You’re demonstrating your SaaS or other web-based solution to your prospect using Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Firefox. Over the course of the demo, you’ve opened multiple tabs, and things are looking a bit messy. You’d love to clean house and close all 20 open tabs except for one… but you’re not really going to take [...]
Read moreGreat question came up in a presentation this week. Situation: The software you’re demonstrating includes a capability that enables users to author multiple-choice questions–something your prospect told you he was interested in seeing. If you’ve been to my workshops, you already know to have the question nearly fully baked in advance; you’ll only have to [...]
Read moreMy favorite sales book by a million miles is Solution Selling by Michael Bosworth. To try and summarize it would be to do a disservice to the author and the sales method, so I’ll not do that. A fundamental tenet of the book, however, is this: You don’t pull out your product and start demonstrating. [...]
Read moreI’m a big believer that PowerPoint slides should not be capable of standing alone. However, I decided to add a bit more text than usual to create this deck so it would convey meaning without the help of a presenter. Let me know what you think! What other challenges result from depending on one person [...]
Read moreThe CODiE awards are the Oscars of the software industry. As described on the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) website, CODiEs recognize excellence in the categories of business software, digital content and education technology. This year, I served as a CODiE judge in the educational technology category. Being a judge involves reviewing each product [...]
Read moreWhether “cool” is an accepted term among young people today is open to debate. Probably depends on what part of the country you’re in. In Massachusetts, where I live, “wicked cool” is still part of the vernacular. Wisconsin? Who knows. (Any Madison or Milwaukee folks care to weigh in?) One thing I am sure of: [...]
Read moreMy guess is you’ve probably not seen Mass Appeal, an obscure 1984 film starring Jack Lemmon as an aging pastor who mentors a young seminarian played by Zeljko Ivanek. Read on anyway. In one scene, the Ivanek character prepares and rehearses his first-ever sermon while a critical Lemmon looks on. IVANEK: (Positioning himself.) Jesus is [...]
Read moreHave you noticed that television and radio journalists are getting sort of lazy? Turn on any news or sports channel, and see if you can spot how many times the reporter asks questions like these: “How important was it for Rodgers to convert on third down?” “How thrilled were you to hear that Michael is [...]
Read moreYou did your homework, right? Reached out to your decision maker and the other folks on the buying committee. Asked all the high-gain questions, took notes. Uncovered needs. In fact, your buyers have not only told you what the issues are—they’ve even explained what the ideal solution would look like. Just to be sure—it’s been [...]
Read moreIt’s easy to eliminate unnecessary distractions in a software demo. You can lose the desktop background picture of your dog. You can switch off the email notification. You can disable the type-ahead feature. In the spirit of keeping my own product presentations interruption-free, I’m going to steer clear of presenting with RockMelt. Don’t get me [...]
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