Great Demo! Resources
  • Your Persona Demo is Failing! The breakdown with persona-based demos is the lack of ability to fully connect the challenges your a
  • Why Your Discovery Calls Are Hurting Your Sales “I hate to break it to you, but your discovery calls might actually be hurting your sales..."
  • Why Should a Demo Be Like a News Article? News organizations have been presenting information for several hundreds of years, in print and now via the web, and they have learned some highly effective practices that we can employ in demonstrating software.
  • Why Structure a Demo Like a News Article? Remember newspapers – the analog version of web-delivered news? News organizations have been presenting information for several hundreds of years, in print and more lately via the web, and they have learned some highly effective practices that we can employ in demonstrating software.
Advanced Topics
  • Your Persona Demo is Failing! The breakdown with persona-based demos is the lack of ability to fully connect the challenges your a
  • Why Structure a Demo Like a News Article? Remember newspapers – the analog version of web-delivered news? News organizations have been presenting information for several hundreds of years, in print and more lately via the web, and they have learned some highly effective practices that we can employ in demonstrating software.
  • Why Don’t They "Get It" – Are They Stupid Or… Have you ever delivered a demo to a prospect that doesn’t seem to understand what you are offering them? Have you ever had a prospect say, at the end of a demo, “Um, hmmm, looks interesting; we’ll get back to you later…” (and you never hear from them again)?
  • Why DID They Buy? – Fabulous Fuel for Sales, Presales… Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers a few months after they purchased your software and well after they have deployed it into production use
Beyond Demos
Customer Success
  • Why DID They Buy? – Fabulous Fuel for Sales, Presales… Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers a few months after they purchased your software
  • Why Did They Buy? Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers four or five months after they purchased your software and after they have deployed it into production use. Ask them, “How are you using our software? What applications have you implemented? What value are you receiving?”
  • What Percent of Your Demos Are for New vs. Renewal… We are very interested in the results of this informal study – and what we learn may yield some very interesting strategies and skills…!
  • Transition Vision - A Competitive Differentiator Vendors who can successfully create a vision of how customers can transition from their current situation to their desired Solution will enjoy significant advantages over vendors who do not. In competitive situations, if everything else is equal, a strong Transition Vision can make the difference between winning and losing the business.
Doing Discovery
  • Why Your Discovery Calls Are Hurting Your Sales “I hate to break it to you, but your discovery calls might actually be hurting your sales..."
  • Why Did They Buy? Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers four or five months after they purchased your software and after they have deployed it into production use. Ask them, “How are you using our software? What applications have you implemented? What value are you receiving?”
  • Uniqueness – A Terrific Discovery Question for Highly Transactional Sales In transactional sales processes, where orders are relatively small and cycle time is rapid, doing Discovery can be challenging – but is still critical!
  • Trade-Show Demonstrations – Using the "Menu Approach" I both love and hate doing demonstrations at trade shows. They are wonderful because of the opportunity to interact with so many customers. They are terrible when you consider how many of those customer interactions, and demos, are unqualified and unproductive.
Demo Data and Environment
  • Webinar Recording – The Perfect Presales Demo Environment – and… “Sorry, I don’t have an example like that in our demo system…” “No, we can’t show that
  • Demo Data:  The Importance of Problems, Gaps, and Exceptions I was working with a vendor on an example demo and we identified a dashboard to serve as an Illustration (a “Wow!” screen for that use case) – but while the dashboard had all the right data elements, the data itself was uncompelling.  There were no problems, gaps, or exceptions exhibited.  Everything looked “OK”.
  • Demo Data – Another Angle I’ve blogged about the need for demo data to reflect real-life problems and situations, including the ability to find and surface problems, identify opportunities, and explore exceptions. I can add one more to the list: the ability to identify certain gaps – when things that should be happening aren’t happening…
  • “Before and After” Images and Illustrations in Demos In Great Demo! Workshops we help teams identify the “wow” screens and deliverables in their software (“Illustrations”).  One terrific approach is to leverage the well-known “before-and-after” approach...
Growth & Development
  • Why Your Discovery Calls Are Hurting Your Sales “I hate to break it to you, but your discovery calls might actually be hurting your sales..."
  • Why Don’t They "Get It" – Are They Stupid Or… Have you ever delivered a demo to a prospect that doesn’t seem to understand what you are offering them? Have you ever had a prospect say, at the end of a demo, “Um, hmmm, looks interesting; we’ll get back to you later…” (and you never hear from them again)?
  • Why DID They Buy? – Fabulous Fuel for Sales, Presales… Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers a few months after they purchased your software and well after they have deployed it into production use
  • Why Did They Buy? Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers four or five months after they purchased your software and after they have deployed it into production use. Ask them, “How are you using our software? What applications have you implemented? What value are you receiving?”
Humor With a Bite!
Justifying Training
  • Your Persona Demo is Failing! The breakdown with persona-based demos is the lack of ability to fully connect the challenges your a
  • Why Don’t They "Get It" – Are They Stupid Or… Have you ever delivered a demo to a prospect that doesn’t seem to understand what you are offering them? Have you ever had a prospect say, at the end of a demo, “Um, hmmm, looks interesting; we’ll get back to you later…” (and you never hear from them again)?
  • What is Presales Series: Presales is the Secret to Shorter… Learn “The 7 Habits of Stunningly Successful Demos” from speaker and author Peter Cohan to ensure you are engaging prospects, fast-tracking deals, and putting competitors on their heels from the first meeting. Learn how the data generated throughout the technical selling process can unlock secrets to shorten sales cycles from Vivun CEO Matt Darrow.
  • What's the Value of Better Demos For the clueless, not a thing. But for those who are awake and aware, better demos are exceptionally valuable…
Marketing Topics
  • Why Structure a Demo Like a News Article? Remember newspapers – the analog version of web-delivered news? News organizations have been pres
  • Why Don’t They "Get It" – Are They Stupid Or… Have you ever delivered a demo to a prospect that doesn’t seem to understand what you are offering them? Have you ever had a prospect say, at the end of a demo, “Um, hmmm, looks interesting; we’ll get back to you later…” (and you never hear from them again)?
  • Why DID They Buy? – Fabulous Fuel for Sales, Presales… Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers a few months after they purchased your software and well after they have deployed it into production use
  • Why Did They Buy? Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers four or five months after they purchased your software and after they have deployed it into production use. Ask them, “How are you using our software? What applications have you implemented? What value are you receiving?”
Mostly For Managers
  • Your Persona Demo is Failing! The breakdown with persona-based demos is the lack of ability to fully connect the challenges your a
  • Why DID They Buy? – Fabulous Fuel for Sales, Presales… Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers a few months after they purchased your software and well after they have deployed it into production use
  • Why Did They Buy? Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers four or five months after they purchased your software and after they have deployed it into production use. Ask them, “How are you using our software? What applications have you implemented? What value are you receiving?”
  • When is the Right Time to Demo? Have you ever wondered what the best time of day is to perform a demo…
Methodology Basics
  • Why Should a Demo Be Like a News Article? News organizations have been presenting information for several hundreds of years, in print and now
  • Why Structure a Demo Like a News Article? Remember newspapers – the analog version of web-delivered news? News organizations have been presenting information for several hundreds of years, in print and more lately via the web, and they have learned some highly effective practices that we can employ in demonstrating software.
  • When is the Right Time to Demo? Have you ever wondered what the best time of day is to perform a demo…
  • What is the significance of 33334? That’s how many copies of Great Demo! have been purchased (not including those that have been resold or passed around). This means that at least 33,334 people have been exposed to the Great Demo! methodology – but how many folks have actually changed their habits as a result of reading a book?
"Stunningly Awful Demo" Series
Storytelling
Vision Generation Topics
  • Why Structure a Demo Like a News Article? Remember newspapers – the analog version of web-delivered news? News organizations have been pres
  • Why Don’t They "Get It" – Are They Stupid Or… Have you ever delivered a demo to a prospect that doesn’t seem to understand what you are offering them? Have you ever had a prospect say, at the end of a demo, “Um, hmmm, looks interesting; we’ll get back to you later…” (and you never hear from them again)?
  • Webinar Recording – What is Presales Series: Presales Is the… Buyers want experts.  In today’s world of product-led sales there has never been a bigger opportunity or risk in leveraging the presales team. The companies who can use their technology to tell a captivating story, while understanding the technical selling patterns that lead to deals, will simply grow faster than their peers.
  • Vision Generation Demos What is a Vision Generation demo? It is just enough demo to generate a vision in the customer’s mind that a solution to a business challenge is possible – and to enable a Discovery conversation to take place.
Virtual & Remote Demos

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