I have to get this off my chest — most of the technical demos I’ve seen in the last decade have been awful.
There, I said it, now let me explain.
- Lack of flexibility — Someone is teaching pre-sales people to, as one of my mentors once said “Show up and throw up”. They join a call, the sales exec points to them, and they do one of two (or both) things. They walk through the sales deck and explain all of the technical intricacies, and then they “do the demo”. In about 75% of the cases the I’ve personally experienced on both sides of the table (buyer, and seller) there is a complete lack of creativity in how they explain to the prospective customer what they’re about to see. It’s just a script they follow, click here, look at this doodad, click here, wow look at this, click, click, end of demo.
- Lack of context — What, “No way!”, you say? We’re clearly not in the same meetings. My first job where I was doing for-real pre-sales work, a guy named Bill Weinberg kept telling us that we should do research on our prospective customers before we got in front of them. Those words echo back across these last 15+ years loud and clear. Especially when I watch someone talk about their product or service in a way that is completely irrelevant to the buyer. Is it really too much to ask that if you’re selling SOC optimization technology, you should at least look up how big the customer’s SOC is, and whether they have open roles?
- Lack of vision — It’s strange to me that when you’re talking about a widget, you don’t see the broader implication of your widget in the company’s ecosystem or processes. Let’s say you’re selling vulnerability management software. Yes the features are nice and but colors and dashboards and knobs and dials are cool. But why does that prospective customer actually care about what you’re selling. One reason may be compliance driven — but being bullied into buying an item that checks a box means they’re going to go with the cheapest, least complicated thing to accomplish the task. Your thing is priced higher and has way more features…so why do they need it? Maybe you’re helping reduce time spent by the team in triage of vulnerabilities, or maybe you the thing you’re selling will increase productivity, or maybe it’ll just keep people from making poor choices. Maybe it’ll help the CIO hold line of business owners accountable for open issues in their business. Any one of those may be “the thing” but I am willing to be if you don’t at least look up off those dashboards your outcome as a sales engineer will be less than ideal.
You didn’t tell me a story
Remember the line “Sell me this pen”? You have to have some compelling reason, a story or some urgency. The catch is, you can’t make it up or you’re selling bullshit. Nobody wants to buy bullshit. And the buyers you actually want have good bullshit detection. So you have to tell them a story.
Imagine you’re in the most beautiful setting you’ve ever seen in your life. Your family is there, and it’s just a picture from a postcard, or Southern Living magazine. You want to capture the moment forever, for your children, and their children. It’s that kind of moment. You have your camera and you pull that camera out to take a photo of this amazing moment. But you… you bought the cheap batteries because you thought all batteries are the same. And now they’re dead. And while you have your camera, it’s no good to you when the batteries are dead and you can’t capture the most beautiful setting you’ve ever seen in your entire life. You put batteries in before you left the house but you didn’t know they were already low. Batteries can’t tell you they’re low. My batteries… the batteries I’m selling will tell you… they have an indicator that will tell you how much power they have. With my batteries you will never again be in a position like you’re in right now — beautiful scenery, perfect picture, and you’re stuck with dead batteries.
Tell the story…
Sure you can go through and tell the prospective customer about the technical details of these batteries. The type of core the are based on, that the design has 100 patents, and that every feature available that distinguishes them. But without telling me that story, the “low power indicator” is just something that’s a nice to have. In that story, if I’ve done my job, that power indicator is essential and you must have it.
That’s how you turn a bunch of features into a must-have. You tell a good story. Storytellers are rare. Storytellers that can do it with a technical product are unicorns that drop gold bricks when they poop.
Features I’ll likely forget after this call
This may be something you don’t want to hear, but the people who make decisions and sign the big checks for the widget you’re selling probably won’t remember 90% of the features you’ve just rattled off in your technical demo. Now, I’m not saying features are not important because obviously they are, but have some awareness of who is in your audience and what they want to hear. Technical evaluators want to hear about the technical features and go down the technical rabbit hole (all pun intended). The executive sponsor will be looking for the big “why” — what makes your thing compelling to them. Then those people will look at their technical evaluators and ask them “Does this do the things you need?” And if the answer is yes, and you’ve told a good story and related it to the value they seek, you’re a winner. But if you can’t relate the widget to the business value the executive is looking for, the features don’t matter.
Moral of the story: features are often forgotten shortly after the meeting. Unless your prospect is taking great notes, they’ll forget half the things you told them. And, unfortunately, unless you’ve told a killer story that sticks around in their brain (remember my pitch on those batteries?) then they’ll forget what makes you special or why they should be buying your thing. At that point, you’ve lost.
Be a Story Teller
The best and most successful people I know — in the vendor world — are relatable, technically astute, and can tell a great story that blends in the value and capabilities into a “sell me this pen” moment that you won’t forget. Please, can we have more of this?
If you have this magical skillset, teach others.
If you don’t have this skillset, seek someone who can do it out and learn.
What do you think? Am I wildly off? Do you see this too? What about you buyers out there — does this resonate?
