Peter Cohan
Peter Cohan
Have you ever seen a bad software demonstration? Peter Cohan is the founder and principal of Great Demo!, focused on helping software organizations improve the success rates of their demos. He authored Great Demo! - how to prepare and deliver surprisingly compelling software demonstrations. Peter has experience as an individual contributor, manager and senior management in marketing, sales, and business development. He has also been, and continues to be, a customer.
Stunningly Awful Demos – Buying It Back
Are you Buying It Back? Have you ever been in a situation where your prospect said, “In your demo, you showed us a bunch of…
Assessing Demonstration Skill Levels – How Does Your Team Rate?
Many presales and sales practitioners say they are skilled at doing demos – but are they? Organizations that achieve Level 12 enjoy remarkable scaling and…
Stunningly Awful Demos: Insufficient Customization
Many vendors say that their demos are “customized” – but are they sufficiently customized? I recently saw demos from a vendor that all followed exactly…
A Dinner Party as an Analogy for Discovery
You’ve invited a large number of friends and colleagues over for a dinner party – how do you prepare? As you begin planning for your…
Solutioning?
Intriguingly, in spite of job titles that include Solutions Consultant, Solutions Architect, and Solutions Engineer, there is little discussion of the associated skill of solutioning…
Presales Metrics – What to Measure and Why
With the appearance of presales-focused tools and products, presales managers and leadership now have the opportunity to track activities and establish metrics. But what should…
Hybrid Demo Meetings – The Challenges of Mixed Face-to-Face and Remote Audiences
What is the strategy for handling situations where you are face-to-face with one group of prospects and other participants are connecting remotely? Treat the entire…
Automated Demo Content – Getting It Right
You’ve been asked to put together the content for an automated or recorded demo – where do you start? What should be included? Some (Important)…
Discovery and Demos for Transactional Sales Cycles – When More Must Be Less (And Less More)
Is it possible to complete an introduction, engage with a Vision Generation Demo, segue into a Discovery conversation, deliver a brief Technical Proof Demo, and…
Expansion Questions – An Essential Discovery Skill
Expansion Questions are a series of interrelated questions designed to span five of the Discovery skills levels, from uncovering pain to reengineering vision. They are…
Assessing Discovery Skill Levels – How Does Your Team Rate?
Many sales and presales practitioners say they are skilled at doing Discovery – but are they? Here’s a simple method to assess, based on five…
Success-Ready Leads: A Provocative Definition of “Qualified Lead” Based on Customer Success Parameters – and Its Impact on...
Here’s a novel idea: Front-load your pipeline with prospects that are most likely to succeed! How? Consider filtering and qualifying prospects based on expected outcomes…
The Advantages of Being the Incumbent Vendor
The Advantages of Being the Incumbent Vendor – And Its Impact on Managing Competition, Renewals and Expansion Sales “Get their data, and their hearts and…
Lunch and Learn Demos
Lunch and Learn demo meetings are terrific vehicles for securing renewals and driving expansion. For those who are unfamiliar, these sessions are typically presented…
Why DID They Buy? – Fabulous Fuel for Sales, Presales and Customer Success
Here’s a novel idea: Go visit your new customers a few months after they purchased your software and well after they have deployed it into production use. Ask them,…
Demo “Storylines”: The Journey, The Destination, or Both
Many software vendors talk about “The Journey” or “The Customer’s Journey” as a storyline for their demos. We need to ask ourselves, however, what…
The Zoom Scan – What It Is, Why It Is Important, and How to Do It
Translating Face-to-Face Meeting Audience Scans to the Web Many presales and salespeople report that they find it difficult to consume and act on…
Ignition Demos – A Rather Huge Unmet Need and Opportunity
Synopsis Prospects that are “Just Browsing” are underserved in traditional sales approaches yet consume valuable and expensive presales resources. We propose: 1. …
Presales Tools Tools Tools!
Here are a handful of emerging and established tools – either created specifically for presales and/or having terrific application for presales folks. We are listing…
Stunningly Awful Web “Overview” Demos – The Gruesome Anatomy of a Traditional 1-Hour Web Overview Demonstration –...
In which we identify a number of common challenges with “overview” demos – and offer solutions. [Warning – graphic and potentially painful content ahead…!]…