Tag Archives: Theme

Apr 23 2012
Creativity, Positioning, Presentations, Solutions

Trim-Work

Have you seen the documentary Helvetica? It starts as a history of the font, then turns into a thought provoking discussion on graphic design.

Graphic design matters- it is the aesthetic.

  • It sets the tone
  • It turns utility into usability
  • It is fashion sense

Look around.  When you’re aware of good and bad graphic design you’ll notice:

  • The way people dress
  • Magazine layouts
  • Signs on local businesses

Can you see graphic design (or lack of it) now?

Turn your attention to our domain, enterprise software. Graphic design seems an afterthought, limited to trim-work. Look at the solutions you present. They are basically:

  • online forms
  • with rows and columns of fields, justified left and right
  • and a “Save”  button with cryptic messages about what you did wrong

An opportunity?

Enterprise applications are going mobile.  Decent graphic design is built into platforms (It’s pretty hard to screw up an iPad user interface).

In a world of free creative tools, anyone can take a picture, anyone can record an album, anyone can self-publish a book. In the hands of graphic design professionals, working alongside architectural and process designers, enterprise software can be inherently appealing and useful. Even beautiful.

Our audiences are sensitive to the aesthetic.  It means usability, which means adoption which means return on investment which means value.  Decision makers will choose the more pleasing option over the more functional if they can see themselves using the pleasing option.

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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 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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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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