The Curse Of Knowledge : Why Demos Fail

In 1990, Elizabeth Newton, a Stanford University psychology graduate student studied  a simple game in which she assigned people to one of two roles: “tapper” or “listener.” Each tapper was asked to pick a well-known song, such as “Happy Birthday,” and tap out the rhythm on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song. How well did they do?

 Amazingly poorly! Out of 120 songs that were tapped out, only three were guessed correctly – a 2.5% success rate. Yet the “tappers” estimated the success rate would be 50%. Why the big difference – because the tappers were cursed with the knowledge of the song title and found it impossible to imagine what it was like for the listeners to hear and interpret the isolated taps. That is the Curse Of Knowledge!

So why were the scores so bad and what does this have to do with being a Pre-Sales Engineer?

We understand and know our solution. In fact we know it really well because in many cases our job depends on it. However – we find it extremely difficult to place ourselves in the situation of the customer who is seeing our demonstration for the very first time. The more familiar we become with our topic, the more implicit assumptions we make about what our customer should know as opposed to what they actually do know. The result is a knowledge gap, which your customer fills in by assuming either that your product is complicated (because they don’t understand something) or that you are a poor presenter (because they don’t understand what you are doing).

In a large proportion of the demos I have reviewed since starting Mastering Technical Sales, the Curse Of Knowledge has been apparent. I put on my “dumb CIO” or “typical businessperson” hat and list all the assumptions that the sales team has made in the demo. That list usually stretches into double digits.

For ideas on how to fix the Curse Of Knowledge read here.

Piranhas and Presentations

In my standard workshops I try to focus on changing things to have the maximum impact on customer facing activities (like better discovery, more focused and simpler demos, telling stories etc.) I often refer to some smaller changes as being part of the “Piranha Effect”.

As background, there are many things that we do as an SE that have a small effect on the “stickiness” of our messaging. They may cause a gain, or loss, of say 1-2% in overall stickiness. Barely worth bothering about you may think. Yet once you’ve fixed the big things, these Piranhas can have a telling impact on your delivery. I call them Piranhas because if you get attacked by a single fish, it takes a small bite and you move on. Get attacked by a twenty piranha and they can do some serious damage.

The same thing applies to your presentations. If you think you are an A+ presenter then I challenge you to take a video of one of your pitches and conduct both a self- and a third-party assessment. Look out for the piranhas (minimal eye contact, pointing, pacing back-and-forth, small font sizes etc.) and kill them off one-by-one. The result will be a better presentation with less distractions for the customer and it will now be safe to step into the waters!

Being A Team Player

This month's recommended book, John Maxwell's The 17 Essential Qualities Of A Team Player, sprang out of a conversation had over the summer with a pair of new SE Managers. The topic was teamwork - and we spoke for many hours before, during and after dinner. One SE Manager had to build a brand new team, the other had inherited a poorly performing team.

I recall telling them a story about my son back when he was 11 or 12. Matt was, and still is, a very good footbal (soccer) player - his team won many championships and he played Division-1 college soccer for 4 years here in the US. But that's not the story my young son taught me.

One season, years ago, Matt was voted the Most Valuable Player on his team. Yet he didn't have a single statistic on the books - no goals, no assists, nothing ... He played in defence, was often the last line of defense - but he was awarded the MVP over kids who had scored 20+ goals that season. Being the proud father I was convinced that he deserved the award, so I asked him why he thought he had won it.

His response?

"It's the way I play. I always give 100% and never quit. But the other players do that too. It's because I am a good player and can make a difference in the game. But the other players can do that too. The real reason is because I try to make everyone else on my team look good and play better. When a team-mate is in trouble on the field - I'm there for him to pass the ball to; I let them know when they have time or when they are under pressure and I give them an escape route. Sure I can make tackles and stop goals being scored against us, but if I make everyone else on my team play better then it's like we have 12 players and the other team still has 11. That's why we win!"

Wow - now is that a definition of a team player?

Breakfast In Bangalore

I just finished breakfast with one of my customers out here in Bangalore. He runs a 90 person Asia-Pacific SE team. It's insightful, yet also disappointing, to hear about the apparent global mismatch between sales and presales during the middle of the sales cycle.

Now we both want the same thing - great success for our customers and great revenue for ourselves. It's the speed of the salescycle which causes the discord. Presales views sales as charging through the sales phases as quickly as possible, short-cutting or omitting steps where possible. Sales views presales as an anchor to the process, always slowing things down with questions and yet more questions.

Both sides (and maybe that is the root cause - that there are sides instead of a true single team) believe their approach is correct. Since sales usually trumps presales in >90% of companies - speed rules. The resultant chaos keeps people like me in business. So where is the middle ground? What is the balance between speed and caution? How do we avoid "the dash to demo" yet get the deal done in the shortest time possible?

Many questions . interested in hearing what you do in your company to strike the appropriate balance?

September Updates

The September Issue of the MTS edge will be published tomorrow (Wednesday Sept 7th) because of the US Labor Day holiday. The focus this month is on Discovery. The lead article looks at Six Magic Questions to ask, once you have covered the First Law of Discovery. It's a little like Newton's First Law - in that customers at rest tend to stay at rest until an external force (that's you) is applied.

You have to understand what the appropriate force is (money, time, regulations, competition, risk etc..) and then how to measure it.

Ask John looks at dealing with an SE who has spelling and grammar issues. It's not as easy as it might initially seem.

The Book Review is John Medina's "Brain Rules". Which not only provides scientific proof that we all have a Jennifer Aniston neuron, but also explains how and why we pay attention and learn things. Very insightful and a good read for an SE.

And The Last Word showcases some examples of whiteboards being used in the "real world" - ranging from UPS to the White House to VMWare.

Enjoy The Read!!

Fun With Numbers

IDC published an updated report a few months back about the explosive nature of data growth within corporations. They had previously predicted a 44x (yes - forty-four times) increase in data in the next ten years. That projection has now been revised to a 50x increase by 2020. Amazing numbers!

The trouble is, the human mind has a big issue in dealing with large numbers or multipliers. There is no real diference between a 40x growth and a 60x growth - except that one is bigger than the other. The point is that they are both BIG, almost unimaginably big!

At least three of my clients are quoting that number in many of their presentations - but here is a better way to help humanize 50x. Imagine you are up in front of the customer using a white board. It's a standard whiteboard of 42 by 96 inches (3.5 by 8 feet ; or approx 1 by 2.5 m). Multiply the size of the board by 50 - the board turns into something the size of a full football field - and it doesn't matter if it is American or "real" football!!

NOW you get an idea of just how big the growth is. Try some other comparisons, put them into human terms, and see what happens!

Getting An "F"

The next edition of the Mastering Technical Sales Edge will be out on Tuesday August 9th. It's a week late so I give myself an "F" for Time Management. Which is ironic as that is one of the topics which gets raised in almost every seminar and workshop I run.

Now I know why I am running late - and that is a mixture of extending a business trip to take in some additional vacation, a last minute customer project and too many sunny days. BUT .. Do you know why you never seem to have enough time in the week and hours in the day? The first question I always ask is "How do you spend your 40-50 hours per week? What do you actually do?". Rarely can anyone account for all their time in the week, even if their company has a time tracking system. The reason I ask the question is that it is tough to impact time management and efficiency if you don't know where that time is going.

You don't even have to divide it into too many buckets. Just split it a few ways. Measure it as customer/non-customer-facing time. Measure it as reactive/proactive time. Measure it as "A" vs "B" and "C" customers - and finally measure the time with a grade. For every chunk of time you spend on something give yourself a grade in terms of timeliness, quality and even quantity. You will surprised at the results - we often gravitate to those areas we find the easiest. So if a large part of your day is spent on activities where you give yourself an "A" - you are probably (a) not stretching yourself out of your core competencies and (b) you are ignoring other activities you may not be so great at.

Measure, Monitor and then Change - but only if you want to.