a seventh level – an integrated Discovery Methodology:

• 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 customers represented across the Technology Adoption Curve, including “burn victims”, disruptive and new product categories, highly transactional sales cycles, and other scenarios.
• Level 7: Integrates and aligns the skills above into a cohesive Discovery methodology.

In this webinar, we’ll explore each of these along with the potential impact on your sales, renewals, and expansion processes.  Looking forward to your participation...!

Great Demo! Virtual Public Workshop May 18-21 – North America

Our next North America Virtual Public Workshop will take place May 18-21 – you can find registration and additional information here.  Seats are limited…!  

The sessions will take place Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, May 18, 20, and 21.  You can also contact Julie Hansen for more details.

Demo Data – Another Angle

 

I’ve blogged about the need for demo data to reflect real-life problems and situations, including the ability to find and surface problems, identify opportunities, and explore exceptions.  I can add one more to the list:  the ability to identify certain gaps – when things that should be happening aren’t happening…

A real-life example of this recently happened to me, when I discovered that certain emails were not being delivered to me…!  This was only recognized via a phone call (thanks Dave) – and these situations can be easily overlooked.  We are much more likely to notice the appearance of something new than the absence of something occasionally expected.

This use case can be very insightful:  detecting and providing alerts when things aren’t happening as a change from previous patterns.  Sounds like a great opportunity for some AI tools!

“Customer Fill-in” – A Terrific Demo Tip

 

I was watching a series of demos that highlighted vendors’ customer-facing intake forms and portals – and all of these demos exhibited the following SAD (Stunningly Awful Demo) artifacts:

• The vendors claimed that end-customers can complete the process “in 5 minutes or less…”, but… 
• They turned the 5-minute workflow into 15-30 minutes of click and talk, click and talk…!
• They all used obviously fake demo names and data
• They covered many or most of the possible pathways and options, sometime exhaustively
• It was also obvious that the demonstrators presented the same demo pathway dozens of times
• The prospect was largely or completely silent through the entire process
• And the vendors never asked the prospect to provide input any into the workflow…

Here’s a truly terrific tip:  Invite your prospect to be the end-customer and fill-in the form by proxy, through you.

Let’s say your software offers an intake portal for consumers who want a loan.  You say to your prospect, “OK, let’s have you play the part of your customer.  Let’s use fictitious names and info as appropriate, but otherwise you tell me what to enter on each screen…”

On each new screen you can prompt your prospect or provide guidance, if necessary – but let him or her go through the process from start to end. 

Advantages?

• You and your prospect actually complete the intake form in 5 minutes (proving your original claim)
• Your prospect gains a first-hand vision of how the process works
• Your prospect thinks about desired options – and asks these questions either during or immediately afterwards
• And is your prospect engaged during this?  Yes indeed!

This approach is called “Customer Fill-in”.  

Any time there is an option to choose from (and you don’t care about the choice), invite your prospect to make the choice.  They’ll be engaged and develop a growing amount of ownership of the process and the result.  Delightful!

What is the significance of 33334?

 

That’s how many copies of Great Demo! have been purchased (not including those that have been resold or passed around).  This means that at least 33,334 people have been exposed to the Great Demo! methodology – but how many folks have actually changed their habits as a result of reading a book?

People and companies make claims about numbers all the time – for example, I’ve heard vendors claim:

• “We have 2500 customers…”  (But how many of these are actually happy, referenceable customers?)
• “We’ve trained 100,000 people…”  (But how many of these are actually applying the training?)
• “Our customers report 50% more productivity and 25% less waste…” (But is this most or many customers – or just one?)

Accordingly, I am curious:

1. If you’ve read Great Demo!, what kinds of improvements have you seen with your demos?
2. What ideas from the book have had the most impact for you?
3. And finally, what parts of the book would you like to understand more clearly – e.g., specific ideas or implementation with your software and sales practices?

Demo Data: The Importance of Problems, Gaps, and Exceptions

I was working with a vendor on an example demo and we identified a dashboard to serve as an Illustration (a “Wow!” screen for that use case) – but while the dashboard had all the right data elements, the data itself was uncompelling.  There were no problems, gaps, or exceptions exhibited.  Everything looked “OK”. 

While this could be a good example of a desired future state, it is insufficient to build vision of how problems are surfaced and solved.  

 

When you are creating demo data, be sure to include at least three sets of scenarios:

1. “Before” scenarios, where important problems are clearly represented;
2. “During” scenarios, where these problems can be shown being addressed;
3. “After” scenarios, where the history of problem(s) identification and resolution can be presented.

Even better, in addition to problem-based use cases, also consider including outlier situations – e.g., intriguing gaps in time-series, exceptions to otherwise regular patterns, and opportunities to be exploited.  

 

Bring your demo data alive…!  For more ideas on improving your demo environment, see our article on the topic at https://greatdemo.com/a-perfect-demo-environment/.  Enjoy!

 

Additional Note:  Even if your demo environment lacks this data today, there may be an easy way to “doctor” the data using one of the emerging demo enablement/automation tools.  Stay tuned for more on these new tools as they appear…!

Great Demo! Public Workshops

We are working on scheduling a number of Great Demo! Public Workshops in the next several months – please let us know if you have interest:

• How many people would you plan to include?
• What is the general location of these participants (e.g., the Americas, EMEA, Asia Pacific)?
• Do you have specific good or bad timeframes?

Note that this is in addition to the Workshop already scheduled for EMEA folks (April 7-9, 2021) - Click here for more information about this Public Workshop.

We will likely schedule sessions to run over three consecutive days (e.g., Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday).

Contact us at Info@GreatDemo.com with your preferences or if you’d like more information.  Thanks!

What If Your Demo Meeting Ends Early? Give That Time Back…!

 

A number of Great Demo! practitioners note that many of their demos no longer consume the time previously allocated for their demos – they ask, “What should we do with the remaining time?”

 

For example, let’s say you scheduled the demo meeting for an hour and you have completed everything you and the customer wanted to accomplish in the first 40 minutes – what should you do with the remaining 20 minutes?

 

Give it back…!  

 

There is nothing sacred about the unit of time called an “hour” – if you are done, and the customer has had everything they wanted in the demo addressed, be done.  

 

AND

 

Tell the customer, “That’s 20 minutes you get back in your day from ____(Insert your company name)...”  They’ll love you for this…!

Webinar Recording: Demos as a Team Sport – The Roles of Sales and Presales in Great Demos

Preparing and delivering demos should be perceived as a “team sport” when two or more people are involved on the vendor’s side. The days of “…and heeeeere’s my Demo Monkey…!” should thankfully be over (we hope!).  But what are the right roles for sales and presales in demo preparation and presentation?  Peter Cohan joined Demoflow’s Larson Stair for this discussion of pragmatics, best (and worst) practices, and some potentially surprising recommendations – along with an exploration of how Demoflow specifically supports a team approach to demos.

You can find the recording here.  Enjoy!