Peter Cohan
The Second Derivative
P.Cohan@comcast.net

Do you loathe watching demos? Do you hate doing demos? What makes one demo a raging success and another a boring failure?

What can be done to ensure successful demonstrations and outcomes? The answer is simple: Do the last thing first!

How can this be done? Let's start by examining why many demonstrations fail. This may be cathartic for you; it will certainly be helpful to gain an understanding for the factors involved in giving demos.

Here's a short list of reasons for failed demonstrations--consolidated from the results of numerous workshops and hundreds (perhaps thousands!) of demos: too long; too boring; failure to identify the customer's key needs; too little time; too much time; a feature failed; software bugs or crashes; demonstrator didn't know the product; too many features; broad range of audience needs; disconnect between the salesperson and the demonstrator; capabilities didn't match needs; lack of clear objectives for the demo?

Clearly, there are many, many reasons why things can go wrong. How many of these have occurred during your demos? What is the impact of a poor or inconclusive demonstration?

Every year, software companies lose millions of dollars due to bad demos, poor demos, boring demos, misguided demos and misinformed demos. And most companies don't even know that the money is being lost!

How many technical visits and demonstrations does it take to close the sale? If the answer is more than one demo to close any specific individual, then you are throwing away money, both in terms of operating costs and in the form of the most valuable resource of all: your time.

Here is an example of resources it might typically take to close a technical sale. (1) One twenty-minute demo at a trade show. (2) A two-person sales call (salesperson and technical resource), (3) two and one-half days time preparing the demo (4) a second two-person sales call. How much does that cost in your company? What other opportunities could you have pursued if your salesperson and technical resource didn't have to make the second call, or both calls? What does this mean to your bottom line?

The investment for the above scenario might typically cost $12,500 in direct costs for the salesperson and technical person, plus $1,000's to $10,000's in trade-show costs, plus at least six and one half days worth of lost opportunities. And opportunity costs are very expensive--for example $10,000 per day for a sales quota of $1M per year.

Further, what is the impact of a failed demo on you, on your sales team, product development, marketing, finance, administration?everyone, in fact, in your company? If you are a public company, what will it mean for your stock price?

A simple answer is that the impact of a failed demo is equal to the value of the sale, plus all potential future projects at that company. Think about the business you hope to do with any particular customer--how much is your typical software sale? What additional services are sold with the software: consulting services, installation services, implementation services, ongoing support, etc. What about future products, add-on modules and other new offerings?

All of these are at risk when a demo fails. The sum can be hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars. Truly, the success or failure of your demo impacts the pending success of your entire company. How can you increase the probability of success?

Turn your demo upside-down!

The essence of this strategy is in executing two things. First, show your audience the end of the demo right at the very beginning. The second key item is to focus and only show the specific capabilities needed to address the customer's problem.

This concept of turning the demo upside down may seem confusing, initially. After all, aren't we all expected to put together a 'story?, and follow that story through until we reach the end? And typically, the end shows the solution, the big 'payoff' screen. It is what we've all been waiting for.

Consider this: why wait? Or more accurately, why force your customer to wait? Or worse, why force your customer to listen carefully, pay attention, and remember your example story for 20, 30, 40 minutes or more to finally get to the end--only to find that the end of the story is not what they have in mind?!

These are the two key reasons why many, perhaps most, demos fail. In the minds of the members of the audience:

1. 'They never showed what I really needed to see.'
2. 'It took forever and I lost track.'

Both outcomes are deadly. And expensive.

The strategy above focuses on engaging the audience right from the beginning by showing them the solution they need, right away. Once they have seen that what they need is a real possibility, they get interested very rapidly. Another way of understanding this is to plan that you are going to show your audience a solution in two ways. The first way is a very rapid description of what the solution is. The second is a more thorough exploration of how that solution works.

Focus on showing the audience exactly what they need--and leaving out everything else that might distract. Show only the specific capabilities your audience needs to solve their problem.

Now, here's a pathway that achieves the desired successful results:

1. Provide the Illustration
2. Do it
3. Do it again
4. Questions & Answers
5. Summarize

Your illustration is the single most important visual tool for your demonstration. Humans are visual creatures. As audience members, we often hear but don't really listen to words coming from a salesperson or the other member of a selling team. We do, however, evaluate images rapidly and carefully.

An illustration is a concise, visual method of communicating the reality of a solution. Often, an Illustration is a desired report, which may be generated from the results of a series of individual steps.

During qualification, you will have identified key reports that either represent the customer's desired solution or enable decisions that are the solution. These reports can take numerous forms. They can be text documents, presentations, summaries, spreadsheets, web printouts, or collections of several individual components of these.

Your best illustration will effectively mimic or form a report that includes the components and information desired. Your software products will either enable these reports to be created ?cheaper-better-faster? or provide the ability to create reports that were previously not possible.

Next, develop the 'do it'. What is the most concise, most rational pathway to take from the beginning of a demonstration to get to the illustration? What is the fewest number of mouse clicks required to go from launching your software to generating that screen that is the Illustration? That's the 'do it'.

The 'do it' pathway is the straight line. It is the shortest distance from launching your product to showing the Illustration. No extra explanations, no additional talking, no side trips. Just do it.

Your second pass, through the software, the 'do it again', follows the 'do it' pathway, but now you can explore options, develop more details, and explain what you are doing more fully. The 'do it again' pathway must still focus entirely on the specific capabilities needed by the customer for the solution. Don't get distracted, don't show off capabilities that aren't relevant.

'Doing It Again' provides the opportunity for you to show the breadth of your specific capabilities. You can demonstrate how to address more complex examples. You can explain the flexibility that your specific capabilities offer or provide, as long as it is relevant to the solution.

With both the 'do it' and the 'do it again' segments, make sure to end each section with the strongest, most compelling illustration screen you possibly can. Leave that screen up, as possible, while you answer questions and complete your summary. The longer the audience sees that terrific screen, the better they will remember it.

At the end, your audience will say, "Wow! That was a great demo!"

Peter Cohan is principal of The Second Derivative, a consultancy focused on helping software organizations improve their sales and marketing results. He authored "Great Demo!", a book that provides methods to create and execute compelling demonstrations. Before founding The Second Derivative, Peter worked in business development at Symyx Technologies, Inc. which creates technologies for high-speed materials discovery. There, he built the Discovery Tools? business from inception into a $30 million operation in four years. Prior to Symyx, Peter served in product management, marketing, and sales positions at MDL Information Systems, a leading provider of scientific information management software.