Presentation after presentation is what the shows are all about. Sponsors pay for the show, so they get to stand on stage and give a presentation. That would be fine if the presentations didn't suck.

That's right. I have said it before. These prezos suck. It's painful to be in the audience and watch a video embedded in a slide deck.

Look, these prezos are no longer than 20 minutes. How about making them useful to the audience?

There are so many videos, books, blogs, and pointers on how to give a great presentation. Why ignore all of it? (At the least, this blog by Guy Kawasaki.)

I don't need a slide about the company or its investors.

I don't need a slide telling me that analysts predict huge growth in cloud. I get it. All that cloud research and mentioning how businesses are going cloud is all fluff -- fluffy clouds.

You know what you should discuss?

• Where is the opportunity?
• What pain is your cloud service solving?
• What outcome do you deliver?
• Who is the buyer?
• Why are they buying from you?
• What benefit do they get from you?
• And WHY YOUR COMPANY & SERVICE over the other thousand?

It would be fantastic if even half of those questions would be answered, but all I hear is DRaaS or DaaS -- I even heard EaaS (Everything as a service). Nothing very concrete about just mentioning the acronyms without explaining who would benefit.

Maybe it is just me and I don't understand this stuff like I should. But I also hear over and over from the channel management that agents quote too often and close too little. Well, if you gave a better presentation....

Let's take a look at the targets. Targets of 1-500 or 50-1500 does not help at all. That is literally most of the businesses out there.

The pitch is so intangible that partners can't figure out where you fit. Hence, they will just quote you and the other 3 look-alike.

Look at it another way: you spent all this money on equipment, data centers, product development, etc. not unlike a Wal-Mart does with its stores or Hilton does with its hotels, right? You stock the shelves with product - the direct, the indirect, the VADs, the masters. Then you give the sales force about as much training as Wal-Mart gives cashiers or Hilton gives the desk staff - and expect them to be able to not only sell your service but be able to express your brand message (value proposition). Unrealistic huh? Not to mention a complete waste of money.

I get engineers think it is all about the tech, but it isn't. In cloud, it is about deployment, on-boarding, service and other intangibles in order to have a decent customer experience.

A bunch of us at the show were talking about why there are so many Hosted VoIP providers: because there aren't any that have it down yet. One or two could dominate if they could just brand it, deploy it, on-board the customer and deliver a great customer experience. BAM! You would own the market.

And if you wonder why I complain about presentations so much, here's why:

Before I present, I spend hours (10-100 hours) on the slide deck, the speaker notes, practicing, etc. That happens whether it is a webinar for TCA or WIC or a apid speaking gig. Appreciate the time and attention that the audience is giving you.

If I can just swap out logos and not tell the difference....