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A Painful Logo Slide Lesson “Cured me!” I commented to my colleague, after a visit to a prospect. He had wondered why I didn’t do a corporate…
A Painful Logo Slide Lesson “Cured me!” I commented to my colleague, after a visit to a prospect. He had wondered why I didn’t do a corporate…
Shared by Peter Cohan
Experience & Education
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The Second Derivative - Great Demo!
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Publications
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Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)
Self
See publicationSuspending Disbelief presents thirty-five engaging and occasionally humorous short stories recounting sales, presales, marketing, and customer success engagements, plus several stories offering insights into intriguing travel and cultural experiences. Each story shares a life lesson in the form of a moral designed to enable you to avoid (or enjoy) similar fates. It is designed to be an Aesop’s Fables for people in customer-facing roles.
Here’s an example to get you started!
Three…Suspending Disbelief presents thirty-five engaging and occasionally humorous short stories recounting sales, presales, marketing, and customer success engagements, plus several stories offering insights into intriguing travel and cultural experiences. Each story shares a life lesson in the form of a moral designed to enable you to avoid (or enjoy) similar fates. It is designed to be an Aesop’s Fables for people in customer-facing roles.
Here’s an example to get you started!
Three Engineers in a Car
Use this story whenever you are trying to fix a technical problem and want to lighten things up. Unlike most of the other stories in this book, this one isn’t real. Or so I think!
“Please wait…”
– Every Software Program
There are three engineers sitting in a car, ready to hit the road, but the car won’t start. In the front seat is an electrical engineer and a mechanical engineer, and in the back is a software engineer.
The mechanical engineer says, “I don’t believe I heard the starter motor solenoid click. All we need to do is unstick that solenoid, and we should be able to get going right away.”
The electrical engineer says, “I agree with your approach, but I don’t think that is the problem. I believe we’ve blown a fuse. All we need to do is to find the offending fuse, replace it, and we should be able to get going right away.”
From the back seat, the software engineer says, “No, no, no, you’re both wrong. All we need to do is get out of the car, close the doors, open the doors, and climb back in. The car should start right up!”
Moral: You probably just need to reboot! -
Great Demo! How To Create And Execute Stunning Software Demonstrations
Self
See publicationMany presales, sales, marketing, and customer success practitioners say they are skilled at doing demos – but are they?
A head of presales commented, “They don’t know what they don’t know…! 50% of our sales opportunities end in ‘No Decision’ and 30% of our demos are just pure waste. We must move from our traditional approaches to a validated, proven methodology that succeeds…!”
Assess where you and your team stand on these ten levels of increasing proficiency:
Level 1:…Many presales, sales, marketing, and customer success practitioners say they are skilled at doing demos – but are they?
A head of presales commented, “They don’t know what they don’t know…! 50% of our sales opportunities end in ‘No Decision’ and 30% of our demos are just pure waste. We must move from our traditional approaches to a validated, proven methodology that succeeds…!”
Assess where you and your team stand on these ten levels of increasing proficiency:
Level 1: Follows the standard demo script
Level 2: Customizes based on the prospect’s market/industry
Level 3: Customizes based on the discovery information uncovered
Level 4: Communicates tangible business value
Level 5: Differentiates Vision Generation from Technical Proof scenarios
Level 6: Manages and explores prospect questions
Level 7: Uses Biased Questions to outflank competition and reengineer vision
Level 8: Applies storytelling techniques to reinforce key ideas
Level 9: Applies these skills to the broad range of demo scenarios required, including demos for prospects occupying different portions of the Technology Adoption Curve, presenting new products, Executive Briefing Centers, transactional sales cycles, expansion opportunities, lunch and learn sessions, tradeshows, demos for analysts and third parties, channel partners, internal demos, and other scenarios
Level 10: Captures and reuses demo success scenarios, and integrates, aligns, and leverages the skills above into a cohesive demonstration methodology
Organizations that reach Level 4 enjoy substantial competitive advantages vs their peers, those at Level 7 gain critical differentiation, and teams at Level 10 experience remarkable scaling and amplification rewards.
Consuming and performing the exercises in this book can transform individuals, teams, and organizations from undifferentiated sellers into high-performing experts who truly enable buyers, resulting in mutually successful outcomes that endure. -
Doing Discovery: The Single Most Important Element of Software Sales and Buyer Enablement Processes
Self
See publicationA head of sales commented, “80% of my team believes they do a good job with discovery, but sadly they do not – they don’t know what they don’t know…!”
Where do you stand with your discovery skills?
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…A head of sales commented, “80% of my team believes they do a good job with discovery, but sadly they do not – they don’t know what they don’t know…!”
Where do you stand with your discovery skills?
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 prospects represented across the Technology Adoption Curve, “burn victims”, disruptive and new product categories, transactional sales cycles, and other scenarios;
Level 7: Integrates and aligns the skills above into a cohesive discovery methodology.
Most sales, presales, and customer-facing teams are operating at Level 2 or 3, with a few at Level 4 – this leaves a lot of room for improvement!
And, as Cohan notes, “the vendor who is perceived by the prospect as doing a superior job in discovery is in a competitively advantageous position.”
Reading and following the exercises in Doing Discovery can transform individuals, teams, and organizations from undifferentiated sellers into high-performing practitioners who achieve their sales objectives while truly enabling buyers, resulting in mutually successful outcomes that endure.
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