In any deal, there are a small number of people who can meaningfully say Yes, a large number whose Yes doesn’t matter, and usually a small number of people with significant power to say No. In a later post in this series, I’ll talk about the Yes/No conundrum.
For now, I want to focus on three Yea-sayers:
- The Customer is the person who will actually make the final decision.
- The Users will use the software. (The customer rarely will, though she may see reports or other output from it.)
- The Champion is the internal person pushing for a software solution — and you hope to get him pushing for yours. In some situations the customer may also be the champion, though in software the customer is often in IT. The champion is always in the business. (Let’s skip the going-in-circles nomenclature game in selling software for IT’s use.)
You need to provide different insights and scenarios during the demo for each of these three groups.
Let’s assume for now that they are not in the room together. Sometimes they will be, other times not. You’re not going to show anything to one person that you wouldn’t want another to see… though what you show IT may not be of interest to the business user or customer. So it’s a matter of dividing time and attention rather than trying to shade your story.
All three groups have one thing in common: They each want to understand what it is about your solution that will make their life easier and/or better.
- The customer wants to see how you’ll improve the department’s P&L (internal profit and loss statement). There are other related needs, such as improving retention of good employees, but it boils down to the overall business group’s or IT group’s annual outlook. Some customers will be more direct about it than others, but that’s in the back of every customer’s mind. Show them how, without being heavy-handed about it. Actually, for IT you can be pretty blunt… but this is the one time to be circumspect when users and champions are in the room. Accept that at most companies IT and the business teams are at odds, whether overtly or subtly. You can promote IT goals that are also business goals.
- The users want to know how you’ll help them go home at night. Show how you save them work, save steps, save cut-and-paste, and so on. How do they do less scut-work and make their managers happy?
- The champion also wants to see you you’ll improve the business P&L.
In all three cases, the watchwords are:
- Show, don’t tell. (Or show in addition to tell.) Describe not what you’re doing but what results, what the benefits are.
- Keep it simple and short.
- Ensure that you are clear on the scenario before getting in too deep — and make sure that it’s a scenario the viewer cares about. If you’re not sure what that scenario is, ask!
I’m a viewer; show me how you make my life better. That’s all that matters to me. I don’t care about Tom’s life, or Carol’s, unless they work for me, in which case I may care a little bit. That’s hyperbole, of course — at least I hope it is — but it’s still at the crux of a successful demo. Convince me in 20-30 seconds that you can help me, and I’ll care. Otherwise, I’ll tune out.
When I was a champion at Microsoft legal, I recognized that vendors didn’t know how to demo, and I went out of my way to make up for that by digging around. Some champions will do that; many will not. Take control of the game, and don’t make them dig. Show them how and why they need you.
You have 30-60 seconds.
Begin.
