Category Archives: Presentations

Apr 09 2012
Creativity, Learning, Positioning, Presentations, Tools

Letting Go?

You work in teams.

Teams imply collaboration

Collaboration implies more than one person responsible for execution.

A challenge creeps into this cooperative approach, this division of labor, even when those in the team execute according to expectations. Their execution and vision isn’t the same as yours. It’s of a different quality. The writing – the messaging you’re trying to craft- looks like it came from a committee. The audience will see this. 

But…

How far can you push before the whole project crumbles? Do you let go and face the audience knowing it isn’t the best? Do you go all Steve-Jobs-it-must-be-insanely-great on the team?

Tough call.

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Mar 23 2012
Humor, Presentations, Selling

A Series of Sprints

The Pre-Sales role is like a series of sprints.

From one opportunity to the next, from standing still to full speed when the gun goes off. You discover, plan, message, prepare, deliver, follow up, then rest until the gun goes off again. 2:30 in the morning configuration. Four hours of sleep. The long flight home, crashing on a Friday night.

Then again, the Pre-Sales role is like a marathon.

Deals last for months, sometimes years. The reps trying to land them come and go and come back again. The RFP is pushed. The close that was expected in December happens late in March. Last minute demos. Second and third presentations to the same decision makers. Budget cycles. Competitors change the game.

You know what? Running is a terrible analogy for Pre-Sales.

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Mar 19 2012
Creativity, Presentations, Solutions, Tools

“Why, I just shake the buildings out of my sleeves.”

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright used to cajole his architect students with this quip.

He meant that he was constantly working ideas out in his head and the process of drafting, of drawing, wasn’t creative, it was just the point at which he put his ideas down on paper.

You’re always thinking.  Media such as pen and paper, Post-it® Notes, blogs, and recordings help thinking along.  If you wake up in the middle of the night bursting with ideas, get out of bed and write them down.  Welcome associations from every aspect of life.  Mash-up your experiences against software systems expectations and create a new line of thought.
Your presentation and demonstration preparation are idea capture and articulation.

Shake those solutions out of your sleeves.

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Mar 15 2012
Creativity, Positioning, Presentations, Solutions

Imagine yourself in a Cordoba

Our peer-approved standard is the day-in-the-life demonstration.  Agreed?

Our energy and creativity are poured into the perfect and entertaining demo mold of how our customer could use our system throughout their day.  The premise is they’ll see themselves clicking, typing, dragging-and-dropping merrily away in our system.  Because they’ll see how their life will be better, their business processes improved, simpler, faster, and automated through the use of our solutions, there’s no doubt they’ll go with us.

If we’re all saying “Imagine yourself in a Cordoba, surrounded in rich Corinthian leather,” then as competitors we’re all just trying to win the test-drive.  Heck, if they’re walking on the lot, chances are they’re going to drive home in something new today.

You’ve got to do something different.

Who is the silent party in every day-in-the-life demonstration?  Who is on the other side of the order, return, marketing campaign?  Why, it’s your customer’s customer.

By thinking about that person’s day-in-the-life, how they interact with your customer, and what could make a better solution (the buzzword today is customer experience) for them, you’ll come up with insights for your solution and demonstration that are unique and visionary.   This approach will transform you from an entertaining  demonstrator of requirements into a trusted advisor.

Added bonus: This kind of solution creation gets visionaries excited.  Visionaries are usually in lead decision-making roles.  When they get excited, your sales team will take notice and begin steering the conversation towards commitment and closure.

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Mar 09 2012
Presentations

Today’s Specials…

Hi my name is Karen welcome to Anthony’s for today’s-specials we have a caramelized-pear salad with fresh strawberries with brown butter caramelized pears roasted sweet potatoes fresh sliced strawberries and goat cheese drizzled with a raspberry vinaigrette we also have broccoli-rabe and grilled Italian sausage sauteed with garlic and olive oil topped with grilled Italian sausage and fresh mozzarella with shaved romano cheese can I get you a drink?

Slow down.

When a waiter rips through the specials of the day that quickly you can’t follow them. They know the specials list well; they’ve memorized it, have tried them.  A professional wait-staff will even have their own set of notes about each dish.

But ripping through them as if preparing the cabin for takeoff doesn’t help the audience understand them. You’re probably still trying to figure out what a caramelized pear is never mind the sum of the salad’s parts.

When you’re presenting systems and features, slow your pace, add some emphasis, give each thing you mention a purpose, pause, let it soak in, and then move onto the next one.

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Mar 02 2012
Leadership, Presentations, Tools, Uncategorized

Please speak into the microphone

At a seminar this week, in a conference room crammed with thirty of my ‘Type A’ peers, a presenter stood up and said “I’m not going to use the microphone, can everyone hear me okay?”

He encountered an immediate and emphatic chorus of “no!”s, relented, and used the microphone.  The presentation continued without incident and everyone understood him.

There’s a kickoff meeting for the sports teams at my local high school every athletic season.  The gym is filled with parents and athletes and without fail, the Athletic Director stands up for his presentation and says, “I’m not going to use the microphone, can everyone hear me okay?”

The audience fails to respond* and he continues without the microphone.  The presentation continues without incident, nobody understands him, and everyone’s time is wasted.

Who’s to blame?

*Except me. When I say “No” those near me turned around to hammer down the nail that stuck up.

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Feb 22 2012
Creativity, Positioning, Presentations

A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down

Change is difficult.  It’s hard to learn something new.

Yet there you are, standing in front of an audience, demonstrating with great zeal and gusto all sorts of new things and better ways and innovative solutions.

Get ready.  Your audience is about to unleash a barrage of pointed, impatient questions.

It’s not that they don’t like what you’re showing.  They simply don’t understand what you’re showing.  They understand their world and what they do in specific, familiar ways.  What you’re sharing is different, a something-new your product and technology make possible.   And because it is new and unfamiliar, they don’t understand it and they are trying to make sense of it through their questions.

So help them.  Give them an analogy that explains your product, your positioning, your solution in a way everyone can understand.  Let the analogy apply a concept they do understand to their current challenges, helping form your unique solution.

I provided a day long session where I used the theme of a master-planned housing community with all sorts of related analogies: pick from one of four basic home designs, choose your own fittings and fixtures, landscaping is later, be the first ones on the block, etc.  It was a huge pantry stocked with analogies*.  In a follow up call months later, the customer didn’t remember our product’s features and functions, but she excitedly recalled “the house! The house!”

Mary Poppins was a great Pre-Sales Engineer:

In ev’ry job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job’s a game

And ev’ry task you undertake
Becomes a piece of cake
A lark! A spree! It’s very clear to see that

A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way

*See how I did that?

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Feb 21 2012
2 Comments
Leadership, Positioning, Presentations

They don’t remember the details

They remember their impression of the details.

They remember your analogies.

They remember that you understood their vision.*

They remember you.

You.

*If a leader in the room has a vision you can articulate, it almost doesn’t matter what your product can do.  When you can help someone achieve their vision, you’re the most valuable person in the room.

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Feb 03 2012
Presentations, Solutions

Rock Stars

We are Pre-Sales.

We are discerning, considerate, persuasive, and contemplative.  We are thought-leaders, roadwarriors, salespeople, demo-builders, presenters, geeks, and entertainers rolled into one.

We know our customers’ pains and our solutions.  We know industry processes, best practices, and the power of a single, well-placed click.  We know how to position, win, lose, recover, and fight another day.  We know our competition, ourselves, and everyone in every organization.

We are not shy, afraid, uncertain, unwilling, or incapable.  We are not fools, yet we suffer them with grace.

We create consensus, alignment, vision, analogies, value, and action.

We deliver RFPs, demos, proofs of concept, and successful meetings.  We deliver the impossible and the art of the possible.  We deliver the goods. Hell, we even deliver the coffee.

We can take a punch and we can punch back.  We say no when we should and yes when we must.

We simply can.

We are Pre-Sales.  We are rock stars.

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Jan 12 2012
Humor, Presentations

Conversations

I punched the hotel into TomTom and pointed the nose of my aging Audi towards the end of the driveway and towards, in fact, just the beginning of our shared 365-mile journey.  Jane, the voice of TomTom, prepared and thought and planned and warned me as best she could, usually a half-mile in advance, of intersections and of their imminence given my current pace, and she advised me and suggested when to turn right and when to turn left and of when the highway would split ahead and even of which lanes it would be best for me to stay in.  Together, Miss Jane and I made our way south from my home in Maine, the remoteness of which many consider to represent, and speak volumes about, me (and I cannot disagree with them). Heading downwest, we crossed the Piscataqua River Bridge and in turn traversed the No-Man’s-Land of Interstate 95 in New Hampshire that is evermore, for me, in addition to a convenient pair of state-subsidized liquor stores, a protective barrier from civilization (as its inhabitants refer to it) and a place to visit and a place to return from as best I might and as soon as I may.  West, south, into the dark we went, over turnpike and Berkshire, through hamlet and along parkway, and even across major bays on tolled bridges to reach eventually our hotel.*

I had a customer to see the next day. Continue reading →

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