Case study
Pegasystems
Pega is an American software company founded in 1983 in Cambridge, MA. It develops a low-code platform for workflow automation and AI-powered decisioning.
As a Creative Strategist in the presales division, I coach others through design thinking workshops to create compelling narratives to be applied to videos and demos for prospects and clients.
Disciplines
Design thinking, presentation development, storytelling, video production
Deliverables
Real-world narratives to be used in the development of software demos and sales videos
Collaborators
Travis Farrenkopf, Matthew Brasse
Background and research
Demos are a useful way of showing prospective customers how a product works. They can be used to explain the features of the product, demonstrate how it can be used, and answer questions. Too often, these demonstrations are feature-focused and lack a human element to really sell the concept to the prospect.
Coaching colleagues in technical and sales roles in the art of storytelling is a valuable way to make the technical aspects of the demo feel more real to the audience, and to increase the emotional resonance of the presentation.
Once upon a time...
Workshop framework
Often collaborating across time zones via FigJam boards, I led design thinking workshops to develop the narratives for various demos. In the workshops, I brought together teams of stakeholders with different skills and perspectives, including product managers, solutions consultants, account executives, and marketers. Under my facilitation, the teams worked together to brainstorm ideas, discuss different approaches, and collaboratively create the final demo narratives.
These workshops provide a safe space for these stakeholders to experiment with different storytelling approaches and get feedback from their peers. This feedback helped them refine their narratives to make them more effective at connecting with potential customers.
“This is a great process which quickly pulls together a story and a point of view.”
—Workshop participant, Pega
Empathy was front and center in these workshops, helping stakeholders better understand their customers’ needs and how their customers will receive their messaging. By putting themselves in the customers’ shoes and walking through the customers’ journeys, these solutions and sales team members can gain a deeper understanding of the customers’ pain points and how their products can help solve those problems.
Oftentimes, we would casually refer to these design thinking sessions as “group therapy,” because the way we’d talk through problems and arrive at solutions we wouldn’t have reached alone.
Conclusions
After participating in the design thinking workshops, the sales team was able to close more sales deals. They were able to connect with potential customers on an emotional level and show them how their products could help solve their problems.
As a result, more demos created via this method showed a higher rate of success in closing deals.