Tech Demo Guy

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:

1. Move back and forth between “day in the life” examples and down in the weeds technical explanations. It’s important not to water down your presentation for either part of the audience. Don’t be afraid to talk tech when challenged, but always make sure your examples are relevant to the business users so that they stay engaged.
2. Go for the “head nods” from the geeks. This should remain your goal throughout the presentation: to get the technical people to nod their heads when a business user says “can your system do X?”. Even though there may be animosity between the IT and business groups in a company, it’s likely they trust their fellow employees more  than they trust your sales team. So getting them to see that your solution passes muster with IT during the demo is critical.
3. Control the conversation – don’t go down a “rabbit hole” with the technical people. It’s likely that technical people will ask detailed questions (often with little regard for the other audience members). If you can answer quickly, do it, otherwise you should defer the question for follow-up. If you feel you will lose credibility by deferring, you can offer to answer the question during a break. But if you do, make sure to point out your discussion (and get a head nod) once you start again.
4. Use examples relevant to the business users. This may seem obvious, but I know many SE’s who do demonstrations that have a very technical focus. Showing the XML generated from a web service or the SQL output from a process may fly with IT, but you will lose the business users quickly with this approach. It’s not that you can’t show technical results, but you need to bring it back around to the business users in a way they can appreciate (which is usually something visual). A great way to do this the classic “cooking demo” where, ala Julia Child, you show the process (including some tech details) and bring out the beautifully baked pie at the end. Taking this approach means that both the techies and the business users will be satisfied that they saw something of value. Of course it also means that SE’s really need to understand the business processes, not just the technology.
5. Make the business users feel they can understand the complexity. Many business users feel that the technical folks are speaking another language, and they are often right. But if you can explain a complex technology in terms that make sense to a business user you can really win them over. Using analogies is one great way to accomplish this. Because many business users have given up on being able to communicate with IT, by providing a bridge you will show how your technology will benefit them directly.

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Skills, Demo Tips, Selling

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

1. Wow them in the first 2 minutes.

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…”

2. Make coffee or caffeine containing soft drinks available

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!

3. Nail your follow-ups

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.

4. Change presenters several times

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.

5. Give them a rating sheet

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.

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Prep, Demo Skills, Demo Tips, Selling

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:

1. Understand the specific needs of your prospect and areas where your product can clearly meet those needs
2. Compare these strengths with the known weaknesses of your competition (using whatever competitive intelligence you might have)
3. Bring these differences to light in a presentation (or demo) AFTER you have firmly established credibility
4. Make a clear statement of comparison to your competition, such as, “Ask the other vendors whether they have this capability”
5. Discuss the traps “during the break” with the prospect to ensure you hit the mark

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.

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Skills, Selling demonstrations, demos, Selling, selling techniques, traps

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.

1. Start your presentation with a demo

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.

2. Get enough sleep

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.

3. Make sure you have a few things nailed and show them first

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.

4. Use a day-in-the-life approach rather than feature dumps

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.

5. Make coffee or caffeine containing soft drinks available

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!

6. Do a dry run

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.

7. Bring a backup computer

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?

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Prep, Demo Skills, Demo Tips

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:

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Skills, Selling pacing, presenting, ted talks

Why is it that Sales Engineers do a great job for some Salespeople and not for others? What can a Salesperson do to get the best possible performance out of their Sales Engineers. Although the talent of the Sales Engineers you work with will vary (I will do another post on how to get the best Sales Engineers assigned to your deals) you can follow these tips to get the most out of what you have:

1. Treat them like they are special.

There are times when you may need a stellar performance in the demo to seal the deal. Or you may need a Sales Engineer to complete a long (but important) RFP. But even when the Sales Engineer is not critical to the deal (e.g. a deal where political connections are more important than product functionality) you still need to treat them as if they are special. Most Sales Engineers see themselves as the “talent” with a special set of skills and a role that requires ability to sell AND deep technical/product knowledge. They are typically well-connected in the company they work for (because they deal with so many different departments) and since they are on display at customers on a regular basis they are sensitive to their reputation. It may be annoying to ask them politely to take on work that you feel is just part of their job, but it will pay back dividends when you really need their help on a difficult deal.

2. Learn how to brief them before a demo

I have only encountered a handful of Salespeople who have mastered this skill; you will be among the very best if you can do it consistently. Briefing a Sales Engineer (or any team member) before a demonstration or presentation is a critical role for the Salesperson. You are the quarterback as well as the coach on the deal, and the team members will be looking to you to call the plays. A great briefing outlines the roles for every individual, what you need the Sales Engineer to accomplish, and what topics should be avoided during the demo or presentation. A briefing should also determine who takes on what questions and identify any key individuals that will be present from the prospect side.

3. Tell them what outcome you want, not what they should show

Although, as a Salesperson, you may think you know what the Sales Engineer should show in their demo, you should focus more on what you want to impress on the prospect and pass that advice on to the Sales Engineer (as part of your briefing). For example, rather than saying, “Let’s make sure to show them the scheduling administration screens” you could say, “There will be a couple of managers in the room that are going to want to know how easy it is to manage staff schedules. Let’s make sure they come away convinced it is easy and powerful”. This gives the Sales Engineer the information they need without boxing them in too much. This is part of the trust mentioned earlier: tell them the desired outcome and let them figure out how to get there.

4. Help them get set up for the demo or presentation

When a Sales Engineer arrives at a prospect site they often have a lot to deal with: setting up projectors, getting their demonstration equipment prepared, teleconference setup and arranging the room all require focus from the Sales Engineer. The more of these tasks you can handle, the better. Even if you can’t help with the task at hand, you can assist by keeping the prospect off of the Sales Engineer until they are completely set up. Getting them water, snacks or just asking what they need during this often stressful time will score you points for Rule #1.

5. Handle all non-technical tasks during the demo

Whether it is documenting the list of follow-up items, keeping track of time or writing down the names of attendees, if there is something you can do as a Salesperson that does not require the skills of the Sales Engineer, then you should do it. Although they may be menial tasks, they will free up the Sales Engineer to focus more on the thing that they do best: impressing the prospect with the value of your solutions.

6. Make sure they can work the room at the breaks

A good Sales Engineer will want to get feedback and inside information from the prospect during the breaks. As soon as there is a break you should ask the Sales Engineer if there is anything they need. Short of going to the bathroom for them, you should handle calls, water, taking notes, etc.. so that they can focus on interacting with the prospect. A good Sales Engineer can quickly build credibility with the prospect and they will want to talk honestly with them 1:1. Don’t let this great selling opportunity go by just because the Sales Engineer had to make a call that you could have handled for them.

7. Give them direct, honest feedback, but only after you have won them over.

My favorite Salespeople were those that gave me clear and direct feedback on how things went after a demonstration. They did not pull punches and gave me their perspective on what they saw in the presentation. But to accept that feedback I first had to have a sense of trust with the Salesperson, and understanding that the feedback was meant to be constructive and was about winning more deals. If the Salesperson was new (or new to me) and hammered me after a demo, I was unlikely to want to work with them in the future. So building that trust (by following rule #1) first allows you to give criticisms that will be heeded.

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Prep, Demo Skills, Selling demo, demonstration, presentation, sales, sales engineer

If you have worked for a while in pre-sales, supporting salespeople by showing a prospect your software applications, then you know there are times when salespeople will say the darnedest things. Here is my partial list of “never say this during a demo” for the salespeople I have worked with (and I am sure they have a list of “never do this!” for me as well):

1. “Can you show that thing you did yesterday?”

I will could do an entire post on why this one is a bad idea, but the short explanation is that your demo guy/gal may not want to show that thing because it is going to blow up today! If you want to see a demo of something, ask before the presentation.

2. “Let me introduce Dave who is an expert in…”

Most Sales Engineers I know don’t like the word expert and all that it implies. It is just setting us up for our credibility being knocked out later in the presentation. Better to talk about experience, years with the company, or just let us introduce ourselves.

3. “I just heard from Product Management yesterday that we are going to add that feature in the next release…”

For a Salesperson to be effective they have to build trust. For a Sales Engineer to be effective they need to build credibility. Undermining a Sales Engineer’s credibility during a demonstration by pointing out a mistake they made is counter-productive. It’s not an ego thing – Sales Engineers are wrong all the time and need to learn from their mistakes. A better approach is to wait until the break and discuss it directly with the Sales Engineer. Besides, you may have misunderstood what the Product Manager meant by “new feature”…

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Skills, Demo Tips, Selling pre-sales, sales, sales consulting, sales engineering, salesman, salespeople

The most obvious selling opportunity for a Sales Engineer is during a demonstration. But I have consistently found that talking to individuals during the breaks of a demonstration day is the most effective time to sell your product. Although we spend a tremendous amount of time preparing for demos, we often miss this real selling opportunity.
How can you use the breaks more effectively for selling? First off make sure to plan for several breaks during a demonstration, making sure to have one especially early in the schedule. For example if you have a 3 hour demonstration, plan to take at least two breaks of 10 minutes, one after an hour and another after two hours. Always plan to have a break (even a short one) within the first hour, no matter how long or short your presentation might be (okay, if you have a 1/2 hour presentation, you might not get a break into it).
Secondly you should use that break to get feedback from audience members. Ask your sales representative or other team members to do the same. The first question I always ask once I introduce myself during a break is:

“What do you think so far?”

This typically does not elicit much of a response unless they have a really strong opinion. Next you can move on with:

“Is there anything you saw that surprised you?”

This is a fairly neutral question because you are leaving open to whether it was a positive or negative surprise. A third question for the first break can be:

“What else do you want to be sure to see before the end of the day?”

This can help the presenter understand what areas they should focus on in the rest of the presentation. This certainly is not a replacement for doing good discovery, but often audience members may want to see specific things on the day of the demo.
Before the end of the break the sales team should regroup and deliver any critical feedback to the presenter. The presenter should then use that feedback to address the concerns of the audience members.
I often start up after the break with:

“During the break I heard something interesting from X that I would like to show you now in our product”

This shows that you were engaging with the prospect and want to incorporate their concerns. You should also take into account any other comments that you heard during the break, such as “it’s going too fast”. Rather than just slowing down, you might ask the audience whether they agree:
“I heard from a couple of you during the break that things were going a little fast. Do we all agree that I should slow things down a little?”
Remember that you don’t want to take just one person’s opinion as representing the group (unless you have identified that person as the key influencer). Always validate what you heard during the break with the entire audience if at all possible.
During later breaks you can be more forward in your discussions. For example during later breaks I would often ask:

“Was there something you saw from our competitor that you really liked/did not like?”

Talking about the competition is always a little risky, so doing it during the break limits the risks.
Another important use of later breaks is to understand the divisions and politics in the prospect. For instance, you could ask a business user:

“The IT Manager seemed concerned that we did not support Unix. Do you think that is a critical factor in deciding what software to buy?”

Although the obvious answer for a business user would be “I have no idea”, but it is more likely that they will give you some insights into the politics of the company (“Unix would be nice, but IT is going to support whatever we decide will meet our business needs”).
The other major benefit of using the breaks in this way is that it “humanizes” the Sales Engineer. Because we are often focused on building credibility and being seen as an authority (rather than a salesperson) SE’s can sometimes come off as matter-of-fact or aloof. By taking the time to talk to individuals during the break you can create a one-to-one contact that will be beneficial during the demonstration.
Later breaks can be used to validate next steps and identify key players. You can also use later breaks (once you have built up some credibility) to set traps for the competition.
The next time that you are preparing for a demonstration, make sure you strategize on how to handle the breaks. I always say that it’s the time when the real selling occurs.

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Prep, Demo Skills, Selling demo, demonstration, sales engineer

The web browser supplied in MyEclipse appears to be pretty useless at first, but it actually can be quite valuable in certain situations. The main use I have found is to open a separate session of your web application, Tomcat or other web based management tools. For example, you can get to the administrative interface of your web application from this browser and not mess up your session in your user session.  It is a convient way to have another small browser open for these little tasks without having to launch a separate browser, and it sends the message to the audience that you are still in the “administrative” tool.

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Skills, Gadgets

This is something I learned a long time ago from the folks at Corporate Visions. Often we get really tough questions that can trip us up during a demo or presentation. By using a technique known as “Re-framing” (it comes from NLP) you can take the edge off of tough questions and often turn them in your favor. The core of the concept is to carefully consider the point of view of the question before you answer it. Then, during that pause, you can make sure to frame your response in a way that better addresses the question.

For example, let’s say you get the following question,”I did not see any way to extend your application using Java. Can you use Java to extend your application?”. You could answer this question with a straight technical response (“Yes, we provide several Java APIs as well as Web Services…”) or you could take it as an opportunity to reframe the question. By first pausing for a moment to think about your response and then asking a clarifying question such as,”Can you give me an example of how you might want to use Java to extend our application?”) you can make sure you are using the right frame-of-reference in your response. API’s and Integration may not be the answer they are looking for. Perhaps they are a Java junkie and just want to know their skills will be of use. Perhaps they have been told your application is Java dependent and prefer a .NET approach. But if you don’t clarify the question you won’t know their frame-of-reference.

After you ask for clarification you need to decide how you will frame your response. If the original question sounded technical (“Java?”) but really was emotional (“Java vs. .NET”) then you need to frame your response accordingly. You can turn potential pitfalls into benefits as long as you understand where the prospect is coming from. Stepping outside of your gut reaction to the question (“Oh no, not that question!”) and making sure you fully understand the prospects frame of reference can make all the difference.

Dave Sohigian - TechDemoGuy Demo Skills, Selling nlp, reframe, Selling