What If Meetings Were Fun AND Productive?

After the amazing success I've had with my "WhiteBoarding For The Sales Engineer" class I've been looking at extensions to the methodology. As research for putting the class together I've been reading many of the books out there about using pictures, graphics and visualization.

I've always been puzzled by the way the worldwide educational system values words over pictures from the age of about 8 upwards. My wife teaches at an elementary school (Kindergarten through 11 years old). If I walk into one of the K-classes and ask how many kids can draw, almost all of them put their hands up. If I ask the same question of 5th grade (the 11 year-olds) less than half of them put their hands up. By the time we're 16-17 only 10% of students will self-identify as a "drawer". Which is strange - I don't know about you, but I learnt to read by identifying words with pictures. Chemistry was made easier by understanding the Periodic Table drawing, Geology was made easier by remember the strata/layers of rock etc.. where do we lose this ability to visually represent life?

I think it's because expectations are too high. The most common objection to using a whiteboard in my classes is "I'm not an artist/I can't write neatly". Yet once we get halfway through the class, most people are coming up with creative representations of products/architectures/problems and so on - using a variety of interesting, and simple, icons and constructs. I'm now looking at how we, as Presales Engineers, can apply all these techniques to a variety of internal and external meetings - not just when you are explicitly selling something. So stay tuned. It's fun and colorful!!

The Frictionless Sales Call

The December MTS Edge Newsletter will go out on Tuesday December 6th. Most of the content has been posted onto the Mastering Technical Sales website this weekend.

December Features:

The Frictionless Sales Call. I've met with a number of senior level Presales leaders over the past few weeks to look at 2012 requirements. One very consistent comment is that they believe 75% of their teams still don't have a good grasp of the basics when in front of the customer - particularly for demos and for asking questions. That's where the concept of a frictionless sales call comes in. Th eonly thing you want to stick in your custmers brain is your message - yet SE's spend a lot of time creating districtaions and "noise" that prevent the message sticking. To apply physics - th eharder you have to push your message, the more friction is generated, whiich causes heat - and eventually something catches fire - hopefully NOT your deal! The article lists a number of crimes to avoid when demo-ing or asking discovery questions.

The Seven Deadly Sins Of Presale Leaders. Continuing the theme of crime and other bad things - I list out 7 sins that I "created" during a workshop with a large group of first-line presales managers.

Ask John - Making Introductions. I've been called every title under the sun (and a few more) by salespeople over the years. If part of your credibility hinges on your technical qualifications and experience then the proper introduction becomes an important start to a sales call (particularly for a webcast).

Blah, Blah, Blah is Decembers SE Book Of The Month - and it's an absolute contender to get into the Books Of The Year list - if you read Dan Roam's Back Of The Napkin then you'll love this follow-up ; which explains what to do when words don't work!

And finally - a reminder that I've recently revised my highly successful "White Boarding For Sales Engineers" class and updated it for the 2012 sales kickoff season. Email me if you are interested.

November MTS Content is posted

The MTS site was updated over the weekend - a few days late because of the "World Tour". This month I spend some time looking at why the best SE's often give the worst demos and blame The Curse Of Knowledge (see previos post). The second article is about Personal Agendas - and why as an SE to need to determine what the personal agenda (i.e. "the win") is for every person that deal with in a customer account. It's an important, but overlooked part of the sales process - and is one area where you can add unexpected value to the sales team.

The month is rounded out with Ask John's response to Help I'm Being Acquired! and the Book Review of 10 Steps To Successful  Virtual Presentations. Enjoy The Read!

Next month's review will be focused on Dan Roam's (author of Back Of The Napkin) latest book - Blah, Blah, Blah - why words don't work. I've read the first section of three and so far, so good.

Good Selling.

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?