In my demonstration of the VOIP video phones that I first gave to my small group, I setup two phones on opposite sides of the room. From one phone I dialed the other. I assumed that someone would just pick up the phone and get the video going and then everyone would be impressed. I didn’t tell anyone to be my assistant ahead of time. After all, how hard is picking up a phone?

None of the guys who were near the phone moved to pick up the phone when it rang. I realized that I had screwed up by not getting an assistant after the first ring, so I yelled across the room to one of the guys to pick it up.

Not a huge deal, since it was a small venue and I recovered quickly. Had I pulled something like this where I needed my assistant to do something harder, it could’ve been a disaster. (If you’re wondering why no one picked up the phone until I told them too - they didn’t know if I had another assistant chosen, so I’m not implying I work with boneheads.)

When you need an assistant in a demo, always coordinate beforehand. Always. After all, how hard is picking up a phone? In high-tech we call the assistant a “demo babe,” since it seems that the people “picking up the phone” for the really big venues are disproportionately made up of very attractive women.

This is one of the few times outside Toastmasters where I got to give the same speech twice. When I gave the phone demo in front of a much larger audience the next week, this time I got a demo babe - who happened to be a forty two year old father of eight - and everything went smoothly.