The Converging Network

Blog Shoutout - Steve Baker

I had the pleasure on Friday of speaking at a business breakfast about the topic of blogging. During the process I discovered that the group organizer, Steve Baker is a blogger as well. Steve's an entrepreneurial business guy with lots of wisdom and experience to share. He's sharing that by authoring a book, Pushing Water Up Hill With A Rake, and a companion blog. I have had a chance to read some of the posts and like what he's written.

So please check out Steve's blog at http://www.pushingwateruphillblog.blogspot.com

Thinking Too Small – Dare To Think Big

I had an interesting ah-ha happen this morning. Last night I had emailed my editor because I had blogged about Jerry Yang stepping down as CEO of Yahoo!. I caught the news Monday evening and had blogged about this pretty early in the news cycle so I thought there might be a chance I’d get some “link love” if Network World had something on the home page about Jerry’s news. That’s the kind of story that would usually get some attention on the home page, and being a promoter type of personality, I’m always looking for ways to get ideas, thoughts and stories out. Last night I checked the NWW home page and there was  big picture of Jerry Yang but I didn’t see a link to my blog post in the list under the main story link. Thus, my email to my editor Julie, who is always great about helping get the word out about what I write.

 This morning Julie emailed me back both saying she’d check to see about getting a link to my post about Jerry, and then I had a second email back from her letting me know that I actually was already linked to on the home. The main storyline was a link to MY blog post, not the usual article that might be written by a reporter. Doh on me! And wow for me too! I’ve got the lead article on the NWW home page. Sweet! That’s cool but I’d almost missed it. I’d set my sights too short, only looking below the story to see if my blog post had been linked.

It’s so easy to look short and come up short sometimes in life. I’m realizing how often I look below the storyline for my story (in the proverbial sense) and not shooting for the stars. I should have set having a lead story on the NWW home page as a personal goal for me, and I never had. And that’s only a little goal. There are much, much bigger things I want to create and accomplish (and I’m working on some of those now!) I’d been thinking too small… I had been thinking too small, expecting my post would only ever fall under the main lead article. I hadn’t considered having the lead link a possibility, and it was, as is so much more.

So, note to self: Think big, shoot high and set big and even scary goals. You’ve accomplished great things and you will continue to accomplish great things in the future because you are will to dare and think big.

And a note to Jerry Yang: Thanks for thinking big, shooting high and setting big and even scary goals. You’ve accomplished great things and you will continue to accomplish great things in the future because you dare to think big.

Book Review: The Dip, Seth Godin

I finally got around to reading Seth Godin's book The Dip and I have to say, it's a two thumbs up read. It's actually a very challenging book to read. Not a hard or a long book, but a book that really challenges you. Seth's premise, and I agree, is that anything truly worth doing (to you) experiences an initial honeymoon period followed by the dip. The dip is where you have to slog it out to go from one of the many, to one of the few, the top few in what ever market, product, industry, personal talent, skill, job, etc. you are working to be the best at. When you experience the dip, you might quit because it's too hard, without examining whether you truly want what's on the other side, or if you shouldn't have gone down this path in the first place. We also waste too much time on dead end stuff, diversify or quit when what really achieves success is reaching the pinnacle of superstar, #1 or #2, where you now have something that's scarce rather than easy to acquire.

That's why this book is so challenging. I say to myself, yep, I quit that too soon, or, that was a dead end I should have quit. But I also see where grinding it out against the dip and really blasting through it has paid off in situations for me too. I can think of personal situations, products, ideas, companies, teams, talents... all that could apply to each of these scenarios.

Seth points out that you should either do what it takes to make it through the dip, or recognize that your interests or the resources aren't there to make it through the dip and quit. Quit the wrong stuff and focus on the right stuff. Both of those scenarios are good ones. You either succeed or you don't waste time at something you won't - again, both are good choices. It's just when you really aren't doing what it takes, or don't have the resources to reach the other side of the dip, when you're wasting your time.

I saw this multiple times in the security industry. Each year at RSA I would see new companies flame out, blowing money on a super nice booth and graphics, only never to be seen or heard of the next year. Others worked their way up, from the end rows of 10x10 booths for a few years, into the 10x20s, then 20x20s in years later, etc. They were slogging it out through the dip, with every resource they had or applying their resources more cautiously so as not to be one of the flame outs. Then there were others that assembled big war chests of money, who propelled themselves to #1 or #2 because they had a large enough war chest to sustain the push for multiple years, and the chops to eventually get the product right. These latter companies are usually the most difficult ones to catch. If you can pull far ahead enough of the pack, it's much more difficult for others to create the inertia and momentum to catch up.

So how does all this apply to me and you? Well for me, I've already talked about being able to relate to a number of the situations Seth talks about. I also feel like I'm at one of those dips right now, (I say that in a really positive way, btw.) The idea of taking products to market by combining the right product strategy, competitive differentiation, social media, and traditional marketing I feel is where the forefront of building great products and companies are at today.

I love what I do, combining product strategy, creating products, bizdev, writing, professional blogging, deeply understanding customers, seeing where technology is headed, and understanding how it plays into the changing media landscape. Evangelism for what I help create and believe in is what I love to do. But I also feel like there's a lot more to the story to get to the other side of the dip, and that's what excites me. It's a blast applying what I know, and an even bigger blast figuring it out. It's why I do what I do in strategy, evangelist and CTO type roles.

I think you would get a lot out of reading Seth's book. Your dip is probably much different than mine, but what Seth's book does is help you realize or confirm whether you're on the path you should be seeking. Or maybe it's time to change paths, so you will make it through the dip.

Product Bistro: Demos, Demos, Demos

I enjoyed a really great session yesterday with a few of the teams at TechStars in Boulder. The room was filled with two things; passionate entrepreneurs, and people looking to help each other. Four companies presented in rapid succession their 10 minute investment pitches with some time for Q&A.

Part of those pitches were product demos in various forms, so naturally I had to chime in about my experiences demoing products. To help folks out, I said I'd post links to two of my previous posts about demos.

• Product Bistro: Mitchell's Rules of Demos
• Product Bistro: Demo In 5 Clicks Or Less

One other thought I'd pass along is that old saying, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice." There's nothing like knowing your story better than anyone else and being able to tell it at the drop of a hat, and tell it well. Being on top of your game comes through in spades to your audience. Then you can deliver your best presentation and deal with the questions and other things that might come up.

Best wishes to everyone at TechStars and keep practicing those pitches!

Raising Your Game - Inspiration From Those Around You

I had an interesting and wonderfully enjoyable time this past weekend. Many of you know that I'm a guitar enthusiast, and am particularly partial to Fender Strats and playing weekly at my home church. I also took a vacation day recently to help with a non-profit I support, called The Kingdom Project, recording a CD for my friend Ike Elliott. This past weekend another good friend and top-notch bass player, Skye Perry, asked if I would sit in and play at his home church in south Denver. They seat somewhere around 2,000 so it's a larger venue than I'm regularly accustomed. It was a very fulfilling experience, and I took away a lot more with me than I expected.

I could go into ideas I picked up about rehearsals, organizing, tech equipment, etc., all of which were valuable, but the overall theme I walked away with is the value of raising your game. In this case, it wasn't about showing a new group of people that you're some hot shot guitar player dude, here to rip a bunch of speedy licks from the fretboard. More importantly, it was about showing that you could come in, play together well with a group of unfamiliar musicians, bring the things you uniquely can offer, and serve the goals of the group you are supporting. For me to do that in this setting, meant I had to raise my game, both as a guitar player and as a team member.

I had to raise my game for several reasons. First, Skye had talked me up so I'm sure they were expecting someone who could do more than just sit in... I had to really make a contribution. And I didn't want to let Skye down, who is very well respected by his fellow band members. Based on Skye's recommendation, I didn't have to audition, which says a lot. Next, I don't get many opportunities to play at other venues, so I really wanted to make the most of it and give it everything I could - I really wanted to do my best. Last, I was stepping into someone else's well functioning team and it took a healthy amount of preparation to be able to play at the level expected and support my fellow team members.

That experience made me think... what if I approached every day that way. Whether participating on a team I'm familiar with or trying something new, I always try to do my best work, but I have to be honest and say there are many times when I fall short of my own expectations. My experience this weekend taught me that you can be inspired by the situation, the people you are with, the event, the surrounds, the purpose, or any combination.

I always look for the good in people, the unique things they bring to a given situation. You can be inspired by people you work with in almost any situation, and sometimes you just have to look or just be open for those opportunities to present themselves. When you aspire to live up to or surpass a given situation, shared goal, team or project, it gives you even more fuel to raise your game. And consequently, raising your own game may also raise the game of those around you. My thanks to everyone at SECC. I learned a lot from that experience.

Measuring Leadership - What Happens When You're Not There

Last week a close friend lost her spouse very unexpectedly. All of us who participate under her leadership in our music program (band) at church were shocked and grieved for such a devastating loss for a close friend. It was truly heartbreaking. The experience is one I would of course not want to have go through if given the choice, but it did reawakened for me something I've believed about leadership for some time. So I share these thoughts about leadership, keeping in mind they pale in comparison to the gravity of last week's events.

There are many ways to assess, evaluate and measure leadership. Bottom line results, leadership style, strengths surveys, 360 degree performance reviews, action under fire... I could go on and on. But one measurement that is often overlooked is, what happens when the leader's not there?

I enjoy, respect and thrive under many leadership styles, but value much less charismatic and personality driven teams. They rarely hold up in the long term, and usually hit some ceiling frequently not surpassable without a significant change of leadership. Those approaches are usually too dependent upon the capabilities and characteristics of one person. Leadership solely vested in that one person also means you live with their limitations too. At least that's been my view.

I believe leadership is about enabling the team and organization to achieve its best results, growing and thriving in the process. Flourishing is a great way to describe a high performance team. It's about enabling people to succeed. It's also about creating a shared vision, with clarity of purpose, goals and a high degree of mutual accountability within and outside the team. I also subscribe to the view that if you believe in people, truly believe in their power to succeed, they'll do just that, and more.

Want to see how effective leadership is? Remove the leader and see what happens. You'll quickly spot where there's deficiencies in communications, continuity, goals, empowerment, decision making and many other areas. You'll see bottlenecks or pent up issues pretty quickly. If the team can't continue to excel, at least for a reasonably short time, you don't have a team, you have a group of followers. Now, see what happens when a curve ball shows up. That also gives great insight into how effective the team's leadership is.

So, bringing this all back home to last week's experiences. Sunday's services went off without a hitch, even without the week's normal 2 1/2 hour rehearsal. Some band members had never even heard the music prior to Sunday's early rehearsal. Everyone involved (probably 25-30 people) all to a person stepped up and volunteered to help out in whatever way was needed. Team members changed previous commitments to be available. And we'll continue this and more until our leader returns, whether that's one week or six weeks from now. We have a shared vision and purpose for our music, we know how to execute and fill in when someone suddenly needs to step out, we know how to adjust (flexibility is one of our key attributes), and there are many capable leaders within the team who can step up and fill the gap until she returns. 

Most importantly, none of us wants to let down the leaders in our organization. Our mission is to continue delivering on our goals without a drop in the quality or capabilities of our music. Matter of fact, our goal still continues to be raising the bar of our music program. We value our leaders too much to do anything less.

Breathing Your Own Exhaust

One thing that happens to everyone at one time or another is when you become so engrossed in your own world view, you start to believe everyone else thinks the way you do, or if they don't, your spin will fool them. Doesn't matter whether you're big like Cisco and Microsoft, or the latest startup on the block with a new mouse trap. You hear phrases like "he believes too much of his own press" (I'm sure that's been said about me more than once, lol) or "they've been breathing their own exhaust too long."  I blogged about what could be one such case of this, Microsoft's self makeover to be perceived as "open source friendly". Another example is Microsoft claiming it supports Linux in Hyper-V, but only if it's Novell's SUSE Linux.

I'm a big believer in ideas like enrollment, passion and engagement, and to achieve these you have to believe in what you, your product and your company are doing. Doesn't matter if you are the press spokesperson or the person answering the customer service phone -- everyone else can pretty easily tell if you are enrolled in what you are doing, or it's more a matter of your going through the motions.

But that same passion and engagement can also create a blindness, especially in entrepreneurial environment where passion, ideas and commitment runs high. It's easy to build a wall around yourself or your company, focusing just on what's happening inside your product, the product development efforts, or even the geographical market area where you are physically located. My very good friend Alan Shimel used to frequently tell me "you need to get out of Boulder more often", not because Boulder isn't a good town (check out Brad Feld's blog post about Twenty-Five Square Miles Surround By Reality), but to really understand the industry, competition, customers and the market.

I recently blogged about (tangentially as it relates to partnering) the bubble effect that can happen in a startup company. It is very easy to become so engrossed in what you are doing, crafting your marketing messages, building the product, training the sales force in the ways you want them to sell, that you forget there are other people out there. Companies may claim to already do what you do, cover the same supposed differentiators, or have already beat you to the punch but you just don't know it yet. I call this inward looking focus, "staring at your own bellybuttons."

There are many things I've found helpful to me to try and avoid this. In a leadership role you probably have more opportunity to take advantage of these but I believe in any of our roles you can find a way, or even ask to participate in these kinds of activities. Here are a few ideas.

1. Never turn down an opportunity to talk to a customer. Doesn't matter if they are a sales prospect, an unhappy customer who wants to scream at you, or one that's nicely tucked in and happy. If you have a chance to talk with or meet with a customer, always, always do it.

2. Support your company's trade shows and marketing events. I learn more about the industry at many of the trade shows I attend than I probably do by reading about companies and the industry online. Even if you aren't one of the marketing dudes or dudets who normally cover these events, ask to go and help out. Stop by everyone's booth, introduce yourself, listen to their pitch, ask questions and learn. It's so invaluable.

3. Be well read. Read everything you can get your hands on. I get between 30 and 60 Google alerts each day. That's in addition to all the email and blog reading I do. I don't read them all, just the ones that really catch my interest, are newsworthy, are something new, or are on a topic I follow. Read blogs, news sites and portals.

4. Inject what you've learned.  Share it in meetings, on calls, in product discussions, in planning discussions, with customers, etc. Bring that information to everyone. Forward relevant info (but don't spam) to others in your company. Add your comments/insights up front so they know whether the article is worth the read or the value is in your insights.

5. Talk to every company, not just the ones you like. Go talk to your competitors. You might find out they could actually be your partner. Or, they may still be your competitor. But go meet them. As Alan also told me many times, "stay close to your friends, and even closer to your enemies."

These ideas are pretty basic and simple, and while they might not shake up the world, they could redefine how you view your own business.

Zero Day Threat & My First Book Jacket Quote

I'm a big believer in serendipity, karma and helping people whenever I can. A lot of people have been very gracious to me throughout my career, and I'm always looking for ways to pay it forward. That's one of the reasons I coach entrepreneurs and enjoy starting new companies so much.

Back in 2001-2003 I started getting much more involved in the external aspects of the CTO role, working with press and analysts, writing byline articles, speaking, etc. Though I had been in a few press interviews (my first quote was in the London Financial Times in 1986 while helping with some story background), I was a huge neophyte when it came to doing media work. I received some extremely valuable coaching from Sonya Caprio at StillSecure along the way and now am pretty comfortable doing just about any media, writing and speaking work.

Early during that learning process, USAToday reporter Byron Acohido got a hold of me while researching stories about various computer security threats posed to the average computer user. This was back in the Code Red and Melissa virus days. While I'm no security researcher guru by any stretch, I've been working and creating security and networking products since the early '90s, so I was able to help Byron on background, tutoring him on the various kinds of threats, how they worked and what the current and emerging threats were around the corner. Though I didn't expect any quotes from those conversations, Byron was kind enough to quote me in 4 or 5 USAToday stories.

When I talk to press I always offer to help on background, specifically noting I have no expectations for quotes. Part of my job of course is pitching media about my companies and products when that's the topic, but I also believe in helping people outside of my own agenda. I do this with no expectations of any payback or reciprocal quid pro quo to me. If you help people, even if they don't return the favor directly, someone else down the line might return the favor to you. And even if the favor is never returned, that's okay.

Helping people with the expectation of something in return isn't helping, it's trading. You don't help people with a payment expected in return. You do it because it's something you want to do. Good karma, serendipity, etc. will take care of everything else. Trading has an expectation of something in return, helping doesn't. I'm not naive enough to believe that everyone has this philosophy -- many don't. Even with some, everything has strings attached, but that's not me. As long as people don't take advantage of that goodwill I'm happy to help, and if they do, it says a lot more about them and than me. I just have my own philosophy about helping others.

After my media work became more focused on the business market and Byron expanded his sources to researchers much more talented than me, we talked less frequently but still kept in touch via emails. Bryon is good about emailing his network whenever he writes a new piece, is looking for feedback or is seeking out knowledge in new areas..

A year or so ago, Byron sent out an email about a new book he and USAToday reporter Jon Swartz (who I've also done interviews with) were working on. Bryon has a background in investigative reporting, having won a Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting about his investigative reporting of Boeing 737 tail rudder problems and related government foul ups. Jon has also been nominated in the same Pulitzer Prize category.

I checked out Byron's and Jon's site they'd set up about the book, Zero Day Threat. Byron sent me an early look at some sections of the book, which I blogged about in a post last year.  Later Alan Shimel and I had Byron on the SSAATY podcast to talk about the book they were writing. Later, Bryon also offered my some sage advice to me about setting up my Converging Network LLC company and doing additional media work after leaving StillSecure.

Zero Day Threat is a fresh, unique look at how actions by financial, credit, technology companies and "the bad guys" not only put everyone at risk for identify theft, but result in a large number of identity theft victims because they fall in the margin of acceptable risk. Companies are playing lose with our identities because it's an acceptable level of risk to them, not us. The book is available in books stores April 1, and has already started shipping through Amazon.

This week I received a copy of Zero Day Threat in the mail from Byron. I'm very to pleased to have my first book jacket quote on Byron's and Jon's book (see below). And I also appear in the acknowledgments, along with a very nice hand written note from Bryon inside the front cover of the book I received. The quote came from something I wote on my blog back when I reviewed some early parts of the book.

I definitely never expected or even thought I'd receiving such acknowledgments, and I'm totally honored and flattered Bryon, Jon and their editors chose to acknowledge my small contributions. I also owe a dept of gratitude to Sonya, who helped me be in a position to contribute to Byron and Jon.

What this experience says to me isn't that "doing something good will get you quoted", but that you don't always know the impact you have when helping someone else. My few conversations with Byron must have been much more valuable to him that I ever realized. The satisfaction I'm feeling is more about playing some small part in helping Byron and Jon be able to write their book. The quote is gravy, and really something I take as a thank you from them both.

You never know the impact you have on people. Sometimes you learn about it later, such as in this case, but most of the time you don't. That tidbit, coaching, idea, compliment, comment in passing or something you didn't even realize, may have had a very significant impact.

Whether my philosophy about helping others has zero, a little or a huge impact on readers, I'll likely never know. Maybe it won't have an impact on anyone. Whatever the result, I hope you received some enjoyment from reading about my experiences with Bryon and Jon.

Here's my quote that appears on the Zero Day Threat book jacket:

"Rushing in to profit from online commerce and banking, financial institutions knowingly put our personal information and identities at risk -- the digital-age equivalent of tobacco companies making sure cigarettes have highly addictive properties." - Mitchell Ashley, security consultant, The Converging Network

Please check out their new book and the blog at their site. I hope they are both wildly successful.

Does Your CEO Have Fun?

I've been fortunate to start or be a part of a number of startup companies which is something I thoroughly love to do. I've always been a "culture person" to varying degrees too, sometimes playing a big role in shaping or changing the culture, and other times just working as part of an existing company culture. By "culture person" I mean I place a lot of importance on the culture of a company and believe it is something that deserves a great deal of purposeful time, attention and personal investment. 

Sometimes you make a very active and concerted effort to build a company culture around a set of principles, like when creating BoldTech Systems, we decided we wanted to create a learning organization along with our other core values. We spent a great deal of time those first three years implementing processes to achieve this goal, like company off sites, learning circles, creative tension, focusing on personal goals and growth in performance reviews, and teaching many ideas from the MIT Learning Lab and Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline. As a consulting company, that meant some significant time was spent that wasn't billable, but the results created a great place to work and made attracting great people much easier. I was and still am very proud of the culture we created there.

My experiences are also that if you don't make conscious decisions about your corporate culture, one will form around you anyway, and possibly one you'll later wake up to and find you don't like. And not everyone is "touchy, feelly" and into the culture thing -- it's not everyone's bag, so to speak. But in either case, I've learned that in startups culture is always strongly driven by the top management of the company, and most specifically the head of the company -- the CEO, president, founder, etc.

Companies are strongly influenced by and take on the personality of their leaders. Even members of the executive team take their cues from the top person. My philosophy is that small companies are about personalities, and big companies are about politics. (This is a topic I plan to blog more about sometime.) Employees, execs and management within a startup quickly learn what the head person does and doesn't value, and behaviors shape around those values pretty quickly.

I've come to learn that if I'm going to work at something, I really want to have fun doing it. Fun not just in meeting revenue and business goals (and yes, it's a lot more fun when you achieve those), but fun while doing the hard work is takes for a startup company to win. Having fun is part of the human spirit, something we should NOT hide or suppress (Carol Ross blogged about this recently.) One of the ways I know I'm having fun is when I realize I've had a smile on my face during the day.

Fun is infectious. If leaders in the business are having fun, that's going to spread and have an impact on others. Someone who exemplifies that is the CEO of Absolute Performance, Jerry Champlin, where I'm CTO. Jerry has fun at what he does. He frequently walks around with a smile on his face. When you talk to him, it's not unusual for the conversation to have a light hearted moment or two. And when out with the troops, Jerry doesn't hesitate to let his guard down, be himself, and have a good time with the employees in the company. Its also created some strong, long term working relationships. Don't get me wrong, Jerry's not just some social butterfly, flitting around spreading good cheer. But when the CEO has fun, you can tell it has an impact on other people.

A company's soul is its culture. You can walk into a business and pretty much get a quick feel for the place. Is there excitement in the air? Are people engaged, interacting with each other? Is any one having fun? Or is the place cold, almost having a suppressed or even a dead feeling. I'll bet you can look to the management team and see if what they are creating is a vibrant culture or one that's all business. And I'll bet if people are having fun, there's a much higher degree of engagement, leading to more significant results and personal pride in those results.

So, I just wanted to thank Jerry for setting a good example about having fun and Carol Ross for blogging about not hiding the human spirit. It inspired me to write about some of my own thoughts about culture, having fun and showing others that it's okay to have fun while creating success.

Now... At work today, put a smile on your face, do something that brings fun into your meeting, conversation or personal interactions. And see what impact it has on others around you.

Product Bistro: Demo in 5 Clicks or Less

As a companion to my last post about Mitchells' Rules of Demos, there's another learning I've had about giving product demos. You will give a much better demo if you can demo your product in 5 mouse clicks or less. (Assuming your product has a GUI interface.)

I was once doing some sales training with some very talented and capable sales team members. During the training, one sales person stated that the product had so much in it they were struggling to learn everything the product did. They didn't know which buttons to click on or not when giving a product demo. "Do you begin in the configuration section? Should you jump right in to the [blah] section of the product? What do you like to do, Mitchell?" were the questions.

My response was, "You're probably giving the wrong demo if you are clicking on tons of stuff. You can give a great demo by just clicking on just a very few things." Everyone in the training session looked at me like I had asparagus sticking out of my ears and hollandaise sauce running down my head.

The principle behind my thinking is that clicking on lots of stuff means you are probably getting lost in the product details, likely giving a functional decomposition demo, and not focusing on how the customer's problems can be solved with what you have to offer.

So after some more of the hollandaise sauce dripped off my head (metaphorically speaking), on the fly I responded, "Let me demonstrate. How many clicks will you give me to demo our product?" The questioning sales person said, "Ten."

Since I like a challenge, I said, "Well, I can actually do it in zero clicks, but I'll do it in five." Everyone laughed an uncomfortable laugh, like when a lightweight wrestler says he can pin the heavyweight guy in one round. "How much time do I have?", I asked. "5 minutes", was the comeback.

I gave myself a few seconds to reset where my head was and get into presentation mode. I started out by saying, "Mr. Customer, you told me earlier that the problems you need to solve are [blah] and [blah]. Here are the five things we do that help you solve those problems. First let me set some context about how we approach the problem...". After setting the stage, giving the audience a <-- YOU ARE HERE description of what they were about to see, I used my five clicks to navigate to sections of the product that I wanted to illustrate both what we do and how we solve the two problems as well as mentioning a few other customer problems we've addressed with our product.

After concluding the demo, which took under 5 minutes, and summarizing what we saw during the demo, I asked the sales person, "How'd I do?" The response? "I give, you're right. You don't have to know what every button does, or even most of them. I get what you are saying. You are giving a different kind of demo than I was thinking about."

"Cool", I said. "Do you see how I could have given the demo with zero clicks, by just pointing to the main screen in our product?" A few sorta-believers nodded their heads.

I'm of the belief that a sales person needs to be able to give at least a basic level presentation and demo of their products. But that doesn't take knowledge of what every bell and whistle does in your product.

"Let your sales engineer be the person who knows what every button does. That's their job. They can always jump in and help, or answer those questions." Or if you are going to be taking a deep dive, let the sales engineer drive the demo, but your job is to keep on point, what I described in Mitchell's Rules of Demos.

Now I'm not saying every demo should be done in 5 or less clicks. The idea is that being able to do this helps you not focus on all the bells and whistles, but orient the demo around matching up the customer's needs with your product. And you should be able to give a zero click demo in situations where you are standing in front of your trade show booth, telling an interested party about your product.

So.... If you'd like a challenge, see if you can do it. Can you demo your product in 5 clicks? Or less?

It might take some practice. I believe in you. You can do it.