Website Menu Approach Example

Here’s another example of a website following the “Menu Approach” – simple but effective: http://www.marketboomer.com.au/index.php.

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Architecturitis

Architecturitis – Death by Rectangles

Symptoms: Presentation of architectural slides and diagrams early in the demo, well before any discussion of business solutions (or needs). Far too many rectangles with lines and arrows, often presented via one or more elaborate, highly colored PowerPoint slides. May cause severe drowsiness when delivered after lunch.

Examples: “We have a three-tier architecture, allowing us to use several different modules and components. I’ll describe each of these in turn…”

Cure: Ascertain audience interest prior to presenting architecture information. Ensure that all high-ranking customer representatives, other than IT, have been given the opportunity to leave the room. When presenting, contemplate developing the diagram(s) using a whiteboard rather than via PowerPoint, so that the audience has the opportunity to participate.

“Boiling the Frog”

A laboratory experiment was purported to have been carried out in which a frog was boiled to death – semi-voluntarily.

In the experiment, a frog was placed in water, initially at room temperature. The temperature was raised, very slowly, until finally the temperature was high enough to kill the frog (poor froggy..!).

The conclusion was that if very small, incremental changes are made to one’s environment, we may not notice these changes – even if the aggregate sum of the changes is large, overall.

This same concept can be applied to demos… We may create a demo for version 1.0 of a new product – a demo that is crisp and focused – but the addition of new capabilities, multiple new versions, modules, add-ons, etc., may yield a demo that incrementally becomes complex, confusing, and too detailed. We have effectively boiled ourselves…!

The right word may be effective...

"The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause."- Mark Twain

SMART Board Displays for Trade-show and Office Demos

I’ve recently had seen SMART Boards used very effectively to deliver demos at trade-shows and in vendor site “demo rooms”. A key advantage is that they encourage “going to the screen” and a highly interactive delivery style, as opposed to simply presenting sitting down at a laptop connected to an LCD projector.

SMART Boards enable you to use your fingers as you would a mouse, directly from the screen of a flat panel display or white board. [The SMART Board is an overlay device for a flat panel display and an integrated device in the case of a white board]. Annotations can be made using SMART Board pens (similar to white board markers), along with other capabilities.

Nice tool – nice way to present!

For information on SMART Boards as for existing flat panel displays, explore www.smarttech.com/overlay/panels.

For information on SMART Boards as “intelligent” white board devices, navigate to http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Boards/.

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Content-Free Pestilence

Content-Free Pestilence – Buzzword Plague

Symptoms: Constant use of meaningless buzzwords and phrases. Lack of substance.

Examples: “Our powerful software is flexible, intuitive, easy-to-use and integrates seamlessly with your other tools. Robust and scalable, your organization can enjoy the benefits of our best-of-breed world-class offering.”

[Customer] “Bingo! I win – I’ve got five buzzwords in a row…!”

Cure: Rapid, repeated applications of Buzzword-Be-Gone®. Replace with substantive, fact-rich statements that communicate the desired concept, with metrics. In extreme cases, buzzword exorcism may be necessary (contact your local behavioral presentation skills witchdoctor).

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Pointer Palsy

Pointer Palsy

Symptoms: Presenter waves pointer vaguely at screen; pointer moves around constantly; use of broad sweeping movements with a laser pointer. In severe cases, the victim circles mouse or pointer constantly around and around and around. When compounded with aggressive tendencies, presenter may use stick or telescoping pointer like a sword, causing audience members nearby to shrink back in fear.

Examples: “As you can see…” wave – wave – swish – swish…

“If you look over here” swish – wave – swish – wave…

Cure: Guide presenter to move right up to the screen and point carefully and deliberately at the item or area of specific interest. Presenter needs to remember that while presenter has seen that part of the software hundreds of times, it is mostly likely the first time the audience has seen it. In severe cases, presenter may need to be tackled, pinned-down, and pointer carefully removed from his/her grasp.

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Stunted Pain Development

Stunted Pain Development – Solution Abruption

Symptoms: Precipitous presentation of product-oriented solutions to problems prior to plumbing customer pain adequately; victim jumps directly to presenting a solution the moment “pain” is uncovered.

Examples: “Ah ha – so you are having a hard time doing your forecasting? We’ve got a great solution for you…!”

Cure: Discipline. Hold back on the solution, for the present. Ask more questions – perform Workflow Analysis to uncover the depth and value of solving the customer’s problem:

1. What is the customer doing today – what is their current process or workflow?
2. What is the output, the deliverable, for which the workflow is executed? [Hint: this is a prime candidate for a terrific Illustration!]
3. What parts of the process are problematic – what needs to change?
4. What is the value of making the change, in specific terms of Time, People of Money? [This is the “Delta”]

Debilitating Demo Diseases – Logorrhea

Logorrhea – Excessive Talkativeness

Symptoms: Customer is unable to break-in to ask a question; presenter feels obligated to keep on talking if he/she hears nothing from customer. Condition is often exacerbated when working over certain conference room speaker phone systems. Audience often lapses into disgruntled silence for the balance of the demo. Demo fails; sales person does not get order; customer goes with the competition.

Examples: “But, what if…”

“Um, excuse me but…”

“Can I ask…?”

“Never mind.”

Cure: Remove Starbucks coffee cups from victim’s immediate area. Have victim slow down delivery and put pauses in place. Encourage victim to summarize at the end of each section. Ask questions more often and give audience time to respond. Check telephone connection and speakerphone for bisynchronicity before launching into demo.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Staff Infection

Infection – Group Blindness

Symptoms: Doing the same demo(s) over and over, regardless of customer needs or desires.

Examples: “We’ve always done it this way…”

“New hire, are you? Great – here’s the script for our demo. Memorize it by next Monday…”

Cure: Rapid, deep application of Great Demo! methodology. Reframe and customize demos for each key audience members’ situation. Turn traditional demos upside down and start with the pay-off, the “Wow!” factor:

1. Review customer’s Situation
2. Present the Illustration of the end result
3. Do It – show how to get there in the fewest number of steps
4. Peel Back the Layers in accord with customer interest
5. Manage Questions along the way
6. Summarize so customer retains the key points

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Harbor Tour Delusion

Harbor Tour Delusion – Living in the Land of Hope

Symptoms: Presenting a long, tortured demo that attempts to cover all of the possible customer needs and problems before any reasonable discussion of the customer’s situation.

Aka: Harbor Tour Demo, Show-up-and-Throw-up, Spray and Pray, the Spaghetti Demo, Doin’ the Demo Dash.

Examples: “To give you an idea of what we do, let me show you a demo…”

“Stop me if anything looks interesting…”

[Trade show booth] “Hi – would you like a demo?”

Cure: Collect a handful of Informal Success Stories. Distill and carefully extract the key Situation information, based on:

· Job Title and Industry
· Critical Business Issue
· Reason
· Specific Capabilities
· Delta

Match customer Job Title/Industry, present appropriate Success Stories to generate interest, follow with questions… Apply the Menu Approach for crusty customers or larger groups. Hold back from delivering demo until customer situation is well understood.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Atrophied Communication

Atrophied Communication (aka CRM Refusal) – Pre-Call Inadequacy

Symptoms: Sales rep communicates key pre-call information in the car on the way to the customer, in the customer’s parking lot, or in the customer’s lobby.

Examples: Sales rep: “Oh, by the way, you need to show them the new biframulator tool – I promised them that we’d show it today.”

Presales Person: “Oh – that’s too bad; I don’t have it on my machine. Why didn’t you ever answer my email messages asking what we know about the account and what we need to show?!!”

Cure: Take two cell phones (or Blackberries) daily. Use to communicate pre-call information as needed – well before the demo is scheduled.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Rampaging Pronouns

Rampaging Pronouns – Too Many Fictional Characters

Symptoms: Demo begins by introducing Mike the Manager, Eunice the End-User, Veronica the VP, Andrew in Accounting, Sally the Sales Director, and Ike from IT. Presenter immediately loses track of which pronoun to use: I, you, he, she, them, they, um, hmmm. Audience immediately loses patience. Sales rep loses deal, misses quota, and suffers Terminus Abruptus.

Examples: “Next, I’ll show you how Eunice enters the account information, which you can use to calculate the total so she can add the new lines which I need for the next section.”

Cure: Apply restraints; purge excess pronouns (may be painful – Pro-No™ and Pronoun-Be-Gone® are two products often recommended and can be purchased over-the-counter). Replace with “you”, exclusively.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Auto-Demo Hell

Auto-Demo Hell – Cluelessness in Recorded Demos

Symptoms: See Vacuuosititis, below. Additionally, victim assumes that all prospects have the same problem, the same challenges, and the same objectives. Victim attempts to create a “one-size-fits-all” demo in spite of serving multiple markets and job titles. Viewers habitually drop-out of the 20 minute recording after only 2 minutes. Victim delusion and hallucinations may occur, signified by calling this a “highly qualified, hot lead”.

Examples: “Click here to watch our product demo.”

Cure: Create a cocktail of Informal Success Stories; then distill carefully to recover the High-Probability Sales Situations. Craft focused, specific demos for each targeted Sales Situation and provide a Menu to prospects browsing to guide them to the relevant Sales Situation by Job Title and/or Industry. Note: symptoms may reappear with each new software release.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Vacuuosititis

Vacuuosititis – Cluelessness in Marketing Roll-out Demos (aka Feature Rash)

Symptoms: A rash of features and non-specific, buzzword-compliant benefit statements. Atrophied, disconnected, narcoleptic audience reaction. Snoring.

Examples: “Now I’ll show you our new biframulator tool, designed to save time and money.

“Next I’ll present all of the new capabilities we’ve put into the new release – shouldn’t take more than two hours…”

Cure: Apply Get-A-Clue™ topically. Gather Informal Success Stories from existing customers, pre-release and beta sites, and apply liberally to the affected presentation. Replace feature-orientation with Critical Business Issue/Solution scenarios. Repeat as necessary until feature rash disappears.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Overscriptosis

Overscriptosis – Hardening of the Demo

Symptoms: Following a rigid vendor-created demo script, regardless of the needs or interest of the customer. Difficulty in determining if the demo is live or recorded, even with the presenter’s mouth moving in the front of the room.

Examples: “Let me check my script for the next thing I need to show you…”

“Hang on a moment, I need to find my place in the script…”

Cure: Inject Reality, intravenously. Invest in sufficient qualification and discovery with the customer to determine what Specific Capabilities are desired. Show these, only, following the Great Demo! methodology:

1. Review the customer’s Situation
2. Present an Illustration of the end result
3. Do It (prove it in the fewest number of steps)
4. Peel Back the Layers in accord with the customer’s interest
5. Manage questions
6. Summarize

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Clairvoyance Annoyance

Clairvoyance Annoyance (aka Premature Elaboration)

Symptoms: Prescience. Answering questions before they are completed because you’ve heard them all hundreds of times before. Causes severe annoyance in customers. The appearance of great embarrassment, flushing and jackass ears on the presenter may also occur.

Examples: Customer: “Does it run on…”

Presenter: “Yes! We support Vista, Windows XP and some older versions of Windows, including the MS Office products on each of those platforms, including Office 97, Office 2003, Office 2007 and all of the current and ‘compatibility’ file types.”

Customer: “…Macintosh?”

Presenter: “Oh. No.”

Cure: Zip it – and let the customer ask the full question. Listen intently. Ask for clarification, as needed. Parse as to whether the question is a Great Question (answer it right away), a Good Question (queue it up for later) or a Stupid Question (also queue it up for later). Manage Q&A professionally using a “Not Now List” or “Parking Lot”.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Crickets

Crickets

Symptoms: The sound in the room after the presenter asks, “So, are there any questions so far?”

Examples: Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp….

Cure: Encourage, drive and generate interactivity. Turn the demo from a one-way presentation into a two-way conversation. Involve the customer. Ask “closed-probe” questions. Confirm interest. Invite the customer to “drive”. Pause occasionally and summarize at the end of each section. Fumigate as needed.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Feature Pox

Feature Pox

Symptoms: Presentation of waaaaaaaay too many features and capabilities. Severe boredom, ennui, and sleeping may ensue in the customer’s ranks. Other symptoms include stifled yawns, furtive glances at wristwatches and – in one documented case – a customer getting up from the table to physically bang his head on the wall…!

Examples: “Let me go through each of the tabs across the top in order…”

“And next I’ll show you our context-sensitive help system…”

“Here are the 17 file export options – I’ll go through them one by one…”

Cure: Reality Pills, taken 4 times daily. Present only the Specific Capabilities needed by the customer to address the problem. Hold everything else back.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Blackberry Consumption

Blackberry Consumption

Symptoms: Sales rep sitting in the back of the room completely focused on his/her Blackberry; severely swollen thumbs; impaired ability to communicate in complete, grammatically-correct sentences.

Examples: Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap…– huh?

Cure: Actively engage in the demo presentation; choreograph the team members’ roles before the demo begins. For example, the sales rep’s role is to:

1. Perform the introductions and review the meeting objectives.
2. Present and review relevant Situation Slides and accompanying Illustrations.
3. Help to manage and capture “Good” (and “Stupid”) questions on a whiteboard, flipchart, or Word document.
4. Redirect audience attention away from the scene of the disaster after a software crash or severe bug.
5. Summarize when appropriate and/or inject pauses in the delivery.
6. Identify next steps and summarize the overall meeting.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Demo Asphyxiation

Breathlessness – Demo Asphyxiation

Symptoms: No pauses or breaks in the delivery, followed by shortness of breath, flushed face and finally passing out. (Fainting is often an outcome of Rambleitis when compounded by Whooping If and Conjunctionitis.)

Examples: “And another really cool thing about our software is the ability to ____, or ____, and if you want to ____ then you can click here, or if you have to ____ then choose this, and the next thing I want to show you is our new import wizard, which has seven different options, the first of which is ____, which is really great if you need to ____, or ____ or ____, and if you need to… need to…to… uhhhhhhhhh…” *Thunk*!

Cure: Breathe, fer cryin’ out loud! Put some pauses in the delivery; put some theatre and passion in the delivery. Put some dynamics into the delivery (louds and softs). Reciting a Shakespeare play without pauses and dynamics makes for a very boring experience:

But-soft-what-light-through-yonder-window-breaks-it-is-the-east-and-Juliet-is-the-sun-arise-fair-sun-and-kill-the-envious-moon-who-is-already-sick-and-pale-with-grief-that-thou-her-maid-art-far-more-fair-than-she… *THUNK*!

The lines from the play, Romeo and Juliet, are of course to be uttered with deep and fervent passion:

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Death by Corporate Overview

Death by Corporate Overview

Symptoms: Palpitation of the audience; sleeping audience and, eventually, severe audience loss. Audience members doodle aimlessly, glance at watches repeatedly, furtively use Blackberries, and bang heads on walls.

Examples: “Oh my God, no more slides…” “No, I’m not interested in their founding fathers, their revenues-to-date, the geographic locations of their offices, and I’m really not interested in their mission statement.” “Please let this be over…!”

Cure: Perform an immediate Radical Overviewectomy. Replace with two or three crisp, focused sentences, e.g., “Good afternoon. We’re ABC software, we’ve been in business 12 years, providing forecasting solutions to customers in manufacturing, high tech and other industries for over 2000 customers in 18 countries around the world. Now, let’s talk about your situation.”

In extreme cases where there is clear and extensive Marketing Metastasis, a deep cut may need to be made into MarCom to help address the root cause.

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Whooping “If”

Whooping “If”

Symptoms: Presenter offers an ever-growing range of options, generally linked together by “if…” If’s often multiply rapidly, causing great boredom in the audience and the risk of encountering unexpected bugs and precipitating detailed, pointless questions (aka “Stupid Questions”) on topics of little interest and lower value.

Examples: “So, if you want to open an existing one, you click here and…”; “Then, if you want to create a new one, then you choose ‘New’ and…”; “Next, if …”

Cure: Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly. Apply a Biased Question when the urge to “if” presents. If you are the presenter ask yourself, “Is this really something the audience is interested in or needs to know? Is this a sales demo or product training?”

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Rambleitis

Rambleitis - Run-on Demo (aka Demo Diarrhea)

Symptoms: No pauses, no breaks, no interaction with audience – often compounded by Conjunctionitis, fits of Whooping If and Zippy Mouse Syndrome.

Examples: “…and the really cool thing about this is…”

“…and the next thing I want to show you is…”

Cure: Inject pauses at least once per segment, at the end, and repeat as frequently as needed. Treat commensurate Conjunctionitis with the use of Biased Questions, designed to give the audience the opportunity to interact (e.g., “Many of our other customers have found that the ability to ____ saved them hours every week. Is this something that might also be of interest to you?”) Turn the demo from a unidirectional, fire-hose-delivery presentation into a bidirectional conversation.

An older cure, still applicable in extreme cases, is to place the patient in an ice bath until unable to speak…

Debilitating Demo Diseases - Zippy Mouse Syndrome

Zippy Mouse Syndrome

Symptoms: Mouse movements erratic, haphazard; movement may never stop. Mouse may circle, constantly, around certain portions of the screen. Customers turn away from the screen, get uncomfortable, and reach for the Dramamine.

Examples: Watch other people’s Remote Demos (e.g., via WebEx or GoToMeeting) – time how long before you get sick trying to follow the mouse flying around the screen:

- Sick after 3 minutes: mild, but needs treatment
- Sick after 2 minutes: moderate, treat right away
- Really sick within a minute: Severe, emergency measures required

Cure: Slow the mouse down. Sloooow the mouuuuuse doooooown…!

Move the mouse, deliberately, to the location you want – then take your hand OFF of the mouse while you talk. Repeat for your next point. This is called “Move and stop; move and stop”.

In severe cases, change the mouse speed setting in your Control Panel from “Normal” to “Painfully Slow” – this will compensate and average out to appear comfortable to the audience.

Apply treatment right away.