Debilitating Demo Diseases – Clairvoyance Annoyance (Premature Elaboration)

Symptoms:

Prescience. Answering questions before your prospect can get their full question out of their month because you’ve heard them all hundreds of times before. Causes severe annoyance in customers. May cause embarrassment and apologies. The appearance of jackass ears on the presenter may also occur.

Examples:

Prospect: “Does it run on…”

Presenter: “Yes! We support all four versions of Windows 11, as well as Windows 10, Windows 8 and 7, Vista, Windows XP and some even older versions of Windows, and we also support the MS Office and Office 365 products on each of these platforms, including all the current and ‘compatibility’ file types.”

Prospect: “…Macintosh?”

Presenter: “Oh. No.”

Cure:

Zip it, and let your prospect ask their full question. Listen actively and 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 Parking Lot.

You’ll find the full cure in Chapter 8 “Managing Time And Questions” in Great Demo! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/