{"id":32897,"date":"2023-08-25T17:25:13","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T17:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/?p=32897"},"modified":"2023-11-15T15:54:10","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T15:54:10","slug":"death-by-corporate-overview-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/death-by-corporate-overview-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Death by Corporate Overview (A Never Stop Learning! Article)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s in this article for you?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why corporate overview presentations are a bad, costly habit.<\/li>\n<li>Two terrific solutions.<\/li>\n<li>One adequate solution, if you can\u2019t let them go!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I often hear the question, \u201cHow much of our company\u2019s corporate overview should we include in prospect meetings?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The answer: As little as possible!<\/p>\n<p>Many sales and presales staff feel most comfortable opening a demo or discovery meeting with a \u201cbrief\u201d overview of their company. Most prospects refer to this as \u201cDeath by corporate overview\u201d!<\/p>\n<p>Why? Because at the beginning of these meetings, the prospect is <em>not<\/em> interested in the vendor\u2019s history, revenues, or mission statement. The prospect wants to see if the vendor can help them solve their problems and address <a href=\"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/uncovering-critical-business-issues-what-why-and-how\/\">Critical Business Issues<\/a> (CBIs). Making the prospect wait, watch, and wallow through a pile of corporate overview slides is just cruel!<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also a waste of valuable time with your prospect and puts you at risk of your prospect tuning out or leaving the meeting early!<\/p>\n<p>Consider:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Would they have agreed to a meeting if they hadn\u2019t already vetted you as a vendor?<\/li>\n<li>Did they <em>ask<\/em> for a corporate overview, or was the prospect\u2019s expectation that they would see a demo or invest in a discovery conversation?<\/li>\n<li>What <em>else<\/em> could you have done with the time consumed by the overview, and what might that have enabled?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/why-sales-reps-only-spending-352-time-selling-gabe-larsen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kustomer\/Forbes<\/a> found that only 14% of sales reps\u2019 time is spent in customer meetings \u2013 that\u2019s about one 1-hour meeting per working day. A 20-minute corporate overview consumes nearly one third of that limited, extremely valuable time!<\/p>\n<p>So, don\u2019t do corporate overviews. Just don\u2019t. They are not needed; they are not wanted; they are a wasteful, bad habit!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution One <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Start the meeting with a Great Demo! Situation Slide.<\/p>\n<p>If you haven\u2019t yet done <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes\/dp\/B0B8RJK4C2\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1U8XAZMG8HBYK&amp;keywords=doing+discovery&amp;qid=1659904849&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=doing+discovery%2Cstripbooks%2C216&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">discovery<\/a>, use a Situation Slide for a Vision Generation Demo (see Chapter 11, page 238 in the Third Edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0C9SNKC2Y\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1688763837&amp;sr=1-4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Great Demo!<\/a> for details on this terrific approach).<\/p>\n<p>If discovery is complete and you are presenting a Technical Proof Demo, your Situation Slide simply summarizes the discovery information gathered previously. You present:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your prospect\u2019s job title for each major player.<\/li>\n<li>The CBIs, Problems\/Reasons, and Specific Capabilities needed for each player.<\/li>\n<li>The Delta (the Value) for each situation (plan on a Situation Slide for each major player or department involved).<\/li>\n<li>The Critical Date by when your prospect needs a solution in place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Critical Business Issue (CBI) is a goal or objective that the prospect sees as important enough to invest resources to address or achieve. It is best to use the prospect\u2019s words, such as, \u201cI\u2019m concerned about our ability to achieve our forecasted revenues this year\u201d, which might come from a VP of Sales. In your Situation Slide, you would re-phrase this as:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Job Title\/Industry:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 VP of Sales, Acme Software<\/p>\n<p>CBI:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Problems\/Reasons are what make it hard to achieve the CBI. In our example above, typical Problems\/Reasons might be expressed by our VP of Sales as, \u201cThe reason I\u2019m concerned about making our numbers this year is that we are having difficulty closing the technical sale \u2013 discovery is rarely sufficient and the resulting demos are simply not getting the job done!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Your growing Situation Slide now looks like this:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Job Title\/Industry:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 VP of Sales, Acme Software<\/p>\n<p>CBI:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues<\/p>\n<p>Problems\/Reasons:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not closing the technical sale, insufficient discovery, uncompelling demos<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Specific Capabilities are the capabilities your prospect needs to solve their Problems\/Reasons and address their CBI. Our VP of Sales might say, \u201cWe need fresh methods and training to improve the team\u2019s discovery skills and to enable our demos to really connect with our prospects.\u201d Your Situation Slide reflects this:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Job Title\/Industry:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 VP of Sales, Acme Software<\/p>\n<p>CBI:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues<\/p>\n<p>Problems\/Reasons:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not closing the technical sale, insufficient discovery, uncompelling demos<\/p>\n<p>Specific Capabilities:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Effective discovery skills and demonstrations training<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/lets-talk-about-value-uncovering-the-delta\/\">Delta<\/a> is a tangible measure of the value of making the change. Specifically, it is the difference between the way things are today vs with a solution in place. In our example, the VP of Sales might share that, \u201cRight now we are going to be $1.5M short of achieving our annual quota.\u201d Your Situation Slide now shows:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Job Title\/Industry:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 VP of Sales, Acme Software<\/p>\n<p>CBI:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues<\/p>\n<p>Problems\/Reasons:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not closing the technical sale, insufficient discovery, uncompelling demos<\/p>\n<p>Specific Capabilities:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Effective discovery skills and demonstrations training<\/p>\n<p>Delta:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 $1.5M increase in annual revenues<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The final element of information on your Situation Slide is the Critical Date, defined as the actual date your prospect needs to have a solution in place along with the driving force. Note that this is <em>not<\/em> the end of your quarter (that\u2019s <em>your<\/em> Critical Date!). For our VP of Sales, the Critical Date is clearly the end of the fiscal year, <em>but<\/em> there needs to be sufficient time between completion of training and the end of the year for the additional revenues to be generated. Accordingly, your complete Situation Slide might look as follows:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Job Title\/Industry:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 VP of Sales, Acme Software<\/p>\n<p>CBI:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Concerned about achieving forecasted revenues<\/p>\n<p>Problems\/Reasons:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not closing the technical sale, insufficient discovery, uncompelling demos<\/p>\n<p>Specific Capabilities:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Effective discovery skills and demonstrations training<\/p>\n<p>Delta:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 $1.5M increase in annual revenues<\/p>\n<p>Critical Date:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Complete training by end of Q3 to enable full Q4 sales cycles<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Situation Slides enable you to \u201crecall the facts\u201d and start the meeting with your <em>prospect\u2019s<\/em> issues. It\u2019s all about your prospect \u2013 what a delight!<\/p>\n<p>By presenting your Situation Slide(s), you can confirm that:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Your understanding of your prospect\u2019s situation is correct, and<\/li>\n<li>Determine whether there have been any changes since your last contact.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>In the case of an initial meeting for a Vision Generation Demo, you would use the same format for your Situation Slide, but use an informal success story about another, <em>similar<\/em> prospect\u2019s situation and how your capabilities enabled that prospect to solve their problems and achieve their desired outcomes. This enables a discovery conversation to move forward smoothly.<\/p>\n<p>To learn how to successfully execute Vision Generation Demos, do superlative discovery, and deliver engaging, compelling, conversational demos, consider:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Good: Try out these ideas on your own\u2026<\/li>\n<li>Better: Read or listen to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes\/dp\/B0B8RJK4C2\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1U8XAZMG8HBYK&amp;keywords=doing+discovery&amp;qid=1659904849&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=doing+discovery%2Cstripbooks%2C216&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Doing Discovery<\/em><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0C9SNKC2Y\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1688763837&amp;sr=1-4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Great Demo! Third Edition<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Best: Enroll yourself or your team in a Doing Discovery or Great Demo! <a href=\"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/training\/\">Workshop<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution Two<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When <em>should<\/em> you present corporate overview info? Only when your prospect <em>asks<\/em> for it!<\/p>\n<p>Later in a discovery call or demo meeting, and particularly once you have communicated that you have capabilities that can help your prospect address their challenges, your prospect <em>may<\/em> ask questions about your company. Then, and only then do the answers have relevance!<\/p>\n<p>For example, if your prospect is contemplating deploying solutions into multiple countries, they might ask, \u201cDo you have support serving North America, Germany, France, Japan and Korea? Most of our team in North America and Europe are comfortable with English, but we need local language support in Asia Pacific\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Your answer could be a crisp, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pre-answering this at the beginning of the meeting makes no sense and can actually <em>hurt<\/em> your cause, particularly if your standard presentation describes sales, support, and services offices in 104 countries around the world, but your prospect is only concerned about the five regions above. You put yourself at risk of <a href=\"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/stunningly-awful-demos-buying-it-back\/\">buying it back<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Most corporate presentations are entirely vendor-focused. As an exercise, review your corporate overview presentation from a <em>prospect\u2019s<\/em> perspective. Ask yourself, \u201cWhat information really captures my interest?\u201d It is likely that the answer will be, \u201cVery little!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly and sadly, some overview presentations include a handful of customer success stories and use cases, which might be the most valuable of all overview content, and of highest interest to your prospects. The sad part is that these portions of the deck are often cut out \u201cin the interest of time\u2026\u201d!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution Three<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For those customer-facing teams who simply <em>must<\/em> start with a corporate overview, reduce it to a <em>single<\/em> slide or statement that communicates:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>How long you have been in business.<\/li>\n<li>How many customers you have.<\/li>\n<li>A brief description of what you do.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>For example: \u201cHi, I\u2019m with Great Demo! We\u2019ve been in business over twenty years, serving hundreds of customers and thousands of successful practitioners around the world. We enable teams to execute competitively advantageous discovery and deliver compelling, engaging, and brilliantly successful demos. But enough about us, let\u2019s talk about <em>your<\/em> situation\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s it!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Focus on your <em>prospects\u2019<\/em> interests and enjoy the rewards of crisper sales!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2005-2023 The Second Derivative \u2013 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n<p>To learn the methods introduced above, consider enrolling in a Great Demo! Doing Discovery or Demonstration Skills <a href=\"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/training\/\">Workshop<\/a>. For more demo and discovery tips, best practices, tools and techniques, explore our blog and articles on the Resources pages of our website at <a href=\"https:\/\/GreatDemo.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/GreatDemo.com<\/a> and join the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups\/2430414\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Great Demo! &amp; Doing Discovery LinkedIn Group<\/a> to learn from others and share your experiences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What\u2019s in this article for you? Why corporate overview presentations are a bad, costly habit. Two terrific solutions. One adequate solution, if you can\u2019t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,16],"tags":[6,7],"class_list":["post-32897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-methodology_basics","category-great-demo-blog","category-humor","tag-articles","tag-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32897"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33658,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32897\/revisions\/33658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatdemo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}