Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 - (Page 33)

TRAVEL/MEETINGS INCENTIVES TECHNOLOGY TRAINING Not your father’s presentation Cutting-edge tech solutions can help you seal the deal T www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com istock photo he person who’s never slept through a presentation may cast the first stone—maybe that ought to wake up the guy snoring in the fifth row! The goal of a sales presentation is to deliver a clear, concise and consistent message to your prospects about your product and your brand, as well as why you’re better than the competition. Doing that and keeping your audience’s attention for longer than 30 minutes is the real challenge. Cell phones, text messaging and portable Internet viewers present new challenges for sales presenters, who must overcome multiple distractions during a presentation. Today’s spoiled, information-overloaded prospects demand a richer presentation experience, one that takes creativity, careful planning and the application of the hottest technologies available. You can’t fill your prospects’ heads with unnecessary, useless information, and you have to capture their interest fast or risk losing them forever. To accomplish your communications goals in 10 to 20 seconds and pique your audience’s interest, you must take into account the fact that prospects today can find a lot of information by themselves from media that’s readily available on the Web—and not only about your products, but also your competitor’s. As a result, you must deliver your message in a more engaging and compelling way than your competition does, and you must deliver more information in less time via flexible, customizable and updatable presentations that have a long shelf life. Damon Alberts, executive vice president of eCity Interactive, recommends that presenters “focus on the important stuff and be quick about it. People remember concepts illustrated with pictures better than just words; video footage or animation is even better.” “A good sales presentation is one that conveys with absolute clarity the benefits of the product being touted,” says Bill Nordgren, president and CEO of Dryfork Media Corporation. “Visual stimulation that helps a person understand the need for the product or service being presented is vital in any sales presentation. When a person can ‘see’ why a product or service will help them do their job better or make their life easier, the sale is made.” In the opinion of David Paradi, president of ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com and the co-author of Guide to PowerPoint, a good sales presentation is primarily focused on the needs of the client. “Presentations should use visuals that encourage conversation, rather than endless text that leads to the audience reading the slides,” Paradi says. “They must also provide the ability to change the flow of the presentation based on what the client wants.” Today’s new standard In the old days, standing out from your competition and leaving a long-lasting impression depended largely on the public speaking talents and the mood of your sales reps. The only thing that could save you from a poorly delivered presentation was the stack of really expensive brochures you hope your rep didn’t forget to pass out. A “presentation” nowadays goes beyond what happens in a closed room. The image of your company now depends heavily on multimedia presentations on your Web site and DVDs handed out at trade shows. MARCH/APRIL 2008 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT 33 http://ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Brian Tracy University Sales Marketing Management Cover Story: Lessons From the Master Maximum Mobility Training Technology Incentives/Motivation Travel/Meetings Book Excerpt - Value Merchants The Way I See It - End the Discounting Habit

Sales & Marketing Management - March/April 2008

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