How Not to Conduct an On-Site LIS Demo

Bruce Friedman posted How Not to Conduct an On-Site LIS Demo, an interesting article which makes some great points.  He starts by linking an interesting post by Jason Calacanis, how to conduct a demo, which makes the following points:

"Horrible ways to start your presentation: a) Talk about your bio and your business accomplishments. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.) b) Talk about the market size. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.) c) Give an overview of the competitive landscape. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.)"

Truly you have to show the product, that is what the customers need to see.  However I do take issue with the point about not starting with your bio, and I commented on Bruce's blog:

I liked and agree with Jason Calacanis' suggestions for how to give a demo too.  But in my opinion there's more to forming a relationship with a new customer than selling a product.  A key part is selling yourself and your company.

Giving a brief bio and and overview of your company is *not* a bad way to start, it sets up the discussion about how you can work with your customer, and the value you can deliver.  The product is part of that value, but the relationship includes more than *just* the product.

This is particularly true for LIS and digital pathology systems where you are integrating a new product into an existing workflow.  To be successful a lot of learning, consulting, configuring, and training has to take place over and above the feature set of the product.  Having a good relationship with your customer is important to make that happen.

We've definitely adopted this philosophy at Aperio.  We do show the product - right away, because it is so cool (!) - but we also take time to talk about ourselves, who we are, and our approach.  That helps start the relationship with a new customer...

Your comments on this are eagerly solicted!

Comments

[Lars]

Saying things like "We do show the product - right away, because it is so cool (!)" is in Europe considered us a way of acting up because if the product is so cool this fact should become visible right away. In the US this is different I guess...

[Ole Eichhorn]

Lars -

I agree with you, there are cultural differences between the right way to present to a European customer and an American customer.

One of the things we've learned at Aperio is that it is essential to have local people in each market. For example, we recently brought on Jacqueline Ay (jay@aperio.com) as our country manager for Germany. She lives outside of Berlin, and has spent her whole career representing "foreign" companies in the German market.

She would probably agree that referring to a product as "cool" during a demo is not cool :)