Stunningly Awful Sales Prevention Demos

Stunningly Awful Demos

How sales people lose sales while trying too hard
by Peter Cohan, Second Derivative 

Does your organization have a “Sales Prevention Team” — people or processes that lengthen sales cycles and lose deals? Sadly, those who present Stunningly Awful Demos often receive membership on this infamous team.

Here are a few true examples of Stunningly Awful Sales Prevention Demos for your shock, horror and amusement.

The terrible tabs death march

I sat in on a demo where the presenter navigated to a page with 10 tabs and then proceeded to march through each of them, one by one, in detail.

It was very interesting to watch the body language of the audience. The response to the initial page was positive — it was a well-constructed dashboard, and it looked good. The audience received the next tab with moderate interest, but by the third tab, many audience members visibly sagged in their seats …!

By the fourth and fifth tabs, nearly everyone had checked out (perhaps even the presenter, who had clearly presented these tabs many, many times …). There was an audible sigh of relief at the final tab.

This was a classic case of the presenter following the old, established, traditional demo pathway — a slow, painful march towards no sale!

Buying it back

A true story from a few years ago: The company had done discovery well, the prospect’s “champion” was excited, the 50 target end-users were lined-up and interested.

The solution consultant presenting the demo had an hour for the meeting. In the first 10 minutes, he went through the key capabilities that matched customer interest. He then said, “Hmm … looks like we’ve got another 50 minutes left in our meeting today. Why don’t I go ahead and show you some of the other capabilities, other workflows, how to configure the solution for different users and some other custom stuff?”

And he did. He spent the next 50 minutes showing a range of functions, workflows and capabilities — demonstrating many of them in considerable detail.

At the end of the demo meeting, the champion chatted with the target end-users and then met with the selling team. He told the vendor, “We’ve decided to purchase a single license of your software. We’ll put it on an expert’s machine and have all of the other users come to the expert to work the problems.”

“Why?” asked the sales person. “What about the other users?”

The champion said, “The users said your software looked too complicated — they couldn’t visualize using it themselves.”

This is a classic, very sad case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory — and of a reduction in order size by $245,000 (annual fees!). Sales prevention at its worst!

The moral: Stop selling when the customer is ready to buy…!

“Here are all the different ways to …”

Imagine you ask the presenter how to print a document during a demo. The presenter’s face lights up, and she says, “Printing is one of our real competitive advantages!”

She chooses File, Print from the menu, while also noting that you can use keyboard shortcuts as well, or voice commands, if your system is configured accordingly. She then shows how to set up the voice recognition software, does a test and cancels out of it.

She next selects Print Options and walks through how you can choose different printers, add a printer or print to a file. Next, she shows the paper choices, the margin options, the print-quality possibilities, tray management on the printer, the print queue, print preview and print to PDF. Another 13 minutes of your life senselessly squandered by the Sales Prevention Team ….

And, fascinatingly, she never actually chooses “OK” to print the document — the only click she needed to show!

The moral: Just do it. Don’t drag it out.

Peeling back the onion

A colleague once commented that “Peeling back the layers” is just like peeling an onion: If you peel it back too far, what happens? You cry! 

The moral: Only peel back the layers in accord with the customer’s interest level.

Help, Mr. Wizard …!

Wizards are designed to make a complex workflow simple to use — but only if you follow a reasonable path! Here’s another true story:

The presenter started a wizard to execute an analysis of business data — and was still walking me through the options and settings 60 minutes later! Once he’d finally completed that portion of the demo, I asked him to show me how to complete that same workflow using the wizard in the fewest number of steps — the way someone would typically use the wizard on a day-to-day basis.

How long do you think it took? About 2.5 minutes from start to finish.

The moral: Less is more. 

Desperation demos 

“Wait — don’t go away, we haven’t gotten to the best stuff yet!”

Or:

“OK, so that wasn’t interesting to you? Well, how about this? Or this? Wait, we’ve got much more, and more, and more, and more ….”

The moral: Don’t overwhelm your audience.

The overrun overview

“So I said we’d only take 30 minutes — but, wow, it looks like I’ve been talking for two hours! Um, hello, are you still there …?”

The moral: Never exceed the allotted demo time.

The Sales Prevention Team is, unfortunately, too alive and well. To avoid joining this team, even briefly, we recommend the Great Demo! workshop, seminar or book.

What Sales Prevention Demos have you seen? Send your horror stories to us at PCohan@SecondDerivative.com, and we’ll publish (anonymously) the most frightening.

Peter Cohan founded The Second Derivative in 2003 to address the challenge of bringing a method for consistent success to the process of creating and delivering software demonstrations. He has a successful track record as an agent of change in both internal and external roles. 

For more on demonstration effectiveness skills and methods, visit our Web site at www.SecondDerivative.com. For demo tips, best practices, tools and techniques, join the DemoGurus Community Web site at www.DemoGurus.com or explore our blog at http://greatdemo.blogspot.com/ or join the Great Demo! LinkedIn Group.