A few years ago, while teaching a Great Demo! Workshop I presented a slide that listed outcomes of showing too many features in a demo. As I revealed a bullet that read, \u201cToo Complicated\u201d I heard a gentleman in the back of the room exclaim, \u201cOh, S**t!\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped and asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d<\/p>\n
He sighed deeply and then said, \u201cWe just negatively<\/em> converted a $250,000 deal down to a $5,000 1-user order.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOuch!\u201d I said, \u201cWhat happened?\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n He shook his head, as if still in disbelief, and then began his story\u2026<\/p>\n The Discovery Meeting<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis story could be called, \u2018The Sales Prevention Team\u2019!\u201d he commented ruefully. The Workshop participants and I all leaned forward to listen\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a sales manager and was visiting a prospect who had inquired about our offerings. We met to have a discovery conversation and the prospect outlined his need for improved data visualization capabilities. We discussed his situation in depth and then began to describe the kinds of deliverables our tool enabled.<\/p>\n As we developed a vision of a solution, our prospect got more and more excited. So much so, in fact, that he declared, \u2018This is terrific! This is exactly<\/em> the kind of thing we\u2019ve been hoping for!\u2019<\/p>\n He said, \u2018I\u2019ve got 50 target end-users for this application and they need it to complete a key project by quarter-end.\u2019<\/p>\n We discussed pricing and he was comfortable with the numbers, as we had explored value aspects during the conversation. He had noted that his current technology was going to cause the project to be late by 6 months or more \u2013 he was confident our tool would enable him and his team to finish well within the quarter.<\/p>\n Our tool cost $5,000 per user, so the opportunity totaled $250,000. Our prospect revealed that this was entirely doable; he had the budget and the ability to drive the purchase internally.<\/p>\n \u2018This is great, this is great\u2026!\u2019 he said, adding \u2018Here\u2019s what we need to do: I\u2019ll organize a demo meeting for the 50 users and, assuming they give us a thumbs-up \u2013 and they should \u2013 we\u2019ll move forward with the order.\u2019<\/p>\n He had essentially turned himself into a champion, promoting our tool and pursuing his internal buying process. He set a date for the demo a few days later, when he could gather all 50 of his folks together.\u201d<\/p>\n The sales manager shook his head again sadly, sighing, before continuing\u2026<\/p>\n The Demo Meeting<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cOn the day of the demo, our champion had indeed gathered the 50 end-users into a large room. We had agreed on 1 hour for the demo.<\/p>\n I had brought Matt, a seasoned veteran, to deliver the demo and I\u2019d briefed him on the details of the previous discovery conversation. Matt got his laptop set up and was ready to go.<\/p>\n I kicked-off the meeting with brief introductions followed by a crisp review of what we\u2019d learned about the prospect\u2019s visualization needs. Our champion confirmed that the information was correct, with no changes. Matt then took over\u2026<\/p>\n Matt started his demo and in the first 10 minutes he covered everything that had been discussed in discovery. The audience members were excited, nodding their heads and contributing very positive comments. They could see themselves using the tool, at this point, and sounded eager to start.<\/p>\n Matt looked at his watch and said, \u2018Oh, it looks like we have another 45 minutes left in our meeting. Why don\u2019t I show you some of the other cool things our software can do?\u2019<\/p>\n [Editor\u2019s note: at this point, dear reader, you are likely making a \u201cCut, cut\u201d motion like a movie director stopping a failed scene\u2026]<\/p>\n Well, Matt dove in. He showed how you could set up different templates, he showed how you could write scripts, he showed how you could publish visualizations in a variety of ways, he showed how you could customize your preferences and settings, he showed how there was a \u2018comprehensive help system available\u2026\u2019 And he consumed all of the remaining 45 minutes of the meeting.<\/p>\n At the close of the meeting, we stepped out of the room so our champion could have a private conversation with his users. He came out a few minutes later and said, \u2018What we\u2019ve decided to do is to take a license for a single<\/em> user, an expert. We\u2019ll have everyone else take the visualization problems to her to do using your tool\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n I spluttered, \u2018But, but why<\/em>?\u2019<\/p>\n Our champion responded, \u2018The users said it looked too complicated<\/em> and too difficult to use.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n At this point there was a collective, shocked gasp from the Workshop participants and me.<\/p>\n The sales manager sighed again, deeply, and shook his head, saying, \u201cA negative<\/em> conversion of $245,000 as a result of showing too much\u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n The Morals<\/strong><\/p>\n Moral 1:<\/p>\n Discovery should uncover the Specific Capabilities<\/em> desired by your prospects and your demos should focus on presenting exactly what your prospect desires. That\u2019s why they are called Specific Capabilities<\/em>!<\/p>\n Moral 2:<\/p>\n Stop selling when the prospect is ready to buy.<\/p>\n Moral 3:<\/p>\n It is absolutely OK to end a meeting early. If you are done, be done. And then say to your prospect, \u201cThat\u2019s 45 minutes you get back in your day, from us\u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n Moral 4:<\/p>\n Don\u2019t become a member of the \u201cSales Prevention Team\u201d!<\/p>\n Any others?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2022 The Second Derivative \u2013 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Esta historia podr\u00eda llamarse \"El equipo de prevenci\u00f3n de ventas\"\", coment\u00f3 con tristeza. Los participantes en el taller y yo nos inclinamos hacia delante para escuchar...<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20,8,16,10],"tags":[6,7],"class_list":["post-28471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aweful_demos","category-doing_discovery","category-great-demo-blog","category-humor","category-methodology_basics","tag-articles","tag-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}