There are a number of unwritten rules between sales executives, and solution/presales consultants that keep the sales process well oiled. Some of them are good ideas, and some of them should be written in stone. 

Yesterday I read a post by Eric Kimberling (@erickimberling) titled "In Search of Business Value & ROI: Achieving IT Benefits Realization" (http://tinyurl.com/mmx5k4) and to be honest, it made me a little sad.

The title of the post was a little misleading.  I think it should have really been titled "A Beginners Guide to Cutting your Software Vendors Margins to the Bone, Bleeding them Dry, and Hanging Them Up on the Town Wall as an Example of What Will Happen to the Next Vendor that Dares Walk Into the Company" (sorry - my capitalization may be a little off).

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Ramblings Sales & Demo Theory

I just had some thoughts on ERP demonstrations and pilots - why they are so hard to do, and also a possible solution - Piloting in the Cloud, and becoming your very own Test Pilot. 

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Ramblings Sales & Demo Theory

In my last post "Demo Scripts vs Storyboards" I talked about creating storyboards for demonstrations.  After thinking about the format of the storyboards, I thought that a better way to plan out the scenes of the demonstration would be to put each of the storyboard elements on an index card

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Ramblings Sales & Demo Theory

I did a Webcast yesterday, and something that I always do before a presentation is outline what I am planning to show.  This helps me keep on track and also is where I note down

• order of the topics
• features that I want to show
• data that I should use to best highlight features
• possible areas to avoid because I haven't set up data etc.

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Ramblings Sales & Demo Theory

 Not all system failures are created equal; there certainly are degrees of failure. This article describes the types and consequences of defines four major types of IT project failures. Note that one failure may not become apparent until months after a new system has been activated. Each case study is classified in terms of the following failure scale:

• The Unmitigated Disaster
• The Big Failure
• The Mild Failure
• The Forthcoming Failure

Let me let you in on a secret... If you put ten software demonstrators in the same room and ask them to show the same feature or method to perform a task, then chances are you will get ten different demonstrations. And this is with the same product. Most software is flexible enough to provide a number of different ways to achieve the same result.

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Ramblings Sales & Demo Theory

Normally when you think of a co-op, you think of a farmers or some other community co-op.  People create co-ops so that they join together with a common business to produce or supply a services, operated by its members with the profits and losses shared by the menbers as well.  Could an ERP software co-operative work and be profitable?

This morning I was reading a blog from Dave Litzenberg titled "The Scripted Software Demonstration: Making an Enterprise Software Decision on More than Gut Feel" - http://tinyurl.com/qoegsx - and I had to make a couple of comments on scripts, and why they are not the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Scripted demonstrations are great for creating structure - but it has a couple of downsides.

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Ramblings Sales & Demo Theory