Posts filed under 'tshafer'
February 5th, 2010
Special Offer for Groups and Organization Members
Discounts are available for members of Bootstrappers Breakfast, Business Marketing Association, Women In Consulting, and organizations sending three or more employees: please contact us for discount codes.
Create and Deliver Surprisingly Compelling Software Demonstrations
“Do The Last Thing First” — the recipe for a Great Demo!
When: Wednesday March 17, 2010 8:15 am – 5:00 pm
Where: Moorpark Hotel, 4241 Moorpark Ave, San Jose CA 95129
This is an interactive workshop with Peter Cohan geared especially for you who demonstrate B-to-B software to your customer and channels. Bring a copy of your demo and be prepared to present it — we’ll help you turn it into a surprisingly compelling demo!
Cost (includes breakfast, lunch, copy of Peter Cohan’s “Great Demo!” book):
- Early Registration: $536
- After March 4: $560
This seminar outlines a framework for the creation and delivery of improved demos and presentations to enable increased success in the marketing, sale, and deployment of software and related products. Whether it’s face to face, in a webinar, as a screencast, or as a self-running demo the ability to present the key benefits of your software product is essential to generating prospect interest and ultimately revenue. Peter Cohan of The Second Derivative gives us the recipe for a Great Demo!
“I am confident that with the insights gained from your workshop we will land more customers in fewer iterations.”
Lav Pachuri, CEO, Xleron Inc.
“Peter Cohan’s Great Demo method really works. It helped us win DEMOgod, and it has allowed us to explain our offering much more clearly to prospects.”
Chaim Indig, CEO, Phreesia
(See “DEMOgod Winner Phreesia Praises Peter Cohan Training“)
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About The Speaker: Peter Cohan, Principal at Second Derivative
Community Web Site: www.DemoGurus.com
Peter Cohan is the founder and a principal of The Second Derivative, a consultancy focused on helping software organizations improve their sales and marketing results. In July 2004, he enabled and began moderating DemoGurus®, a community web exchange dedicated to helping sales and marketing teams improve their software demonstrations. In 2003, he authored Great Demo!, a book that provides methods to create and execute compelling demonstrations. The 2nd edition of Great Demo! was published March 2005.
Before The Second Derivative, Peter founded the Discovery Tools® business unit at Symyx Technologies, Inc., where he grew the business from an empty spreadsheet into a $30 million operation. Prior to Symyx, Peter served in marketing, sales, and management positions at MDL Information Systems, a leading provider of scientific information management software. Peter currently serves on the Board of Directors for Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc. and the board of advisors for Excellin, Inc. He holds a degree in chemistry.
Peter has experience as an individual contributor, manage and senior management in marketing, sales, and business development. He has also been, and continues to be, a customer.
Agenda:
- 8:15 AM Breakfast & Registration
- 8:30 AM Workshop begins
- Noon Lunch & De-brief
- 1 PM Advanced Topics
- multiple solution demos
- presenting to a mixed audience with different needs or information requirements
- vision generation demonstrations
- handling bugs, crashes, and time challenges.
- 5 PM Wrap up
Seating is Limited These are intensive sessions and we ask that you arrive at least 15 minutes before 8:30AM start time to ensure you will have a seat and won’t disrupt the session once it is underway.
For more information: Theresa Shafer 408-252-9676 events@skmurphy.com
January 18th, 2010
Create and Deliver Surprisingly Compelling Software Demonstrations
“Do The Last Thing First” — the recipe for a Great Demo!
When: Wednesday March 17, 2010
- AM Session: 8:15 am – 1:00 pm
- PM Session: 1 – 5pm Advanced Topics (see below)
Where: Moorpark Hotel, 4241 Moorpark Ave, San Jose CA 95129
This is an interactive workshop with Peter Cohan geared especially for you who demonstrate B-to-B software to your customer and channels. Bring a copy of your demo and be prepared to present it — we’ll help you turn it into a surprisingly compelling demo! AM Session Cost (includes breakfast, lunch, copy of Peter Cohan’s “Great Demo!” book):
Early Registration: $336
After March 4: $360
See also Feb 5 Announcement, Group Discounts Available for All Day Sessions
This seminar outlines a framework for the creation and delivery of improved demos and presentations to enable increased success in the marketing, sale, and deployment of software and related products. Whether it’s face to face, in a webinar, as a screencast, or as a self-running demo the ability to present the key benefits of your software product is essential to generating prospect interest and ultimately revenue. Peter Cohan of The Second Derivative gives us the recipe for a Great Demo!
“I am confident that with the insights gained from your workshop we will land more customers in fewer iterations.”
Lav Pachuri, CEO, Xleron Inc.
“Peter Cohan’s Great Demo method really works. It helped us win DEMOgod, and it has allowed us to explain our offering much more clearly to prospects.”
Chaim Indig, CEO, Phreesia
(See “DEMOgod Winner Phreesia Praises Peter Cohan Training“)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Peter Cohan, Principal at Second Derivative
Community Web Site: www.DemoGurus.com
Peter Cohan is the founder and a principal of The Second Derivative, a consultancy focused on helping software organizations improve their sales and marketing results. In July 2004, he enabled and began moderating DemoGurus®, a community web exchange dedicated to helping sales and marketing teams improve their software demonstrations. In 2003, he authored Great Demo!, a book that provides methods to create and execute compelling demonstrations. The 2nd edition of Great Demo! was published March 2005.
Before The Second Derivative, Peter founded the Discovery Tools® business unit at Symyx Technologies, Inc., where he grew the business from an empty spreadsheet into a $30 million operation. Prior to Symyx, Peter served in marketing, sales, and management positions at MDL Information Systems, a leading provider of scientific information management software. Peter currently serves on the Board of Directors for Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc. and the board of advisors for Excellin, Inc. He holds a degree in chemistry.
Peter has experience as an individual contributor, manage and senior management in marketing, sales, and business development. He has also been, and continues to be, a customer.
Agenda:
- 8:15 AM Breakfast & Registration
- 8:30 AM Workshop begins
- Noon Lunch & De-brief
- 1 PM Wrap up
Seating is Limited These are intensive sessions and we ask that you arrive at least 15 minutes before 8:30AM start time to ensure you will have a seat and won’t disrupt the session once it is underway.
PM Session: Advanced Topics
In response to requests for assistance on demo delivery we have added an afternoon session to our Great Demos workshop. If this is your first exposure to the Great Demo come for the morning and get a great overview of the methodology and stay for the afternoon if you would like an opportunity for more interactive training on advanced topics such as multi-solution, multi-player demonstrations, and vision generation demonstrations. The advanced topic session as covers real life issues like handling bugs, crashes, and time challenges.
This is an interactive workshop with Peter Cohan is only available to people who have already attended the morning session or a previous Great Demo session.
When: Wednesday March 17, 2010 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Where: Moorpark Hotel, 4241 Moorpark Ave, San Jose CA 95129
Cost $200 Register for the Advanced Topics
Advanced Topics Agenda:
- 1 PM Advanced Topics
- multiple solution demos
- presenting to a mixed audience with different needs or information requirements
- vision generation demonstrations
- handling bugs, crashes, and time challenges.
- 5 PM Wrap up
For more information: Theresa Shafer 408-252-9676 events@skmurphy.com
January 4th, 2010
SKMurphy was interviewed and selected as one of a dozen case studies on Document Management Solutions for Consulting Groups by Central Desktop. Read about our innovative approach at “Document Management Solution helps SKMurphy Consulting Group Increase Productivity.”
We make some strong claims in the case study:
- Increased productivity – approximately 5 to 10 times more productive
- Significantly sped up decision making time on projects
- Eliminated version control issues for faster review cycles
The baseline is E-Mailing documents and phone tag. We rely on the edit lock that Central Desktop show to prevent you from editing the same file at the same time as someone else (this happens more than you might think as you get close to a deadline) and find that setting update notification for two hours encourages other members of the team to contribute.
We use Central Desktop to work with all of our clients and have found that it allows us to respond with drafts much more quickly and to achieve a working consensus in a few hours to a day or two. We use it to rapidly prototype the content for key E-Mails, presentation outlines, datasheets, backgrounders, and other content or documents that are used in the sales or customer engagement process by our clients. Each of our clients has their own password protected workspace, as well as any attendee at a workshop who wants one. We also use them for projects with our partners.
We think this approach offers them the following benefits:
- The workspaces are searchable and both the wiki pages and attached files are under version control so they good visibility and control over our joint work product, whether it is in planning stages, in process, or had been delivered.
- Meetings and conference calls are more productive. We use the same wiki page can be used the agenda, notes in process during the meeting, and for minutes and action items afterward. There is one place to look for anything about a meeting and it can have hyperlinks to other content that was discussed. This is an order of magnitude more productive than reconciling a stream of E-Mails for agenda and minutes.
- The workspace is the first place to look and it’s more easily organized than anyone’s inbox. It’s not uncommon for us to run a Skype text chat session for conference calls and append that to the meeting page as well. This is a lightweight approach to making meetings more productive and because things get documented immediately you have more of a complete archive as you add folks to the team or want to look back in two or three months to see what was decided.
- We normally include the cost of Central Desktop in our engagement fees but have turned over the workspace to clients at the end of an assignment. One client we worked with in 2006 through 2008 had more than 550 pages and attached files in the workspace.
We have been working in wikis since we started in 2003. We chose Central Desktop in 2006 and phased other wiki platforms out except where a customer is already using one. We have more than a hundred distinct workspaces (some are archived) that have been used with clients, workshop attendees, partner projects, and internal projects.
We are happy to have a phone conversation if you are interested in trying to incorporate them into your business: Sean has given a number of talks on them as well if you would like a briefing or presentation for your group or event. We do not resell Central Desktop and we were not compensated by them for the case study: we agreed to talk about it because we have been satisfied customers for more than three years.
Related blog posts on wikis:
October 1st, 2009
This week I have been developing content for a client’s website. We are helping them formulate a message that is intended to explain both their knowledge of their customers’ problems and how they are able to help.
Good marketing is really just good content.
It focuses on your customers’ problems and how they will benefit from your offering. It is not about your product features. It answers all of the questions–or at least all of the common questions–a customer will have they have as they consider buying your product or services.
Good marketing material should be useful, interesting, and even funny to your customers. Material should be clear and concise, it should be use the language that your customers normally use to talk about their challenges and their needs.
Here are a couple of examples we have worked with our clients on over the last year:
August 28th, 2009
Sean Murphy, CEO of SKMurphy, Inc., to speak at Silicon Valley’s SFBay ACM on September 16, 2009 at 6:30pm. He joins an international scientific and educational group dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences, and applications of information technology. Join us for a briefing on how teams can become more effective at reaching a working consensus and making decisions quickly. The talk will cover team decision making and the challenges in blending human expertise with automation. Whether you are a solo entrepreneur, a talented engineer, a manager or a CEO you will leave with practical tips for leading your team to successful decision making.
Sean Murphy has taken an entrepreneurial approach to life since he could drive. He has served as an advisor to dozens of startups, helping them explore new options and bring their businesses to new levels. His firm, SKMurphy, Inc. ( www.skmurphy.com ), focuses on early customers and early revenue for software startups, helping engineers to understand business development. His clients have offerings in electronic design automation, artificial intelligence, web-enabled collaboration, proteomics, text analytics, legal services automation, and medical services workflow
Location: Hewlett Packard, Oak Room Auditorium Bldg. 48, 19447 Pruneridge Ave, Cupertino, CA 95014
Cost: Free and open to the public.
For more information see http://sfbayacm.org/events/2009-09-16.php or contact Theresa Shafer events@skmurphy.com
About SFBay ACM ( http://sfbayacm.org/ )
Founded in 1947, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world’s oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society. ACM provides a vital forum for the exchange of information, ideas, and discoveries. With a world-wide membership, ACM is a leading resource for computing professionals and students working in the various fields of Information Technology, and for interpreting the impact of information technology on society.
May 11th, 2009
Most entrepreneurs we talk to these days is asking “how can I bring more customers into my business?”
There are no quick or easy answers here. Just some encouragement to try a new technique or two. You will need to develop a multi-pronged approach for your business. Sometime it takes thinking of creative ways to expand your current techniques. There are many ways to generate new leads, none are right or wrong. It is very personal – which will work for you, and the people you are trying to reach.
Which one of these are you not doing that you should try next?
- Referrals (also see Discount for Referral and What Can I Do to Build Referrals)
- Website
- Brochures/ Flyers
- Direct Mail Letters or Cards
- Seminars
- Give A Talk
- Blog (also see Getting Started and Good Blogging is Good Linking)
- Strategic Partnerships
- Google Adwords
- Craigslist
- Newsletters
- Press Releases
- Articles and White Papers
- Keep In Touch With Past Clients and Nurture Prospects
- Phone Calls
- Invite To Lunch
- Letters
- E-Mail
- Invite Them To Attend An Event With You
- On-line Business Directories
- Networking Meetings
- Post Purchases Follow Up
- Joint Ventures
- Warm Call
- Trade Shows
Our 100 page “Getting More Customers” workbook covers each of these; please use the contact form to request a copy.
Update May 13: Please note that this is a physical book, spiral bound printed on paper. Please supply a phone number and a shipping address when you ask for a copy.
April 6th, 2009
We have done three other events like this in conjunction with sponsoring organizations like Innovation Denmark, SDForum, or Startup Epicenter. Participants have told us that they had three benefits.
- In reviewing another firm’s website and providing concrete feedback, they developed new perspectives on how prospects and other visitors might assess their own site.
- There are always so many things that can be done to improve a website it can be an endless sinkhole of time. Helping a peer with their site helped them identify the most important improvements to make next. Also some of the feedback provided by fellow CEOs were directly applicable to their own.
- They learned about a number of free and low cost tools and resources that are available for website design and analysis.
SKMurphy’s Website Peer Review
Friday April 17, 2009
11:30am – 1pm
Play n Plug, Sunnyvale
This event is open to all. There are two ways to participate: presenter or reviewer. For more information see http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2009/02/22/skmurphys-peer-review-for-websites-set-for-april-17/
March 7th, 2009
Here’s a couple of sources for free public domain photo, clipart, cartoons and images. They are royalty free, not copy-righted and available for personal and commercial use. These stock photos are high resolution and high enough quality for print and websites.
However, keep in mind:
- You can not copyright the material yourself.
- If a person is recognizable in the image, for commercial purposes a model release must be obtained.
- Products and logo in the images may have their own copyright.
There are a number of sites that sell high-quality artwork at a low cost they may serve your needs just fine. These sites have a large volume of material available at low cost.
February 22nd, 2009
Looking for feedback on your website?
Want to improve your website?
When: Friday April 17, 2009 11:30 AM -1PM (Lunch Included)
Where: Plug & Play Tech Center 440 N Wolfe Rd Sunnyvale, California 94085
SKMurphy will host an upcoming Peer Review Event for Websites. Three fellow CEOs will present their website while the roundtable will provide feedback. This event is open to all. There are two ways to participate:
Websites may be public or private beta, but we will send out the URL to all attendees in advance.
Costs (includes lunch):
- Presenter $66 (Discount if you attend previous Peer Reviews as a reviewer, we will credit up to 2 sessions)
- Roundtable Reviewer: Early Registration $22 Before April 8, $30 until event.
February 17th, 2009
Sean Murphy is speaking at Bay Area Business Growth Meetup on “Leveraging Your Referral Network to Grow Your Business”.
Thursday March 19, 2009 4-6pm
Pacific Business Center
19925 Stevens Creek Blvd Suite 100 Cupertino CA 95014
Register: http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=177524
Referrals from satisfied customers are the best way of generating new business. In the context of established relationships, tools like Send Out Cards, iContact, LinkedIn and others allow people to connect with others and foster networks of friends or colleagues. Sean will walk through a simple referral exercise and also offer a model for how business owners can leverage a customer’s referrals to drive more business.
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