Dramatically Increase Interaction in Virtual Demos DEMOFEST Presentation

Virtual audiences are notoriously passive during demos. Blank faces stare back at you. Your questions go unanswered. As an SE, hearing only your own voice is painful and rarely leads to a successful outcome. In this session you’ll learn subtle shifts and hard tactics that encourage greater customer interaction and engagement in your virtual demos.

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“Acting Tips for Connecting On-Camera” DEMOFEST Presentation

Acting Tips for Connecting On-Camera focused on:
– The secret to “being natural” on-camera
– How to create eye contact with your customer
– Why certain movements and gestures don’t work on-camera
– How to incorporate video into your demo
And more!

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“7 Habits for Stunningly Successful Demos” DEMOFEST 2020

In 7 Habits for Stunningly Successful Demos we explored data-driven best practices (as opposed to opinions!):

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“Scaling Presales Effectiveness”

Peter Cohan joined John Care and Don Carmichael when the fine folks at Consensus convened this panel in a “Scaling Presales Effectiveness” webinar.

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OVERactive Listening

While Active Listening skills are extremely important for vendors in Discovery, demos, and related conversations, we occasionally encounter vendor reps whose responses to prospect comments can be perceived as fake and artificial. Note that we’ve seen this behavior from presales and customer success folks as well as salespeople!

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Some Observations – Exploring the Data in Consensus’ 2021 Sales Engineering and Workload Report

Consensus graciously provided me with access to the data in their “2021 Sales Engineering and Workload Report” – here are some interesting observations.

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The Myth of the Informed Buyer

SiriusDecisions, Forrester, and others note that buyers have often completed 67% of their buying journey before engaging with live sellers. This has resulted in an assumption (by both buyers and vendors) that buyers know all about vendor offerings before any buyer-seller conversations take place.

This is incorrect!

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Automated Demo Content – Getting It Right

You’ve been asked to put together the content for an automated or recorded demo – where do you start? What should be included?

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A New “Touch” in the New Normal

I was recently asked the following question in an interview:

“While business travel appears to be opening up, it looks like working from home is going to stay with us for the foreseeable future. How should executives gear up to the changing times?”

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Should There Be Both Sales AND Presales Motions?

Sadly, there is no definition for Presales Motions… Perhaps there should be! Here’s a draft, based on the HubSpot wording above:

“A Presales Motion is the combination of the actionable steps and general presales philosophy an organization employs to secure the technical close or win for a product or service to prospects and customers.”

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