Book Recommendation: Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

 

This terrific book provides refreshing and provocative insights into ourselves and into our interactions with others. The ideas can open our minds to new and improved ways of thinking and communicating that positively impact sales and presales processes, including handling objections, negotiating, and describing and presenting our offerings. It also suggests intriguing methods of managing competition and related challenges, based on a more nuanced approach to the competitive landscape.

One of the author’s fundamental themes is that we often aren’t fully aware of our own limitations. He quotes Dunning, “The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger Club is that you don’t know you are a member of the Dunning-Kruger Club!” It is hard to “know what you don’t know…” and equally hard to even be aware of what you don’t know.

So, be curious and check it out!

Webinar Recording: How to Truly Engage Customers During Product Demos

 

Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan joined Demodesk’s VP of Revenue Lauren Wright to explore best (and worst!) practices for driving interactivity in demos delivered over the web. 

Topics included:

• Structuring the demo – what and how to show
• Presentation/demo mechanics for driving interactivity
• Support tactics such as summaries and chunking
• Coaching methods, tips, and practices, including The Manager’s Dilemma
• Ongoing learning

You can find the recording here.  Enjoy!

Upcoming Webinar: The Evolution of PreSales with Natasja Bax

 

Vivun is hosting this event:  April 28 at 14:00 GMT

 

“Adapting to Meet the Demands of Modern B2B Buyers

 

Join us at the newest Xpert Series virtual meetup where industry leaders, innovators, and coaches discuss the revolutionary methods they employee to solve complex problems in PreSales. First up, Natasja Bax.

 

Buyer journeys have evolved and companies must adapt to the new modern buyer if they wish to survive—making PreSales more strategic than ever. With the shift in B2B selling and escalated importance for PreSales we must ask ourselves: What will it take to excel at the next stage of PreSales?

 

The owner of The DemoScene, Natasja Bax, has been tracking the PreSales Evolution and will be joining us April 28 at 14:00 GMT for a fireside chat-style discussion about where PreSales has come and where it is continuing to go. This session will be live & interactive so come prepared with questions and an open mind to the future of PreSales.

 

To make this virtual event just as special as an in-person meetup, we’ll send you a voucher for dinner, drinks, or whatever else you fancy as our way of saying “thanks” for joining the conversation.”

Webinar Recording: Anatomy of a Discovery Conversation

 

In which we will actually perform an unrehearsed discovery call, following our discovery methodology, with “call outs” from time to time to highlight and explain key elements, skills, and principles. This won’t be your standard webinar!

In which we actually performed an unrehearsed discovery call, following our discovery methodology, with “call outs” from time to time to highlight and explain key elements, skills, and principles. This wasn’t your standard webinar!

See a real-life example of doing discovery that can serve as the basis for a template for you and your team, as well.

To set the context for this webinar, our prospect has reached out to us asking about demo skills training possibilities. We had an initial 20-minute conversation about our offerings, after which we sent information on our training options and pricing. After digesting this information, our prospect reconnected for the next step: a discovery conversation.

We interspersed the conversation with comments and observations about the anatomy of this discovery call, exploring some of the key elements of discovery, including:

• About You
• Demographics
• Environment
• Major Pain
• Impact
• Value
• Related Pain
• Culture
• Wrap-up

Note that our prospect provided real-life complexity with regards to his situation, making the conversation more challenging than the average discovery call!  Listen-in as we interviewed our prospect…

You can find the recording here.  Enjoy!

Upcoming North America Great Demo! Public Workshop

North America June 7-9, 2022

Our next North America Great Demo! Virtual Public Workshop is now scheduled for June 7-9.  You can find registration and additional information here – and you can also contact Julie Hansen for additional details.

This Virtual Workshop will take place over three days with 2 x 90-120-minute sessions each day, giving you time in between sessions to “get other work done” and to try the new ideas out yourself! Great Demo! Public Workshops are perfect for small teams, individuals, and new hires.

DEMOFEST 2022

This year’s DEMOFEST lineup looks terrific – here is how to register.  Looking forward to seeing you there!

“Bits About Books” Great Demo! Interview

Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan joined Subhanjan Sarker of Business Podcast Network and Pitchlink for this discussion about life, liberty and the pursuit of Great Demos. This 50-minute interview explores the Great Demo! founding story and origins of the book, plus descriptions and explanations of many Great Demo! concepts. 

This interview can serve as an introduction for those who are new to Great Demo! and an opportunity for existing practitioners to refresh and expand their understanding of the methodology. For example, we explored key elements of doing discovery, executing Vision Generation and Technical Proof Demos, and driving interactivity in virtual demos that goes far beyond what is covered in the book.

I think you’ll find this interview very informative – you can find the podcast here. Enjoy!

Webinar Recording – “How PreSales Can Run More Effective Evaluations”

“From growing revenue and headcount to capturing insights and collaborating across multiple functional areas, running a PreSales team is no easy feat. So, how do you effectively scale PreSales success to meet high growth targets across the globe? The answer is in the data.

Whether you call it a Proof of Concept (POC), a Trial, Pilot, or a Proof of Value (POV), hands-on product evaluations are often table stakes for getting important B2B deals done.  In this critical stage PreSales teams are expected to deliver customer value and support the sales team in closing bigger, faster deals.”

Great Demo!'s Peter Cohan joined Brett Crane, VP of PreSales at Vivun, for a conversation on “how to execute evaluations with better outcomes while protecting your time and resources”.

You can find the recording here.  Enjoy!

Upcoming Great Demo! Public Workshops

EMEA February 28 – March 2, 2022 – NEW!

North America March 22-24, 2022

We’ve added a new, additional EMEA Great Demo! Virtual Public Workshop as the March 8-10 was oversubscribed!  The new session will take place February 28 – March 2.  You can find registration and additional information here – contact Natasja Bax for additional details.

Our next North America Great Demo! Virtual Public Workshop is scheduled for March 22-24.  You can find registration and additional information here – contact Paul Pearce for additional details.

Webinar Recording – 7 Levels of Discovery Skills for Communicating Customer Value

Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan joined the fine folks at Cuvama for this webinar on doing discovery and communicating value:

“Sales leaders report that while 80% of their teams think they do a good job with discovery and value exploration, sadly only 20% actually do!

Join this webinar to learn where you and your team are on the 7 levels of discovery and how you can level-up the 80% with skills and support from technology platforms like Cuvama.

This webinar is targeted at anyone in sales, presales, sales & presales management or leadership for B2B software and SaaS companies.

We covered:

• How to assess your team against the 7 levels of discovery
• How you compare against the other attendees of the webinar and a quick survey
• How you can improve the level of your team with improved skills, process and technology”

You can find the recording here – enjoy!

Webinar Recording – Delivering Successful Hybrid Demos

 

Great Demo!’s Julie Hansen joined the Consensus crew for this webinar:

“Delivering demos in a hybrid environment comes with a unique set of challenges.  Should you be live or remote when you have an audience in each location?  How do you gauge attention and interest with both live and remote participants?  How do you manage discussion and engagement without alienating one group?  Developing a strategy for your hybrid demo is vital to ensure you don’t lose a deal because of unforced errors.

In this session you’ll learn:

• Critical considerations when planning a hybrid demo
• How to set your hybrid demo up for success
• How to manage both face-to-face and virtual attendees for optimal inclusion
• How to gauge attention and interest of both groups
• Best practices for using a producer to manage meeting flow and participation”

You can find the recording here.  Note that there were some internet hiccups during the session – you’ll have a wonderful view of Garrett looking concerned and a bit confused…!

Two Presales in a Pod – Podcast

 

From the Podsters:

“2022 PreSales Predictions: Check out the Two PreSales in a Pod - Podcast festive episode.

Join Adam Freeman, Thomas Edwards, Mark Green, our very special guest (and poet) Peter Cohan, and myself [Don Carmichael] for a fun half-hour chatting through our 2022 predictions and key trends for the PreSales/SE profession.

This episode was 'super, brilliant, fantastic and awesome' (listen to the podcast to find out why I used those words).  We talk about huge changes and undercurrents happening in our profession; the impact of ethics and geography on talent, authenticity, the future of PreSales compensation and even why we need to be investigating the metaverse right now.”

You can find this delightful 37-minute episode here – enjoy!

Two Presales in a Pod – Podcast

 

From the Podsters:

“Episode 42 - Hybrid meetings – In this episode, Peter joins Adam, Don, Thomas and Mark to discuss:

• What is a hybrid meeting?
• Will the future be default remote meetings?
• Will in person meetings become a competitive advantage?
• All of the above and much, much more!”

You can find this 31-minute podcast here:  https://lnkd.in/dd_VNVyS  Enjoy!

“Burning Presales” Podcast

 

The fine folks at Consensus have started a “Burning Presales Podcast” series – Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan was honored with the first two installments:

Episode 1:  “What’s the first thing presales leaders need to understand today vs 10 years ago?”

This 7.5 minute dialog explored presales ratios, with a few comments about the traditional sales:presales resourcing ratio vs scaling, along with thoughts about vision, goals, objectives and KPIs, and some differences in thinking between sales leaders vs. CROs.  You can find the recording here.  

Episode 2:  “How do [presales] frontline managers create better alignment with sales?”

Often a tough nut to crack…!  We explored a few challenges, examined specific roles, doing discovery, and discussed a non-obvious and intriguing solution, along with Vision Generation methods.  You can find this 8.5-minute podcast here. 

 Enjoy!

Great Demo! Webinar Topics – Poll

 

We’ve had a number of requests for various webinar topics – let us know which are of most interest to you…!

• Engagement Strategies and Hybrid Demo Meetings – Opportunities and Realities Post-COVID
• Presales Tools Review 
• Managing POCs and Evaluations – Types of Technical Evaluations
• Great Demo! Fundamentals
• Aligning Great Demo! with Sales Methodologies
• Great Demo! and Buyer Enablement
• Great Demo! Approaches for Enabling the Channel
• The Myth of the “Customized” Demo – and Doing Discovery
• Methodology Implementation and Adoption – Pragmatics and Practices 
• The Perfect Demo Environment (Reprised)
• The Perfect Presales/Sales Partnership (Reprised)
• Automated Demo Content – Getting It Right (Reprised)

Any other topics you’d like us to explore?

Webinar Recording: Fabulously Successful Presales/Sales Partnering Principles

"Our job is to make you fabulously successful…!” proclaims a senior presales leader to her sales counterparts.  But how do we make this a win-win-win scenario for sales, presales, and customers?  We explored best (and worst) partnering practices for:

• Sales/Presales Models
• Discovery
• Vision Generation Demos
• Solutioning
• Technical Proof Demos
• POCs and Related
• Dealing with Reality

You can find the recording here.  The recording was started a bit late, but you only miss the introductions, for the most part – enjoy!

Upcoming Webinar: Fabulously Successful Presales/Sales Partnering Principles

Thursday October 14 at 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM CET

"Our job is to make you fabulously successful…!” proclaims a senior presales leader to her sales counterparts.  But how do we make this a win-win-win scenario for sales, presales, and customers?  We’ll explore sales/presales partnering models and (best and worst) practices for discovery, Vision Generation, Demos, POCs – and the uncomfortable realities that we face when working as teams.

Register here!

Demo Diaries: Ep 034 Podcast “As A Vendor, Who Is The Demo About, You or Your Client”

 

Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan joined Jorge Soto of Reprise in this 30-minute dialog about:

1. The experience and epiphany that led to the Great Demo! methodology (a rather provocative story!);
2. Some key ideas for a “Perfect Demo Environment”;
3. And a discussion of why many demos fail (and how to avoid), plus a few Great Demo! fundamentals, including a good example of "Do the Last Thing First".

This is Reprise’s “Demo Diaries” Episode 34.  You can find the recording here – enjoy!

Upcoming Virtual Great Demo! Public Workshops

 

North America November 17-19

EMEA November 30 – December 2

Our next North America Great Demo! Virtual Public Workshop is now scheduled for November 17-19.  You can find registration and additional information here – contact Paul Pearce for additional details.

Our next EMEA Great Demo! Virtual Public Workshop will take place November 30 – December 2.  You can find registration and additional information here.  Contact Natasja Bax for further details.

Great Demo! Supporting the PreSales Academy

The Great Demo! team is delighted to announce a relationship with the PreSales Collective to provide and teach Great Demo! methodology elements for key sections of the PreSales Collective’s PreSales Academy.  Specifically, the PreSales Collective will use Great Demo! in the PreSales Academy’s Discovery, Demonstration, and Types of Technical Validation segments.

While the presales community is enjoying a renaissance in the availability of presales’ tools and skills training options, there is a growing need for presales practitioners.  The PreSales Academy seeks to bring new faces into presales, particularly from outside the software industry and from other disciplines within the industry.  The Academy training is designed to provide these people with basic, company-independent skills and knowledge to kick-start and accelerate the availability of presales candidates as new hires.  

The Great Demo! Discovery, Demonstration and Types of Technical Validation segments for the Academy are a subset of the full methodology, tailored specifically for the general, foundational objectives of the Academy.  These segments will be facilitated by Great Demo! Partners and Principals in live sessions, with testing to assess the participants’ retention of the key ideas.  Volunteers from the PreSales Collective are supporting the effort with coaching and role-play feedback.

In addition to these essential volunteers, the Great Demo! team encourages other presales vendors to support the Academy by providing similar industry-hardened training for other Academy segments.  Our overarching objective is to enable the presales community to grow – in numbers, to meet the critical need for presales practitioners and to accelerate the community’s development of richer skills and know-how.

Great Demo!’s Peter Cohan offered, “This represents a major step in providing industry-wide academy programs for presales that complement existing training.  We are delighted to participate and look forward to the first cohorts joining the workforce as presales new hires.”

The PreSales Collective’s Co-Founder James Kaikis stated, “PreSales is the best job that no one has ever heard of.  PreSales Academy (PSA) provides a stepping stone to breaking into the technology industry in a role that is not only incredibly important, but in demand.  PSA will open doors for the next generation of PreSales talent and play a vital role in bringing diversity to our wonderful profession.”

Yuji Higashi, PreSales Collective Co-Founder, commented, “PreSales is an incredibly rewarding career that more people should have access to.  With PreSales Academy, we’re excited to create a new pathway to PreSales, giving people who otherwise may not have the opportunity, the chance to change the trajectory of their careers and their lives.  Thank you to Great Demo! and everyone who has contributed to building PreSales Academy”.

Contact us at Info@GreatDemo.com if you have questions or comments.

Great Demo! Chat Recording: XO: eXtraordinary Outcomes - Episode 34

Hosted by Subhanjan Sarkar, The Buyer-Led Sales Expert

 

Rather than describe this session myself, I asked a customer to offer their observations of this recording – here’s what they said:

 

“We found the origins stories [about the methodology and the book] interesting, but the next sections were particularly useful, as you described and developed many of the Great Demo! key ideas. The segment on Vision Generation Demos clarified my understanding and your discussion of Technical Proof Demos is an excellent introduction for new people and a great refresher for our Workshop graduates.”

 

You can find the recording here.  Enjoy!

Webinar Recording: First Call Demos and Discovery – A Surprisingly Effective Approach

Your prospect is interested in a demo, but you’re not sure what they want to see – the prospect looks like a good lead, but that’s all you know…

How do you satisfy your prospect’s desire to see a demo without inflicting them with a Harbor Tour?  How can you move them (gently, but firmly) into a discovery conversation in the same call?  Is it possible to do both and even offer a reasonable focused demo as well?

Yes!  

We shared methods to accomplish this, while leveraging the capabilities of a fabulous new tool (Demoflow).

You can find the recording here.   Access Passcode: 1Xz5pY%7.

The actual webinar begins about 4.5 minutes in…  Enjoy!

Intriguing Webinar: "Change Before You Have To: Leading the Presales Transformation Inside Your Organization"

Took place Thursday August 12 – registering here will likely enable you to access the recording, when available - and we'll post the link to the recording once it is ready.

This was an insightful discussion!  Join Adam Freeman, Garin Hess, Freddy Mangum and Great Demo!’s own Peter Cohan in this conversation about life, liberty and the pursuit of positive change in presales organizations. 

How will the impact of presales change or increase in the next several years?  For example, presales is moving from a cottage industry to intelligent industrialization with the appearance and adoption of tools and skills training specifically built for presales.  What do this mean for you?

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!