Toronto Product Management Association

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Toronto Product Management

Association

Killer Demos Feb. 22, 2011

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A wise man once told me to remove the

first 2 slides of your presentation

because they are useless.

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Top 5 Don’ts

• Say “As you can see.” • Speak like a robot

• Take all of the pressure yourself

• Leave the demo to the last minute

• Work for a company that is prone to “demo fail”

I am hiring a Senior Product Manager – casey@freshbooks.com

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Top 5 Do’s

• Tell a personal story

• Demo to anyone no matter the size • Everyone should know how to demo • Speak painfully slowly

• Build a product that demos itself

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Thank You!

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Killer Demos and How to Avoid

Disaster

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Company Profile

A little about us

Our Solutions

• Offered in the cloud

• Powered by Web 2.0 technology

• Feature-rich suite

• Document Management

• Collaboration

• Social Networking

• Social yet secure

• Mobile Ready

• Configurable & Extensible

• Award-winning

A few of our awards:

Quick Facts

• Canadian software company • Founded in 2008

• Funded by the largest bank in Canada • Jim Balsillie, CEO of RIM is chairman of

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What We Do- Demos are Important!!!

Our blessing is our curse

Develop & market online business communities

• Social Intranets • For your employees • Inside the firewall

• Improving productivity

• Social Extranets • For your customers • Outside the firewall • Building your brand

In the cloud Workplace Solutions • Enterprise intranets • Departmental intranets • Board rooms • Committees • Project spaces • Deal rooms Marketplace Solutions • Websites • Customer Portals • Alumni networks • Partner Portals • Member-based communities

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~ 2,000 Communities Worldwide

Technology, healthcare, government ( Blessing is a curse)

• ASSOCIATIONS •INDUSTRIE S HEALTHCARE HI-TECH GOVERNMENT ACADEMIC 9 16% 15% 11% 7% 8%

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What not to do!

• _{Great example}_{Jim from Taxi how to kill a}

sale!!!

• Like in Jim’s case, when your blessing is your curse you need to qualify…and know what you are selling.

– Qualify, Qualify, Qualify: Before the meeting, at the meeting, and after to make sure you hit the pain points with solution points. If you were not given the info get it yourself, have some good questions at the ready.

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Why are you doing a killer demo? (my referent is Revenue)

• Know your referent, mine is revenue

generation( MRR)… you may have a different one…like stake holder happiness…

• Know your presenters referent if someone else is presenting for you… they can be

different.

• The first thing I always know before doing a killer DEMO is

• BANTSC.

• The BANTSC helps me determine how much I invest into demo and helps me build a script for the demo.

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Pre demo101, know your target

•Your sales teams and telemarketing need to have BANT clearly understood and have strategies to assess the correct approach.

•Way before the killer demo stage:

•Step one Validate the prospect (QA) what is the BANT •Budget

•Authority •Need

•Time line

•Size of org ( for bonus points)

•Competitor ( Validate urgency, could also be incumbent)

•If you don’t know these; yell at your sales person…if you want a killer demo you need to understand the landscape…now you need a blue sheet to nail it.!!!

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Sales Process (Funnel) Management- you will get two kicks at the can in a normal sale

13 PROSPECTING-BY SEGMENT DEMO NEEDS ANALYSIS CONVERSATION EVALUATION CONVERSATION EVALUATION DELIVERED PROPOSAL/QUOTE DELIVERED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS Customer Commitment Stage WIN!

Accepts Sales Call,Tradeshow, Webinar Invitation

Agrees to do Site Survey/Benchmark Schedules Trial, Allocates Resources

Takes Delivery of Product, Training

Signs off on Trial Results Begins Contract Negotiations

Signs Contract

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Seek to Understand –

Buying Influences beyond BANTSC

•Five Buying Influence types affect the purchase decision – Economic Buyer – Technical Buyer – User Buyer – Coach/Champion – Dominant Influencer

•What are the demo messages for each? •Good messages help prospects buy.

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Know what pain killer is important to each person in the room, your killer is not the same!! ( lots of tools to help with this)- do

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Find Pain and Deal With it

•Difference between reality and

expectations

•The more the better •Buyer must admit pain

•Product features and benefits are only

important to you!

•Message needs to

solve the pain of those with the money and

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Know Your Products

• Value proposition (elevator pitch) you might get ask on the way to the meeting.

• _{Use reference stories to build credibility} • _{Know how your products solve pains}

• Provide proof to build credibility and reduce buyer’s perceived risk

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5. Understand Impact of the Pain, talk to their validated pain in the demo… look for head nods…validate with quesitons during

the demo?

•Summarize your understanding of their pain at the beginning of the demo! If they correct you shift on the fly.

•Cover:

•How much does this cost per year? •Whom does it impact?

•Who will be involved in fixing this pain? •When does the pain need to be fixed? •What happens if it doesn’t get fixed? •Re-confirm, a budget exist to pay for it?

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Killer Demo’s

( some house keeping infrastructure notes) 1. Know your Corporate ethnocentrism in context to the prospect, Deltas

can be big. Prepare, prepare, practise… translate techie to business speak and the terms from the target ( ask for the names of the system… they use ) prepare for failure, things go wrong.

2. If using webex know what browsers your audience use in advance, you don’t want webex’s short comings to self implicate your product or solution.

3. If in person, if you need the internet have a rocket stick as a back up… 4. Always know when your last release was always test your stock demo

after a release…

5. Visuals are everything, consider your projector tuned to your colours, sound silly?

6. It pays to localize to a point.

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Demos

Peter Dyer

Systems Engineer - Canada

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Veeam Customers

•Majority SMB, some Enterprise

•Low ADS

•High volume

•Technology purchase

•Sales cycle (lead to close)

measured in weeks

•Competition

•Some direct

•Existing investment

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Sales process

•Lead qualification •Demo

•POC •Sale

•Analogy: Getting a job

•Lead qualification = finding job

opportunities

•Demo = submitting resume

•POC = interview

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Demo goal

1. Get the POC

Need the customer to understand and want to try the technology

Key features

Demystify technology

Build excitement around features that will let the customer do things they can’t do today

Help the customer picture the software in their environment

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Demo strategy

•Very small customer

•Group online webinar

•Average sized customer

•Personal demo (online or

in person)

•Enterprise customer

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The Demo

•Discovery (10 mins)

•Introduction (20 mins)

•Product Demonstration (30 mins)

•Close (0 mins)

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Discovery

•Conversation

•Understanding the customer’s

environment so we can frame the

demo in a meaningful way, pick

out the key features to focus on

•Rapport

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Introduction

•Slides for online meetings,

whiteboard for in person meetings

•Key features (a little feature/benefit,

but not much)

•Architecture, helping the customer

picture how they would deploy the

software

•No selling (personal choice, Canadians

don’t like being sold)

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Product Demonstration

•Demystify technology,

show how easy it is to use

•Highlight how key features

are implemented

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Close

•Ask about next steps,

at this point the answer

should be POC, if not,

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Disasters / Lessons Learned

•Prep, prep, prep

•Don’t trust sales people

•Be honest (don’t know is okay) •Shared demo environment

•I now run everything locally from my laptop – get to know VMware

Workstation

•Internet connection (onsite)

•See previous point

•Customer projector

•I always bring my own projector as a backup (small, lightweight)

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The End - Thank You

Killer Demos Feb. 22, 2011