Vendors and Contracts: The Sales Webinar

Just sat through another painful sales webinar...  Why is looking at web-based software in a sales review so very, very painful?  It is like an unfamiliar roller-coaster ride.  Someone else is at the controls in a remote place.  They know where they want to go, but you don't know the path.  So the viewer is left to sit and watch as someone unknown points and clicks - and you never know when they are going to point and click and jump to something else.  You get focused on something on the screen, and you suddenly startled to someplace else.  All the while the vendor-speaker is coming across the speaker phone, and if they've gone to a cell phone, Skype or VOIP, the connection may echo or cut out.  We strain to listen to the vendor talk about the product, trying to get important details, and the vendor is talking about the product in a casual, unscripted way that just is intended to "walk you through" something that requires your attention.  At the end, I'm left with a series of disjointed perceptions about the product.  Many times my functional community is left with a bad product view, when I really think it was the bad webinar.  Given the costs of travel, the webinar is a better choice than in-person product presentations.  What could be done to make this experience better?

• Never schedule a webinar after lunch.  Let's face it - this isn't the most engaging activity.  Add on a tired group, and the webinar is doomed.
• Get a high-quality speaker phone in the room, and make sure there's no sound interference from air-handling systems or adjoining spaces.  Make sure you can hear from all chair locations.
• Double-check the room temp for the crowd attending.  A warm room guarantees a sleepy audience.
• Send who/job title info about the audience to the vendor in advance to avoid wasting that time at the start of the webinar.

Vendors:

• Start with a road-map of the product, some sort of overview of the entire menu or all the modules.
• Follow a logical order through the product, maybe an order related to the workflow.  Avoid getting too casual in the walk-through.
• The speaker should follow basic presentation skills for the navigation:  tell us where you are going first, and why, then go there, then tell us why we are there.  So the presentation may go something like:  "See this button?  When you click on this, all your active records will display.  I'm going to click on this now (then click).  (After successful display) This display shows all the active records."  It takes the "startle-effect" out of watching point-and-click navigation.
• The speaker should stop frequently and ask for questions, and it is helpful if questions are repeated before answering.
• Summarize the presentation at the end - bring this to a positive closure and provide a mechanism for follow-up questions.