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Demo Skills Assessment – (Why) Do It Now
How do you know you are doing a good/adequate/terrific job if you don’t measure your results?
Demo Pitfalls #293: “Remember when I showed you…?”
When presenting a demo, if you say, “Remember when I showed you…?” It is unlikely that your prospect will remember! Why? The National Training ...
Demo or Discovery Questions? The Answer May Already Be Here!
Do you have a question about demo or discovery practices, methods, or skills? Looking for a tip to improve? The answers may already be ...
Demo No No: “I’m not listening…!”
In a demo, clicking or changing screens while the prospect is talking indicates “I’m not listening…!” Just saw this and realized how rude ...
Demo Jockeys Interview Part 2 – Doing Discovery
I joined the fabulous folks at the Demo Jockeys for a discussion of the Doing Discovery book. Here’s a timeline for part 2 of ...
Demo Jockeys Interview – Doing Discovery
I joined the fabulous folks at the Demo Jockeys for a discussion of the Doing Discovery book. Here’s a timeline for part 1 of ...
Demo Horror Stories – Friday Fun Podcast
I joined the fine folks at “Tripping Over the Barrel” to explore life, liberty, and the pursuit of demo horror stories. We discussed best and ...
Demo Hack: New vs Save As
In demos, how many times have you seen someone build a new dashboard or process flow from scratch, step by step? I’m always amazed ...
Demo Hack: New vs Save As
“Execute all pathways with the fewest number of clicks.” – Cohan’s Law of Simplicity “Choose pathways that CAN be executed with the fewest ...
Demo Don’t: Rampaging Pronouns!
I was watching a demo today and heard the vendor use a pile of personal pronouns in their delivery: Multiple and mixed uses of ...
Demo Don’t: Don’t Bury the Lede!
Definition of lede: The introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story. Would you ever ...
Demo Don’t: Do Discovery and Ignore It in the Demo
It’s hard to believe this would ever happen and yet it does, far too frequently! Imagine sitting down in a restaurant and exploring the ...
Demo Don’t: “What We Call…”
I was watching a demo yesterday and heard the presenter use the phrase, “What we call a ___” multiple times. Was it important that ...
Demo Don’t: “It’s Slow Today Because…”
How many times have you heard a vendor say in a demo, “It’s slow today because…”? Each time a vendor utters that phrase, they ...
Demo Don’t: “I like sausage, but I don’t necessarily want to see how it’s made…!”
In demos, present the “What” but only show the “How” if the prospect asks! (See Great Demo! Third Edition for the delicious recipe for ...
Demo Don’t #9 Don’t Describe Your Big Wow! Screens: “Doesn’t that look great…?”
You’ve been demoing for forty minutes, and you finally get to a big Wow! screen. You say, “Doesn’t that look great?” and then swiftly ...
Demo Don’t #8 Don’t Use the Annotation and Other Tools in Your Online Demos: “Can you see my screen…?”
Here are wonderful ways for you to show your software in the worst possible way when demoing online (using Zoom, Teams, Webex, GoToMeeting, etc.): ...
Demo Don’t #7 Let Questions Drive You into the Weeds: “But what about…?”
You’ve just started your demo when someone asks a question about your system’s login security, so you take a few minutes to answer their ...
Demo Don’t #6 Show the Same Demo, Regardless of Your Prospect’s Needs or Interest: “One for all…”
Ignore the fact that the VP in the room only wants a top-level summary of your offering and that the managers are only interested ...
Demo Don’t #5 Pack as Many Features and Functions into Your Demo as Possible: “And another thing you can do is…”
Want to make your software appear as confusing and complicated as possible? Want more ways to bore and torture your audience? Want to help ...
Demo Don’t #4 Don’t Reconfirm the Time Constraints for Your Meeting: “Sorry, we’re out of time…”
You’d planned on two hours with your prospect when you set up the meeting a week ago. Is there any reason this might have ...
Demo Don’t #3 Start with a Corporate Overview: “Death by Corporate Overview…”
Make Number 2 (“Present a Long, Linear Demo That Saves the Best for Last” from last week) even worse by starting with twenty minutes ...
Demo Don’t #2 Present a Long, Linear Demo That Saves the Best for Last: “Where is this going…?”
Have you ever been watching someone else’s demo and after a few minutes you start wondering, “Where is this going…?” You can ensure the ...
Demo Don’t #10 Avoid Summarizing: “And the next really cool thing I want to show you is…”
“I get paid to talk and click,” commented a presales practitioner. So, just talk and click from section to section, segment after segment, in ...
Demo Don’t #1 Be unclear about your Prospect’s Needs: “The Harbor Tour.”
Offer and deliver a demo hoping that your prospect will see something of interest, eventually. Also known as “Living in the Land of Hope,” ...
Demo Do: What’s the Significance of 76 Seconds?
That’s the average time between “speaker switches” in the most successful demos (from a Gong study of thousands of software demos a few years ...
Demo Do: Take a Page from Recipes
Ever notice how nearly every recipe online opens with an image of the completed dish, the end result? And ever notice how they don’t ...