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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.

Debilitating Demo Diseases: Blackberry Consumption

Blackberry Consumption Symptoms: Sales rep sitting in the back of the room completely focused on his/her Blackberry; severely swollen thumbs; impaired ability to communicate...

Debilitating Demo Diseases: Breathlessness (Demo Asphyxiation)

Symptoms: No pauses or breaks in the delivery, followed by shortness of breath, flushed face and finally passing out. (Fainting is often...

Debilitating Demo Diseases: Death By Corporate Overview

Death by Corporate Overview Symptoms: Palpitation of the audience; sleeping audience and, eventually, severe audience loss. Audience members doodle aimlessly, glance at watches...

Debilitating Demo Diseases: Zippy Mouse Syndrome

Zippy Mouse Syndrome Symptoms: Mouse movements erratic, haphazard; movement may never stop. Mouse may circle, constantly, around certain portions of the screen. Customers turn...

Debilitating Demo Diseases: Whooping “If”

Whooping "If" Symptoms: Presenter offers an ever-growing range of options, generally linked together by "if…" If's often multiply rapidly, causing great boredom in the audience...

Debilitating Demo Diseases: “Rambleitis”

Rambleitis - Run-on Demo (aka Demo Diarrhea) Symptoms: No pauses, no breaks, no interaction with audience – often compounded by Conjunctionitis, fits of Whooping If...

Stunningly Awful Demos: “Conjunctionitis” and Other Debilitating Demo Diseases

In my next several posts, I'll offer a compendium of debilitating demo diseases that commonly afflict sales, presales and marketing teams when preparing for...

How Is a Demo Like a Newspaper Article?

Pick up this morning's newspaper and consider two things: 1. How you read the paper. 2. How the articles are written. Consider organizing your demonstrations…

Competitive Demo Situations: Biasing Toward Your Strengths

The end of the quarter is only a few weeks away – and you are in competition for business you really need to make...

Selling to Your Sales Force: the Toughest Customer of All!

Cries of "Who cares?", "So what?" and "No more features!" issue from the more vocal members of the audience – and everyone else appears...

Arrive 15 Minutes Early for Remote Demos, Too

When I recommend, in Great Demo! Workshops, that you plan to "arrive" 15 minutes ahead of time for a Remote Demo, I often see...

Yet More Auto-Demo Hell: A “Customized” Recorded Demo?

Should a recorded or canned demo by "customized"? Interesting and tough challenge…! By definition, recorded demos are not customized for any specific customer. However,...

More on Auto-Demo Hell …

A recent Great Demo! Workshop participant (from his marketing department) shared a challenge he was facing: His boss asked him to prepare...

Auto-Demo Hell

We've all experienced some sort of software demo hell, either as a member of the audience, or, more painfully, as the presenter. But...

Why Don’t They “Get It”? Are They Stupid or What?

Have you ever delivered a demo to a prospect that doesn't seem to understand what you are offering them? Have you ever had...

Attention Retention and Demos

When does your audience pay the most attention in your demos? At the beginning? In the middle? At the end? ...

The Great Demo! Top Ten List

Here are ten steps you can take to improve the success rate for your demos: 1. Be clear on the Objective for the demonstration. Why...

Too Complex: A True Demo Disaster Story

Here's the true story of how a demo directly resulted in the loss of $245,000 from an order. It's also a stunning example...

The Database “Break-Even Point”

How long does it take before a newly installed database becomes useful? Corporate knowledge management systems, customer relationship management tools, sales-force automation tools,...

Death by Corporate Overview

We often hear the question, "How much of our company's corporate overview presentation should we include in customer meetings?" Good question. The...

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