Standing in as consultant for Continia Document Capture demo

Today’s post will deviate slightly from the usual informative blog posts as I will be sharing my experience of standing in as a consultant during a demo session last month. As a marketing executive for a fast-moving IT company, most will know that my job scope entails branding and PR activities, sales follow up, events planning and also administration tasks but definitely not a product demonstration.

Nevertheless, due to a last minute request from a potential customer that we would not like to lose, I was offered a chance to stand in as a consultant to perform a product demonstration on Continia Document Capture as our existing consultants’ schedule was already full. With the thought of exploring and learning new things, I took up the challenge. If you don’t already know, Continia Document Capture is an add-on solution for Microsoft Dynamics NAV/Business Central that scans, extracts data, registers, posts, and archives all types of documents with full-text search capability.

I was prepared for a long day of grueling hands-on training and research session as I only have less than a day to prepare for the demo that was scheduled for the next day. So, it took me by surprise when I could master the product demo in a little under 4 hours with the help of my chief consultant and a straightforward demo script I found on Continia partner portal. It was relatively easy even for someone untrained (in the aspects of consultant scope) like me to walk through the whole demo. I only had to create a demo environment on Continia Demo Portal and request for a VM to start running before clicking through the steps that was already set up, in accordance to the script. It would probably even be a piece of cake for someone who is an expert in Microsoft Dynamics NAV/Business Central.

The day of product demonstration dawned cheerfully, not really matching my mood of unease. On the outside, I was calm and business like, greeting the potential customers with professionalism but on the inside, I was really a little keyed up. Once we were done with the general introductions and company presentation, we dived into the demo session straight. I survived the 1 hour demo albeit not without some denting to the ego. 1 key thing I learnt from the product demonstration was that demos will not go 100% according to the dry runs.

During dry runs, there weren’t questions flying in from each and every corner of the meeting room that will halt and disrupt the demo process. During dry runs, no one will ask you to show other functionalities and tools. During dry runs, you can look at the step-by-step script.

Despite all these, I am glad that I had the chance to undertake, learn and perform the product demonstration because now I have another skill up my sleeve. With a little more practice, I should be able to master it well. And so can you!