Author Archives: Dennis

Jun 19 2012
Leadership, Learning, Positioning, Professionalism

Climbing the Spiral Staircase

Every cycle you engage in- win, lose, or draw- you gain experience.

That experience brings out the finer points, the little touches and nuances that make a difference.  A point of positioning here, and understanding of the user’s life there, and tips about using projectors and podiums and whiteboards everywhere.

There’s always another level of competition.  There’s always a better way to convey the message.  There’s always a way to change, to improve.

Keep climbing the spiral staircase up and through the stratosphere.  Otherwise you’re just doing a job.

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Jun 13 2012
Creativity, Presentations, Selling

Speed Dating

This is when it all comes together.

I have 44 minutes, a cryptic spreadsheet of 40 requirements, a briefing, and some customer knowledge to work with.

I’m going to mix it all together with some eggs, a demo, and a fresh powerpoint and bake a demo cake.

This is fun!

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Jun 06 2012
Leadership

Things You can Do with Rope

Tug others along

Tie things down

Magic tricks

Climb

Swing

With a fulcrum, increase your leverage

Cross it at the finish line

Make a net

Cut it to set things free

Tug of war

Measure

Create a barrier

Knot it up

Burn yourself badly (ouch!)

Cross impossible ravines

…

In short, you can lead with it.

Just like leadership, each of these things requires you to put some tension on the rope.  And just like leadership, you can’t push anything with it.

Jun 06 2012
Creativity, Presentations, Tools

Writing, Thinking, Preparing, Rehearsing

The other day my laptop crashed and I lost about an hour’s work* I’d invested on a presentation.

But did I really lose anything?

  • Writing the presentation was a tool for me to do the thinking I needed.
  • Writing the presentation was helping me prepare for delivering my thoughts, my messages to the customer.
  • Writing the presentation was a form of repetitive rehearsal.

What I lost was a draft.  It took me roughly twenty minutes to recreate what I lost, and it flowed more smoothly.  What was necessary in the endeavor was to think, prepare, and rehearse.

—

*This was a shock, as I have through the years developed a nervous “ctrl-s to save” habit with my left hand.  How I went that long without saving is a mystery to me.

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Jun 04 2012
Positioning, Presentations, Selling

Micro to Macro

In any system, there’s an infinite range of detail to be explored and understood, from the micro details of individuals screens, fields, and usability quirks to the macro concepts of departmental functions, business processes and strategic initiatives.

Our challenge is to set the depth of focus that best communicates to our audience.   We need to meet them where they are and provide painless navigation down into the details.   We need to pull them out of the weeds and sum those details back into high level value.

It might take a moment to find that focus for an audience, but it’s imperative they come away with what they need.  So adjust your zoom until they can see clearly.

It’s not about what you want to say, it’s about what they need to hear.

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Jun 01 2012
Solutions, Tools

Reach Out and Touch Someone

As new technologies are introduced, they go through stages of maturity in the marketplace.  Initially innovative, and therefore expensive, they grow to be commonplace and ultimately become a commodity (or forgotten).

Somewhere along that curve, from breakthrough invention to optimized revenue scalability, communication of the technology’s benefits migrates from the inventor to engineers to pre-sales to order takers to the discount end-cap at Target.

Remember Palm Pilots?

During the time a technology is in pre-sales stewardship, it is your responsibility and joy to discover, understand, and bring to others.

Enjoy the technology in its ride.  But don’t hang on too long.  The next great thing is preparing to change what you do.

What will next year bring?

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May 30 2012
Leadership, Learning, Professionalism, Solutions, Uncategorized

“Well, I guess you’re a manufacturing company.”

Years ago, in a discovery session with a manufacturing company, my peers (manufacturing, planning, and production) poked and prodded as we walked about the facility, asking insightful questions about the customer’s operations, the challenges they faced, how they ran this and that process, when they resorted to manual lists and spreadsheets, when they made decisions with autonomy, when they went up the hierarchy; they even discussed the most economical approach cutting small pieces of steel out of a large piece of scrap.

In short, my peers proved themselves to be not just product and solution experts, but to truly be subject matter experts.

The moment that most impressed me was at the end of the day when, gathered around a table (okay, a folding-table like you get at Sam’s Club) in a conference room just off the manufacturing floor, one of my peers exhaled a sigh and summarized her day with, “Well, I guess you’re a manufacturing company.” Chuckles and agreement all around. Obvious but true.

This is winning the deal in discovery.

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May 30 2012
Humor

Schedule the Demo Early in the Sales Cycle…

…because, as the old joke goes, the demo is the last event before closing the deal.

May 30 2012
Creativity, Presentations, Selling, Solutions, Tools

Circles and Lines

“What will you be demonstrating in the booth at the customer conference?”

Well, how can you know?  Who is going to walk up?  What will their needs be?

And so, before demonstrating generic solutions to generic problems, engage in discussions about their business, their challenges, their needs.

Between the two of you, on a blank sheet of paper, draw circles and lines expressing a conceptual solution with the myriad players and processes involved.  Then  demonstrate specific solutions to their problems, hitting the points meaningful to them.

In the past you could tear off the sheet and hand it to the patron as a keepsake but these days they’ll just snap a picture with their phone and walk on.  

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May 26 2012
Humor, Selling

Strange but True…

It’s easy to buy, yet it’s hard to sell.

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