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I recently had the privilege of meeting some of the staff at Merced Systems in Redwood Shores, CA. They are looking for a couple A-quality Sales Engineers in the West to represent their products. They are currently producing software in to areas: Performance Management and Incentive Management. Their software is solid and they have a fantastic executive team. The hiring manager, Hamish Eisler, is a great guy. If you are a star player and want to join a company that not only survived 2009, but actually thrived, you should check them out. You can see the full job listing on LinkedIn.
Sales management often talks about selling “business value”. There’s a good reason for this: in most cases it is not IT making the decision to buy software, but rather the business users (although IT may have veto power). For many Sales Engineers (especially technical ones) that means that if you are talking about technology, you may not be helping to win the deal because your message may go right past the business audience.
So how do you effectively sell technology to a business audience? First off you should strive to have a combination of both business and technical people from the prospect attending your presentations. This mix can help you to really sell the business value of technology, although many SE’s dread presenting to “mixed groups”. To make presentations to mixed business/technical audiences work well, you should follow these guidelines:
Like many people with a technical background, I have lots of links in my resume to companies I have worked for and projects I have completed. When I send out a resume I would like to know whether people click on the links in the resume, but normally I can only get stats for sites I control (using Google Analytics Campaign Tracking). By using a URL shortening service I can embed links that are specific to the resume that I sent, and I can track every click on that link from that specific resume. The only problem here is that creating those links is time consuming, especially if you send out lots of resumes and/or have lots of links in your resume.
I created a macro that can automatically generate trackable links with one click. You need to be somewhat technical to use this macro, and I have only tested it in Word 2007 (please leave comments on whether it works for you in other versions). The macro is simple: it contacts a URL shortening service (either Cligs or Bitly at your option) and looks through all the links in your resume and shortens them using your account (so that you can track them).
You will need three things before you can use this VBA code:
The macro also includes a place for you to enter Google Analytics campaign tracking which will help keep stats for sites you control (if you use Google Analytics).
The parameters at the top of the macro are things you need to set up before running the macro on a document. If you are using Bitly, then enter your Login and APIKey in the variables at the top. If you are using Cligs, enter your APIKey in that variable (leave the other API blank). If you are going to use Google Campaign tracking, then enter in those variables (leave them all blank otherwise).
If you are comfortable in VBA programming you can just create a new macro attached to your resume and paste the code below. You can also download a sample Word 2007 document with the macro already built in. Either way you will need to run the macro from your Word document once you have the variables set up. Note: It’s a good idea to delete the macro from the document once you have run it. Otherwise people opening the document will get a macro security warning when they open the document.
One other note: using a URL shortening service for your links could result in non-operative links if the URL shortening service shuts down (which happened to cligs before they were acquired). So use at your own risk. I also might be willing to add other URL shortening services that might be more reliable (and have an API).
Here is a short (4 min) screencast of how to use the macro. In the example I use Cligs, but the same process applies for using Bitly. Please comment with any questions.
Sub URLShortener() ' ' URL shortener/tracker ' Created by Dave Sohigian http://dave.sohigian.com 1/5/2010 ' For more information go to http://www.techdemoguy.com/?p=192 ' License: Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ' 'Variables you should enter. Enter either BitlyLogin AND BitlyAPIKey 'OR CligsApiKey, depending on which service you will use. 'If you want to track the Google Campaign, then enter those three 'variables. Otherwise leave the Google variables blank BitlyLogin = "" BitlyApiKey = "" CligsApiKey = "" GoogleCampaign = "" GoogleMedium = "" GoogleSource = "" If (GoogleCampaign <> "") Then GoogleQueryString = "?utm_source=" & GoogleSource & "%26utm_medium=" _ & GoogleMedium & "%26utm_content=1%26utm_campaign=" & GoogleCampaign Else GoogleQueryString = "" End If 'Loop through all of the hyperlinks and shorten the URLs For i = 1 To ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Count ApiUrl = "" LinkText = "" ' select the next hyperlink ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks(i).Range.Select ' store the name of the hyperlink LinkText = Selection.Range.Text ' store the url of the hyperlink LinkUrl = ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks(i).Address ' Make sure it is not a bit.ly or cligs url (would error out) If (Left(LinkUrl, 13) <> "http://bit.ly") And (Left(LinkUrl, 13) <> "http://cli.gs") Then ' Set up the API object Set ObjHttp = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP") If (BitlyApiKey <> "") Then ' Create the API URL for Bitly ApiUrl = "http://api.bit.ly/shorten?version=2.0.1&login=" _ & BitlyLogin & "&apiKey=" & BitlyApiKey & "&history=1&format=text&longUrl=" _ & LinkUrl & GoogleQueryString ElseIf (CligsApiKey <> "") Then ' Create the API URL for Cligs ApiUrl = "http://cli.gs/api/v1/cligs/create?key=" & CligsApiKey _ & "&appid=ResumeStats" & "&url=" & LinkUrl & GoogleQueryString End If If (ApiUrl <> "") Then ' Setup the call to the REST API ObjHttp.Open "GET", ApiUrl, False ' False indicates the call is synchronous - wait for URL Result ' Send the request ObjHttp.send ' Get our results (the shortened URL) if the response was okay If (ObjHttp.StatusText = "OK") Then StrResult = ObjHttp.responseText Else 'Otherwise just keep the original URL StrResult = LinkUrl End If Else StrResult = LinkUrl End If ' Update the Hyperlink in the document with the shortened URL If (LinkText <> "") Then 'If it is a text link, then keep the Link Text ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=Selection.Range, Address:= _ StrResult, SubAddress:="", ScreenTip:=LinkUrl, TextToDisplay:=LinkText Else 'Otherwise don't change the Link Text (if it is a linked image it will have " " as the selection text) ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=Selection.Range, Address:= _ StrResult, ScreenTip:=LinkUrl End If End If Next i End Sub
In one of my earlier posts I talked about one reason why you should consider presenting first in a sales cycle: so that the audience will pay attention to you during a long day of demonstrations. This is just one of the strategies that you can apply in a “Demo Marathon”.
If you have never been on the buying side of a corporate purchase, you probably don’t have a sense of just how tiring an evaluation can be. It takes you away from your normal activities, and that may be exciting for a bit, but writing RFP questions, grading the responses, talking to vendors and attending endless meetings can quickly become a drag. It’s no wonder that many prospects choose to cram all the vendor presentations into one day: it allows for easier scheduling and gets everything over at once. But demo marathons can be a disaster for vendors because the audience is often burned out after the first or second demonstration.
That is the argument for going first: you want to avoid presenting when your audience is getting tired. But if you can’t present first (often you are not in control of the order) there are a few other things you can do to be successful during a demo marathon
This is a good rule for any presentation, but it applies particularly well when you are trying to deal with an overloaded audience. Studies have shown that people pay the most attention at the start and end of a presentation, so you want to make a powerful first impression. The critical factor here is to deliver your most important message first thing and make it memorable. Don’t waste time introducing your company, your team, etc… Instead, just tell them the one (or two, or three, if you can make it short) things that will matter most about your product. You can even say “If you forget everything else you see today, I want to be sure you remember these three things about our product…”
I have mentioned this before, but if you want your audience to be more receptive, you should make it available before your demo. Studies have shown that caffeine puts people in a more receptive mood. It has been suggested that this factor is more important than any other in a presentation. So bring that Starbucks coffee-in-a-box with you!
Almost every presentation I have given ends up with follow-up questions that could not be answered on the day of the presentation. Often these can drag on for a while and prospects or vendors will forget about them. If a prospect has just been through a demo marathon they will probably be getting the vendors mixed up in their heads after the demo. If you can follow up on any questions quickly, you will have an opportunity to stay top of mind. Instead of researching the answers to every question, get as many answers together as you can in 24 hours or less and send them to the prospect. Make sure to include the reasons why they should purchase your product along with your follow-up answers.
The rule about the start and end of the presentations commanding the most attention applies for each presenter. So that means if you change presenters often you have additional chances to deliver your message. Even if it is just the Salesperson standing up for 5 minutes to discuss company financials, breaking up the presenters can have a positive effect. Of course this needs to be choreographed well to avoid confusion, but it can increase the impact when you have an important message to deliver.
Although prospects often have some sort of rating sheets (I will have a post about that soon), you might consider giving them one for your product if they don’t. This is particularly effective if there is a large scripted demonstration. If you give them a grading sheet that follows their script and has a check box or rating box after each item you will encourage them to follow along with your demonstration. And if you are the only vendor that gave them a rating sheet it will make a very personal leave-behind that will be brought up in further discussions. Either way it will help keep their attention during a long demo day.
Those are just a few examples of ways to keep attention focused on your products during a demo marathon. I welcome other suggestions for readers in the comments.
In one of my earlier posts I talked about one reason why you should consider presenting last in a sales cycle: so that you can stand out in a crowded field. This is just one of the strategies that you can apply when you have lots of competition.
The biggest problem with having lots of competitors is not the competitors’ products, it’s the attention of the prospect. Most sales teams have never had the experience of sitting through multiple demonstrations, sifting through piles of RFP responses and having to put your familiar work environment aside for an extended period. But that is exactly what an evaluation team at a prospect goes through in a sales cycle, particularly one where there are lots of vendors on their preferred list.
What do I mean by a crowded field? If you have more than 3-4 competitors on a deal, the field is crowded. When I have been in deals with crowded fields, I have been amazed at just how confused prospects can get about the vendors. I remember one deal where a prospect regularly emailed me questions that were clearly intended for another vendor.
There are several strategies that can help you stand out in a crowded field:
Often prospects can’t keep all the salespeople from the various vendors straight. Showing a genuine personality during the sales cycle can help the prospect remember you and your product. This is especially true for Sales Engineers who are often expected to give “just the facts”.
It is inevitable that the prospect will get vendors confused in a crowded field, but if you have gone out of your way to build a relationship with a few individuals at the prospect, they can help you stand out in the evalutation. It does not matter whether the individuals are decision-makers or not, but it is helpful if they seem to be vocal. Your goal is to build an advocate or two that will speak up for your viewpoint in discussions.
In some deals it makes sense to set traps and focus on the competition, but this is not the case in a crowded field. The propsect is already confused enough about which vendor said what; you shouldn’t add to that confusion by talking about the competition even in a theoretical way. Focus on your product and how it will directly benefit the prospect.
Sales is all about flexibility and most successful sales cycles will diverge from the standard marketing message (or “brand”) of the product to win the deal. But if there are lots of competitors you should consider staying with your standard corporate message so that all your marketing materials and sales presentations are consistent. Keeping your message clear in the prospect’s mind is more important than tailoring it for that specific prospect when there are lots of competitors. You should absolutely focus on solving the prospect’s problems, but try to do so without moving too far away from your standard marketing message.
If there are many vendors early in a deal, it is tempting to just wait things out and see if you make the short list before investing in a deal. If you really believe you are column fodder then this strategy makes sense, but if you are confident you have a good shot you should come on strong and early. As a Sales Engineer you can do this by having a personality (see #1) and being willing to take risks early in the deal.
More than anything else you should think about what it is like to be the prospect when there are lots of vendors. Often individuals don’t have much choice about how many vendors they evaluate: the number might be set by upper management, company guidelines or one member of the evaluation team. Having empathy for the challenge being faced by the prospect can go a long way toward building a relationship that will help you as the field narrows.
In one of my earlier posts I talked about one reason why you should consider presenting first in a sales cycle: so that you can set traps for your competition. Setting traps is a delicate topic for most Sales Engineers: you can lose credibility quickly by slinging mud at the competition. But setting traps well can make all the difference in a competitive sales cycle.
The key to effectively setting traps is truly understanding the needs of your prospect combined with knowing the weaknesses of your competition. While it may be true that your competition has difficult to configure software your prospect may not care about this characteristic and setting a trap won’t be worth the effort.
The steps to setting an effective trap in a presentation are:
Establishing credibility first is critical to success in setting traps. For a trap to be effective the prospect must challenge your competition directly in their presentation. If you don’t have credibility, and the trust that goes with it, the prospect won’t take action on your suggestions. It is because of this credibility that Sales Engineers are in a unique position to set traps during a presentation or demonstration.
Traps don’t have to be about product features or functions: they can be about anything you feel is weak in your competition AND matters to your prospect. You can set traps about company stability, overall product quality, ability to deliver or even demonstration style. When I was working at PeopleSoft one of our competitors, Lawson Software, set an extremely effective trap against us multiple times. They set the perception in the prospect’s mind that PeopleSoft was just a “tool” for creating applications and that Lawson, by comparison, was a fully-bake solution. Specifically they suggested that audience members should write down how many times the word “toolset” or “tool” was used during a PeopleSoft demonstration as a measure of the truth of that statement. Unfortunately we used those terms all the time to describe the flexibility of our product. It was only when we saw an audience member putting tic marks on their notes (and asked what they were doing) that we discovered the trap that had been set.
In one of my earlier posts I talked about one reason why you should consider presenting last in a sales cycle: because your prospect does not understand the value of your product. This brings up the question of how to balance educating a prospect and selling to them. Good Sales Engineers are masters at walking this fine line and know that to build credibility you need to do some education, but you can easily take that too far.
If you are presenting a product that is “disruptive” (to use a Bullspeak term common in Silicon Valley) then it will, by definition, be a challenge for a prospect to appreciate it’s value. Twitter is a great example. Almost every person I have ever spoken with about Twitter thought it was idiotic when they first heard the idea. Why would you want to hear peoples minute-by-minute ramblings? A friend of mine still calls it “Twittereah ” and many others question whether there is any value in Twitter at all. But with 30 Million users and growing it certainly has an audience. But understanding it’s value is going to take time and it is still a tough sell. Many other disruptive products are the same way: if they fundamentally change the game then selling them is an uphill battle.
So education must play a role in any sale of a disruptive product. One way to bridge the gap between education and selling is by making your presentations as personal as possible. If you are selling productivity software, then show the individuals involved real-world examples of how their quality of life will be improved. This will engage them and give them a desire to fully understand your product. The first reaction that most people have to something new is “I don’t see how that will work”. It’s easy to forget this reality, especially if you work with high technology. Most people in high tech see something new and say “Wow! Cool. Let me see what I can do with that”. These folks are the early-adopters and you are not going to find many of them to sell to in any market. See “Crossing the Chasm” for more on the characteristics of different buyers in a technology market.
The problem is if you spend your entire sales cycle educating the prospect on the value of the product. Although you may build a relationship during this period, it is also possible that your competition (that may not have even been engaged in the early part of the cycle) may swoop in later and present a much simpler view of the product. The end result could be that you are percieved as complex, while the competition looks like the elegant solution. You do the heavy lifting of educating the prospect and they come in and SELL.
That is why I gave the advice of going last in a sales cycle where you need to educate the prospect about your product. But if you have to educate a customer, don’t forget to continue selling during that process. The main difference is that selling means showing the relevance and value of your product to the product. Education is about understanding, selling is about creating desire. Both in equal measures will win the deal.
I have been asked by the folks at SoftwareCEO to put together a seminar to help smaller software companies with their demonstrations. I thought it might be good to start by outlining what I believe are seven important tips for having a killer demo. Follow these suggestions and you well on your way.
This ties in with my post on the 30 second demo. People who come do a demo want to see product and you should do everything possible to show them what you can do as quickly as you can. It does not need to be long or involved, but it will calm down those “show me” types at the start.
It may seem strange to put this in as #2, but it really is important to be well rested before any sort of presentation. Demonstrations can be particularly taxing, both mentally and physically, so being well rested is critical. If you have to choose between doing final preparations and getting enough sleep, choose getting enough sleep.
First impressions go a long way in a demo. If you show a few relevant and powerful things in your demo right up front, you will have the audience on your side. If, instead, you do a “B-minus” job on a bunch of things, you will lose credibility fast. So prioritize the items you know you can knock out of the park and put them up front. Even if they have a script for the entire demo, suggest that you want to show a couple things up front to orient the group to your applications.
Whenever you can show a prospect/customer how they will use the application rather than the features you provide you will be at an advantage. “A Day in the Life” scenarios are good for this approach as you can guide them through what how the application will apply to the work they do. This works best if you have the chance to do some discovery with the prospect beforehand, but it is still effective if you are going in blind. I will probably do a longer post on this topic in the future.
I don’t drink coffee or anything else containing caffeine, but if you want your audience to be more receptive, you should make it available before your demo. Studies have shown that caffeine puts people in a more receptive mood. It has been suggested that this factor is more important than any other in a presentation. So bring that Starbucks coffee-in-a-box with you!
I already have a post on the importance of dry runs and you should absolutely do at least one dry run with the entire team at least 2 days before your demonstration. It is worth the time and effort.
Murphy’s Law definitely applies in demonstrations. Bring a backup computer (or at least a backup hard drive) and be ready to switch over quickly if needed. You can blame your problems on Microsoft Windows all you like, but the customer is still going to judge any problems you have in your demo on your software.
There are lots of other ways to give a killer demo. What are your suggestions?
Credibility:
def. the quality or power of inspiring belief
Credibility is the key to a Sales Engineer’s success. Gaining credibility is hard, and losing it is easy. Sales Engineers know they have to build credibility with management, sales reps, developers and, especially, prospects and customers. The approach to building credibility differs with each group.
After many years as a Sales Engineer I came to the realization that most big deals fall apart not because of the prospect, but because of management at my company. Salespeople often hound executives to help them win deals (with price concessions or product changes) and executives are somewhat resistant to them because of it. A Sales Engineer can have a special status in the company because they are seen as experts and they help generate revenue (both are things that executives value). Building credibility with management can be done by showing competence and going out of your way to help executives when they need it. There were many times that I was called upon to help an executive with a demo, presentation or subject matter expertise. Rather than seeing this as a distraction from your work (closing deals) these should be seen as excellent opportunities to build credibility for when you need it later. Credibility with management can make all the difference in closing highly political deals.
I have always said Sales Reps are like quarter-horses: incredibly talented but easy to spook. As a Sales Engineer you are probably the one person that a Sales Rep can trust to put in front of a customer and not blow the deal. The best way to build credibility with Sales Reps is to help them win deals. But if you are new to a sales organization there is a shortcut: build credibility with other Sale Engineers. The best approach here is to help more experienced Sales Engineers with the busywork of their deals, RFP’s, answering followup questions, etc… The first place a Sales Rep is going to go for advice on the “New guy/gal” is other Sales Engineers. If they already have a positive view of your work, you are well on your way.
If you are in software sales then you have to deal with Developers. If you are in hardware, then it is Engineers. Either way, as a Sales Engineer you have to build credibility with this group to fully understand your product. Engineers speak a different language from Sales, and I have always seen the role of Sales Engineer as a bridge between these two very different departments. Engineers don’t understand what Sales does (and vice-versa) and there is often a lot of mistrust between the groups. Your credibility will determine whether you can bridge that divide.
The good news is that if you are technically competent or have an engineering background, then establishing credibility here is pretty easy. Demonstrating that you understand the pressures on an Engineer will go a long way toward building credibility. For example, if you have a feature you need for a prospect, instead of asking an Engineer to build xyz, tell them the problem that you are trying to solve. Engineers typically love puzzles and would prefer to be given the problem and work the solution out for themselves.
Credibility with prospects is about first impressions. Often a Sales Engineer will be introduced to a prospect late in the sales cycle and will have to impress the prospect with their competence in a demo or other high-pressure scenario. The best advice I can give for establishing credibility with prospects? Listen. A prospect will measure your competence by how well you understand their problems, not by how much you know. Active listening is a great way to build credibility in an initial meeting. Only once you understand the prospect’s issues can you impress them with your solutions.
More than any other factor, a Sales Engineer needs to quickly convey competence to the prospect. Doing great discovery helps in this regard (because you can address the prospect’s needs) but having excellent customer stories can also build credibility. First impressions are lasting when it comes to prospects and you may have only one chance to establish your credibility with a given client.
Credibility can be gained in many ways, and we each have our own style. I had a distinct advantage over many Sales Engineers because I am relatively tall and have a very deep voice. As ridiculous as it sounds, these are characteristics often associated with leadership (see Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, for more on that) and credibility. Credibility is something that every Sales Engineer should consciously manage as much as they can.
One of the things I have noticed while watching the TED Talks is that many of the speakers often get really rushed because they only have 20 minutes to present (and their audience is expecting a lot as well). Most presenters decide to that they will talk really fast (like this talk by Carl Honore, where, ironically the subject is how to slow down) or just jam an outline of a longer talk into the allotted time (like Anthony Robbins does in his talk). It is, of course, very hard to present a powerful talk no matter what the time limit, but the pressure of a “short” timeline can really fluster some. Of course, Martin Luther King proved that one can change the direction of an entire movement in less than 20 minutes. If you watch that video of him delivering the speech at the Lincoln Memorial it is surprising to note that the line “I have a dream…” does not come until the last 5 minutes of the speech.
Some of the TED speakers really rise to this pressure and deliver talks that are well composed and delivered with a calm and focused demeanor. Sir Ken Robinson does so in his talk on creativity driving home his key points with humor and storytelling.
A while back I watched Janine Benyus‘ talk on biomimicry and while I was struck by the content, I was even more impressed with her style of presentation. In the last half of her talk she started to go through some slides that laid out 12 separate points about the power of using nature as a guide for design. Even though her time was limited she did not rush through the slides or the points that she was trying to explain. She took her time with each and in the end she ran out of time after only 9 points. I can say, from many years as a presenter (and audience member) I have rarely seen a speaker do what she did: she was just willing to stop at 9 points and leave it at that. One of the most important guidelines for presentations is that it is better to leave your audience with a few really important points that they will remember rather than rushing through your material and having the audience forget almost everything you have to say. That is the guideline, but the reality is that very few people can accomplish this when the pressure is on.
Now, I could argue that 12 points is too many for people to remember, but really they were more like examples of her key points. So she was willing to stop at just 9 because she knew that she had made her case. But the thing that makes this presentation even more amazing is that the moderator allowed her to continue with the last three points with the instruction, “Just the 10 second version of [slides] 10, 11 and 12″. Although this was certainly generous (given the strict time-keeping at TED) it was a recipe for disaster: would she muddle her message by rushing through the last few minutes? Well, she stood up just fine, ignored the newly set countdown (10 seconds per slide? c’mon) and stuck with her original pace to complete her presentation. She truly does have “nerves of steel”. Or perhaps, given the focus of her talk, “nerves of spider silk”.
In this talk Janine Benyus accomplishes what truly gifted presenters should aim for: having the topic and material become the focus of discussion. If you watch this talk you may end up saying “I didn’t think her style was all that great, but the slides and content was incredible”. That, in my opinion, is true success in public speaking: letting the material take center stage and get all the “credit”. It is something I have really never been able to accomplish consistently because I tend to be such a showman in my presentations. It is an understated style that I doubt I will ever really attain.
So watch her talk. I won’t bother explaining any more about the content here. It’s better to just watch her talk: