Why Your Demos Need to Tell a Story

When presenting a complex solution, the most effective means of engaging the audience is to create and tell a story that is relevant and is modeled around the prospect’s business.

Most will have a story built around their demo data, for ex. “This is ABC Company and they produce widgets”.  ZZZZZZZ…oh sorry…I was just thinking about ABC Company and thier god-forsaken widgets.

The mantra that our teams use for prepping for presentations is “Accurate, Compelling, and Timely“.

Accurate

This sounds obvious but even demo data has to be accurate.  If you produced watches and the demo model was wrong are you going to get the sale?  Treat all information presented in your presentation with the same care that the prospect would treat their live data.

Compelling

If you have a solution that can not be customized on a per presentation basis, at least have examples ready to go that are very relevant to the prospect.  Example, “<PROSPECT>, so lets discuss how your team would use our workflow to publish out a press release to your website. ”

The one thing that is actually more compelling than talking about the prospect, is talking about the prospects main competitors.  When our team presented our web content management system to a large private equity firm, we went out to their three top competitor’s sites – captured some screens and pointed out flaws in their sites.  Then knowing the systems they used, we explained the specific advantages that our system would deliver and the advantages that would provide them over their competition.

Timely

Keep your presentations, demos, and sample data timely.  If your “current” information is over a year old, update it.   While it doesn’t matter in the execution of the presentation, if the prospect sees a bunch of old dates on the screen this will enforce the thought of “this is not real”.  Your goal is that you want them engaged to the point they can visualize your system working in their organization.

The Greatest Sin

Is having no story at all.

If yours is a technical solution, resist any urges to “let the technology speak for itself”.   Remember that “Cutting Edge” = “Still Has Bugs That Can Kill Your Deal”.

In an effort to keep your presentations from becoming too literal, we share this video.

Scattered, Smothered, and Covered….

After my arranged engagement/marriage fell apart over religious differences, she drove a Chevy, I a Ford;  I went to drown my sorrows at the only place appropriate to fill the emotional void that filled my heart….the Waffle House.

Now for our Yankee readers, our Waffle House is the equivalent to your Dunkin Donuts.  They are everywhere.  You can’t really swing a dead cat in the South without hitting one of those pillars of culinary delight.

I found my future wife sitting next to the only vacant seat at the counter.  While I did not notice her face, I heard her say to the waitress that she would like her hash browns prepared in the same manner that I ordered mine…scattered…smothered (in cheese)…and covered (in onions). 

As soon as the words left her lips, I knew that was the woman with whom I needed to spend my first marriage.

What lesson can the Waffle House teach us about sales?  Keep it simple.

You know how when you go into some restaurants they have fabricated crap on the walls?  There’s pictures of old stuff, old dead people, and old movies starring old dead people?  There are ferns, maybe some sports trophies, and the menu is nine pages long with long-winded narratives how the chicken will be prepared in a manner similar to those shown on Man vs. Wild.

The Waffle House is simple.  Look on the walls, there are pictures of food.  Want to see a plant?  Go outside.   In the Waffle House you are there to enjoy a good meal, at a  reasonable price, and then to get the hell out.  There’s no wasted space and people who want to sit and talk can do that in the car.

Right now, Sales teams around the globe are trying to figure out how to drive new revenue with very little new investment.  Most are pursuing a course of action that will be bourne from internal group think, with little real integration, and a questionable value proposition.  Gems like the Cadillac Cimarron were create in these environments.

Go Waffle House. 

1. Simplify your message so that it can be easily consumed by a broader audience, not just Subject Matter Experts in your field.
2. Provide a quality product
3. At a reasonable price

Number 1 is the most challenging of course.   But if you haven’t done so, craft your elevator pitch.  In 90 seconds or less, describe why someone would choose to do business with you.  If you need help,  ask yourself; do your customers do business with you because you are a mid-tier vendor with 200 customers in the perverted arts vertical OR because you can help them solve their widget problem?

If you are thinking of ways to possible build a new revenue stream, take your solution with its widget solving capabilities and boil it down.  Is there a fundamental tenet that if everything else was stripped away it would still contain value?  Does a niche market exist that this would serve?  Can you take this fundamental solution, combine it with a RELEVANT product/service and improve on the value proposition?  Does this new solution present logical upsell opportunities?

If you explained the new solution to your receptionist, how long would it take for them to get the concept? If its longer than 90 seconds, start over.

If you want to brain storm (or mind map) on this idea, here’s a few key questions:

• Look at your customers, what common characteristics do they share? 
• Why did they choose to purchase your solution? 
• Why do people/companies choose to do business with your competitors?
• How can we make it easier, within reason, to purchase a solution from you?
• If you had to cut 90% out of your sales pitch, what is the 10% you choose to keep?

If you havent tried mind mapping yet, I encourage you to do so.  Go to www.thebrain.com and download the free version of their solution. 

Good Luck

Kevin Sasser

Free Stuff!!! Score!!!!

From Doyle Slaton at SalesBlogcast.com…

I’m giving away my new eBook “15 Rules for Becoming a Top Producer!”

*IMPORTANT NOTE: This eBook is best suited for highly driven sales and leadership minded business professionals.

I’d appreciate your help in spreading the word. Please let everyone know they can get the FREE eBook at http://SalesBlogcast.com

Let’ see how many eBooks we can give away!

Sincerely,

Doyle Slayton
SalesBlogcast.com

God Love ‘Em, Some People Really Are Stupid

In my years of sales experience and supervised release, there are only two deals, only two, that are burned into my cerebral cortex and awaken feelings of anger and frustration whenever I am forced to recall them.

The first we’ll save for a later date.

The second…..arrrrgggghhhhh!  Sorry, had to vent.

When I was selling Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, our inside team uncovered an opportunity at a company with whom I used to do business in a former career.  Having left our relationship on good terms after a productive career, I was eager to go visit and see some old friends.

After seeing the state of their web presence, this company needed an ECM like my cousins need a good bail bondsman.  They had over 10 sites, in 3 languages, that were stale, inconsistent, with no logical flow among and within the sites.

I am a big believer in “bird in the hand” so I stayed calm and conservative when forecasting our probablity of winning,  however, in the back of my mind, I knew this deal looked good. 

To improve our chances, I threw out my super, double secret, only good for the next 30 seconds, discount.

I sent our proposal and then waited.

The next day I received a call from the Project Manager, they had a counter offer.

 It seems that a few years previous they had acquired another ECM solution and they wanted me to match the terms of their former vendor….free.

Yep.  Free.

Their current vendor needed a brand name on the customer list to establish credability so they gave the software for free in exchange for some marketing press.

If you are a small company and thinking about using this tactic, unless the prospect is Jesus, don’t do it.  It never pays off like you think.

In the case of my former prospect, because it was “free”  they never paid enough attention or respect to the software.  They did not allocate budget for training, they never assigned a team to get the thing installed, and they never upgraded, because in their eyes, since it was “free” they should not have to invest anything in it…ever.

Evidently this vendor pulled this tactic multiple times, because they went bankrupt and were liquated.

So the counter offer to me was for me to match the same deal as the bankrupt vendor.

As politely as I could, I restated for clarification “You want me to match the same pricing structure as your last vendor of whom you complained about lack of training, support, and the dismal failure of thier solution.  Who, based on these types of business practices, went bankrupt?”

“Yes.  That was the only way we could get this project approved by management.” came the reply.

 ”We’ll withdraw from the project and we wish you the best”.

The motivation for this post came from my good friend DJ sent me this link.

Good Luck.

Sasser

Tell It All Brother

Pretend you are Rhett and Scarlett is the economy. 

Tell me if this clip just doesn’t speak to you.

You! With the Face….Come Here!

Did you just read about the CFO of Freddie MAC being found dead of an apparent suicide?

Good God almighty, I can only imagine the darkness in the state of mind that views suicide as a viable alternative. 

Our prayers are with David Kellermann’s family.

So let’s talk about our world.  While rewarding, sales, especially in these times, can be a dark, lonely, depressing pursuit. 

These conditions worsen if the following are true:

• Historically, you are an under performer in relation to the rest of the team
• Your boss and/or management has no firm grasp on the reality of your marketplace
• Management has added unnecessary levels of scrutiny to you and your performance 
• You work remotely with minimal contact with other people

If you are battling a bout of the blues or self-doubt is worming its way into your pitch, here are two recommended remedies:

1. Update Your Resume

In our world, your resume should never go 6 months without being freshened up.   Trust me, there are days when I update mine ever 15 minutes.

In addition to needing it for a job search, especially if your boss catches you writing a blog post during business hours, updating your resume provides the benefit of reminding yourself of just how good you are.  If you haven’t done so, make room and add a list of your major accomplishments to the front page.  For example:

·         Over the past ten years, consistently placed in the top 10% of performers across multiple sales teams selling complex IT solutions and financial services

·         Help lead sales team from startup to annual sales of $10mm, personally leading the team three out of five years in new license revenue and follow-up customer sales

·         Introduced sales team to Strategic Account Management and the benefit of using a structured sales methodology, multiple reps shorten their sales cycles by 20% to 30%

·         Assigned to lead a troubled business unit; able to grow fee income by 25% in the first six months and lower client attrition rate by 50%

 

If you do this excercise, you will feel better about yourself and will gain a better sense of control over you current situation.

2. Go Learn Something New

I read, on average, one business book a month.  I started this practice during the dot com meltdown as a way to help keep my head as times got slow.  My first books where the ones I would see on the shelves of the “C’s” of my clients.  If you would like to do this and don’t know where to start, read a Jack Welch book.

Along these lines, our friends over at Meeting to Win have clued us in to a free webinar on Sales Leadership from a group that usually commands a premium for their content and insight.

Do yourself a favor and attend “The Sales Leadership Imperative”  on Thursday April 23rd at 1pm EST.

They will discuss how you can:

• Leverage your personal strengths as well as the hidden talents of your team.
• Communicate, connect and captivate your team during each meeting or conversation.
• Utilize a proven coaching model to impact performance immediately.
• Engage in daily revenue-generating activities and stop doing the things you shouldn’t be doing in the first place.
• Master the language of leaders, to get people into action without resistance.
• Build internal coaching program and ignite a power team.
• Develop the infallible confidence of a true champion to model what you want your people to achieve.
• Recruit, retain and motivate your top producers and turnaround underperformers.
• Turnaround or terminate an underperformer in less than 30 days

We highly recommend this session.

 

Good Luck.