Utilizing Software Features

𝗧𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘂 𝗧𝗶𝗽 𝗧𝘂𝗲𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆 👉🏻 A new visualization type for easier tables! 𝗧𝗶𝗽: Creating tables in Tableau can always be a little tricky - but there is a promising new viz extension which has just been released by Tableau that makes creating tables much easier! You can easily drag multiple measures and dimensions onto the worksheet and a table appears. You can also add bars or heatmap-style highlights to individual columns in the table, add an ‘export button’, and easily sort or filter on specific columns. 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗨𝘀𝗲 This table extension is Tableau’s way of saying “we heard you - you want easier tables!”. It is currently only supported as a viz extension, however. You will just need to go to their webpage (will link below) to download the extension, and make sure you are using the latest version of Tableau. Then you can create a new worksheet, and select add extension to get to the “Tableau Table” mark type. From there, it will instruct you on how to use it. The video below will give you a walkthrough of this extension and the different features it has available. Unfortunately, the “conditional formatting” does not yet give the option to use a calculation for the conditional formatting. There is also no way to customize the color of the header bar of the table. There may be more upgrades to this extension coming in the future, but for a simple table without high customization needs this extension is a great option.

8 elements of insanely persuasive SaaS sales demos: 1. Summarize the problem. The best demos don't start with a demo. The best demos start with the problem. Summarize what you learned in your discovery call. Then ask: "What context would you add?" Get them talking. Get them to validate the problem. But most importantly: Frame the problem the demo will solve. Don't be a solution in search of a problem. 2. Educate them on your "concept." Create a bridge between the problem and solution. If you're selling something that's well-understood, skip this part. If you're not? Spend 2 minutes getting your buyer up to speed on what your company does and how it works. Do this right after the summary slide. Do this right before the demo. If you don't? They'll be lost as you click around. 3. Start your demo with the top feature. Don't save the best thing for last. Too many reps try to do a "build up" demo. By the time they get to the important part? The exec has already left the room. Hit them over the head with value upfront. Start with the eye-popper. 4. Solve exactly. No more. No less. What do I mean? Leave off every part of your product that doesn't solve their problem. Features must earn a "starting spot" in your demo. If it doesn't solve, it gets benched. Get comfortable with showing less. 5. Ask thoughtful questions. You want to build engagement during your demo. But skip these questions: - does that make sense? - what questions do you have? Weak. Use these instead: - how does that compare to what you do today? - to what extent do you see that solving [x]? - what about this is resonating so far? Much better. 6. Frame the pain every time you transition. Ironclad rule to live by: Every time you transition from one feature to another, reframe the pain. You can't do this too often. Summarize the pain that next feature solves. If you don't? You risk that next feature being a solution in search of a problem. Focus on pain relief. Keep bringing your buyer back to that. Then solve. Repeat. 7. Facilitate a conversation at the end. The best demos have this in common: The last 5-10 minutes involves a rich discussion. Your buyer's head is swirling with possibility. (If you did it right). Have a conversation with them. Ask this to get it going: "What excited you most about what you saw today?" 8. Manage your time for next steps. The goal of a demo is not to educate. The goal of a demo is not to inform. The goal of a demo is not to entertain. What is it then? the goal of a demo is to catalyze a decision. What decision were you hoping to empower your buyer to make? Talk about that at the end. Schedule the next step accordingly. If you don't? You just spent 45 minutes on a dog-and-pony show. P.S. If you REALLY want to double your demo close rates, you need effective questions. Here's a list of 39 questions that sell I collected over a 12 year period: https://go.pclub.io/list

💬 Someone reached out to me with a real-world problem:   🔎 They wanted a stacked bar, but *without* different colors in the segments.   That made sense to me. You know I'm a fan of restrained color.   The case was somewhat like the contrived analogy in the image. A set of codes for the main bars, and then subcodes for the stack segments, sorted largest to smallest from the base.   That's not too hard for a Tableau veteran, but for a new or intermittent user, it's not exactly intuitive.   There are 3 main steps: ◼ Put your Dimension that divides the bars on the Detail button instead of Color. ◼ If you also put a Dimension on Label, be sure to drag that to the second spot in the Marks Card because the marks will sort by the first Dimension listed there. ◼ To sort the components, right-click the stacking Dimension in Marks, select Sort, then Sort by: Field, Ascending, Field Name: [your Measure], Aggregation: [your choice].   Obviously, adjust color as needed.   That's it! Hopefully that's useful to someone out there.   🏗→🧠 Build to Learn!   💭🚶♀️🚶♂️ Follow for more.   #tableau #data #analytics #VizoftheRay

Your demo is the reason you're losing deals And it has nothing to do with your product. After sitting through 200+ sales demos last year, I've identified the pattern that separates winning presentations from forgettable ones. It's not about features. It's not about benefits. It's about sequence. Most demos follow this deadly structure: 1️⃣ Company overview 2️⃣ Product walkthrough 3️⃣ Feature deep-dive 4️⃣ Pricing discussion 5️⃣ Next steps This is exactly backwards. Your prospect doesn't care about your company story. They care about their problem. They don't want to see every feature. They want to see outcomes. Here's the demo structure that actually converts: ↳ Start with their outcome  "Based on our conversation, you mentioned needing to reduce customer churn by 15% this year. Let me show you exactly how this would work for your situation." ↳ Show their scenario Use their data, their use case, their terminology. Make it feel like they're already using your solution. ↳ Focus on 2-3 key capabilities The ones that directly impact their stated priorities. Skip everything else. ↳ Handle objections proactively Address the concerns they mentioned in discovery before they have to ask. ↳ End with clear next steps Not "Do you have any questions?" but "Based on what you've seen, what would need to happen for you to move forward?" The best demos don't feel like demos. They feel like problem-solving sessions where your product happens to be the solution. Subscribe to our Innovative Seller channel where we post bi-weekly videos on sales strategies like this 👇

How are you approaching demos? 🗣 I still remember my early years of showing a demo. I was so excited about the cool features that I would spend the whole hour showing them off to the prospect. I talked a lot, and everyone else was quiet. My young self, thought…, “They’re taking it all in!” SCORE…Days turned into months and crickets….no callbacks or replies from the prospect…Through these hard lessons, I have learned some best practices to make them more effective. Here are some: ✅ Take an outside in perspective. The demo is about your prospect, NOT your product. ✅Start the demo discussion summarizing the challenges your buyers shared with you; the impact if these challenges are not addressed; validate if anything has changed since the last conversation ✅ Summarize the solution they’re looking for, based on your collaborative discussion; validate that nothing has changed ✅ Show the demo and overall align it to their pains and business outcomes. In other word customize it. Sometimes it may not be possible to customize the product itself—customize the talk track! ✅ Focus on 3-4 areas and speak their language as they’re showing them; refer to the previous conversations you’ve had with them ✅ As you’re showing the demo, share a relevant customer story of how they used your solution and the impact ✅ Have questions ready to engage your audience ✅ Make it interactive; be flexible and adjust based on the questions you’re getting asked ✅ Read the non-verbal cues and adjust accordingly. If they look like they’re going to fall asleep, your message is not resonating. Course-correct! ✅ Make your demos short and have your prospect guide you on how much detail they want you to get into ✅ Make time for next steps ✅ Don’t forget to test your demo prior to meeting. Very awkward when it doesn’t work! #sales ; #quota; #deals

“Customer Fill In” – A Truly Terrific Demo Tip!   I was watching demos that highlighted vendors’ customer-facing intake forms/portals and noted some poor practices. Each vendor claimed that end-customers “can complete the process in five minutes or less,” but:   -       They turned the 5-minute workflow into 15-30 minutes…! -       They used obviously fake demo data. -       They covered many options, often exhaustively! -       It was obvious that the demonstrators had presented the same demo pathway dozens of times (it sounded like the presenters were boring THEMSELVES!). -       The prospects were largely silent through the entire demos. -       And the vendors NEVER asked prospects to provide input into the workflows…   This last item really struck me as a MAJOR error! Our objective is to turn demos into CONVERSATIONS.   Here’s a truly terrific tip for these situations: Invite your prospect to be the end-customer and fill in the form!   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. YOU tell me what to enter on each screen…”   Advantages?   -       You and your prospect COMPLETE the intake form in five minutes (proving your original claim). -       Your prospect gains a first-hand vision of how the process works. -       Your prospect THINKS about the options and asks relevant questions. -       And your prospect is fully engaged throughout the process!   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, taking ownership of the process and the result. Delightful!   https://lnkd.in/gNBs5GTb

When I started in #product 15 years ago, everyone used Jira, Confluence, Balsamiq, and later Airtable + Figma. With GenAI, the landscape has evolved, and here is a list of tools I expect every PM to use to stay ahead. ✨ Strategy & Competitor Analysis ✨ I think #Notion did a great job upgrading their capabilities and integrating OpenAI and Anthropic models (not sure what #Coda is doing?), which support drafting and refining strategies using internal (Slack messages, docs) and external data (investor presentations, etc.). I have personally used #Competely, which provides a massive head start and notifies you when competitors release new features and their potential impact on your strategy. 🔎 Customer Research & Discovery 🔎 Platforms such as #Kraftful automate feedback aggregation from various sources. Pushing it further, #Genway creates agents that automatically conduct your interviews, and #NextMinder can simulate research based on provided customer segment details and behavior, allowing you to simulate millions, not just dozens, of users. 🚀 Rapid Prototyping 🚀 Much has been said here, and tools like #Loveable are growing at a rapid pace. However, I’m personally more of a fan of the #Uizard toolkit, which lets you upload screenshots and whiteboard drafts and turn them into mobile and desktop designs automatically (and can also generate functional code). ✏️ Requirements & User Stories✏️ I think every PM has now used ChatGPT to generate requirements or user stories. I’ve personally found more success with #Claude, and investing in building your own GPT, populated with your strategy context, OKRs, and example PRDs and user stories, goes a long way. ✅ Testing & Validation ✅ I started product when we forced PMs to write Gherkin syntax into user stories. #QualGent and #Spur are two great examples on how Agents + MCP will change the way Product Managers will test software before it reaches users. 🤝 Collaboration & Documentation 🤝 I haven’t used them in action yet, but #Quantstruct and #Mem are notes on steroids: they automatically feed into a central knowledge base accessible by the team and help automate documentation. I’m eager to see how far we can push this in the context of technical/API/feature documentation and how we can remove outdated content from it. #GenAI #ProductManagement Shivani Rathi, Emily Gao, Shai Dinnar, Dimitrios Lippe, Bradley Antcliff, Frederic Doppstadt

This demo structure won’t work for everyone. But it increased our conversion rate by 57% so steal it if you want. WARNING: dense post ahead We used to think a great demo needed to cover everything. That just made people zone out. So we rebuilt our demo. Now the average one takes 15 minutes, and it outperforms every version we’ve tried. Here’s our EXACT structure (minute by minute): 0:00 - Set the stage (reframe the demo around them, not us) 1/ Recap what they told us in discovery. → “So you’re looking to pull transcripts into your product from Zoom and Google Meet?” 2/ Confirm outcomes. Not features. → “So your goal is speed to market…does that sound right?” Why it works: You earn permission to skip 90% of the product and go deep on the pain that matters. ----- 2:00 - Make it interactive early (get them talking before you start demoing) 1/ Ask them to name the meeting bot. Literally. → “Want to give your bot a name real quick?” 2/ Customize the demo with their name, brand, or use case. Why this works: Now they’re not watching a product. They’re watching their product. ----- 4:00 - Show just enough (curiosity > coverage) 1/ Walk through 3 endpoints: → Create Bot → Get Transcript → Get Recording 2/ Go slow. Circle key parts. Pause often. → “Does this make sense?” Why this works: By showing less, they ask more. Now they’re pulling the demo forward. ----- 10:00 - Qualify without sounding salesy (no “next steps” slide. just conversation.) 1/ Ask soft-close questions → “Do you have any questions on how you’d use this API?” → “Does it all make sense from a technical perspective what you need to do integrate?” → “Does it all make sense from a product perspective what the user experience will be like?” Why this works: This surfaces objections early and builds confidence. No pitch needed. ----- 13:00 - Stop while they want more (end demo early. let them lead the next move.) 1/ Don’t push a timeline. Let them drive. → “Happy to go deeper — what’s most useful from here?” Why it works: People are more likely to lean in when they’re not being sold to. We found they usually ask for a trial or a security doc at this point. ----- Bonus details that really matter: - The bot joins the call in real-time. That moment always lands. - We preload a Postman collection but only walk through 3 endpoints. The other endpoints sit like easter eggs on the side. - We don’t send a follow-up deck. We send the docs and let them give it a go. If you’re demoing to prove how much you’ve built, you’ll lose. We demo to prove how much we’ve understood. This structure won’t work for every product, but the principles should stay the same.

💡 Did you know you can overlay row banding on a highlight table in #Tableau? This question came up twice last week so I built out a quick example. I'll probably do a full video tutorial at some point, but for now some bullet points and a Tableau Public workbook will have to do. How to: •Add dimensions to Rows/Columns •Write MAX(1) calculation •Add MAX(1) to Columns twice •Set mark type to bars and maximize size •Manually set axis range from 0 to 1 •Dual Axis the MAX 1 fields •Add measure to color/labels on first MAX 1 field (ensure labels are set to overlap other marks) •Create INDEX() % 2 calculation •Add INDEX() % 2 calculation to color on second MAX 1 •Set color range to black/white and lock in 2 stepped color on second MAX 1 •Set color opacity to between 10-20% on second MAX 1 Voilà, you did it! Tableau Public example linked below.

Every demo ends with "this is exactly what we need!" Their conversion rate is 2%. They finally figured out what they're doing wrong: The demo trap looks like this: - "Perfect solution!" - "Exactly what we need!" - "When can we start?" - *crickets* Your prospects aren't lying. In that moment, they genuinely believe they'll buy. But you're selling to the wrong part of their brain. The excited brain during demos: - Imagines perfect implementation - Sees immediate value - Pictures easy adoption - Dreams of outcomes The real brain after demos: - Remembers past software failures - Counts implementation hours - Fears team resistance - Doubts everything Most demos sell the dream. But dreams don't survive first meetings with reality. What actually works: Don't sell features. Sell the first 30 days: - Exact implementation steps - Real time commitments - Specific team impact - Clear first wins Plot the path to Monday morning, not the future. Your product isn't competing with the fear of "one more failed tool." Not other products. Instead of selling dreams, sell Mondays. Because right now: 98% of your prospects actually need your product, but can't see past implementation fear The best demo is about day one, not about your features.