It’s not the length they’ll remember it’s the impact!

Why is it that companies spend so much money in getting in front of potential prospects – telemarketing and direct mail has never been inexpensive – and yet, they spend so little on the actual presentations that are supposed to make the customer buy their product or services?

Having got in front of the prospective customer, do we make the most of what we have to sell? In a recent survey of sales managers and sales directors we confirmed our suspicions that 80% of IT salespeople turn up, plug in their laptop and start paging through their PowerPoint presentation, desperately trying to get through the material without letting the prospective customer fall asleep!

We’ve got so much to say about ourselves that we use far too many text-based, bullet point slides and wonder why after an hour our audience has glazed over and are asking for a copy of the slides so they can count off how many more they have to sit through.

At the end of the presentation have we differentiated our message, left a lasting impression and given ourselves a better than average chance of winning some business? Or have we just done the same thing as the company that pitched in front of us did or the competitor sitting in reception, waiting for their turn is going to do?

It is vital that we ensure that we deliver our messages with clarity, high impact and in such a way as to differentiate our proposition. The prospect of using anything more complex than bullets on PowerPoint was until quite recently too prohibitive in cost to be considered. However, good audio visual multimedia presentation technology is now available and easy to use.

A picture is worth a thousand words. What price for several thousand pictures in an animated sequence combined with sound? The audience reaction is immediate; they sit forward and pay attention. Mix in a bit of humour or make it topical and one has created a lasting impression in the mind of your prospective customer. Now, pity the competitor sitting in reception. You’ve just raised the qualifying height of the bar!

I would not propose using multimedia and sound to the exclusion of the traditional bullet-point slide approach, but used together, you and your proposal immediately stand out. Explaining a complex solution using flat and often uninspiring material is tough to do. Use 3D animation and watch how much more quickly people grasp the concept and your message. And incredibly, if this is done well, people will want to watch it again and show it to their friends and colleagues.

Consider that for a moment. Your prospective customer asks you to replay the message! I can’t recall in 20 years of selling ever having had a prospective customer ask me to replay the last 20 slides. And finally, when we have finished presenting, we are able to leave an interactive, multimedia CD covering the points we just discussed, which can then be circulated internally by our prospective customer or viewed across their internal network. I’m not sure that you will remember that happening very often to your traditional static PowerPoint material.

Another unsurprising fact is that not all salespeople are good presenters. They are typically and exception rather than the norm. Consider the help that using the multimedia approach bestows on the presenter. There is an opportunity to help all those people (representing the majority) who struggle to inspire an audience. How much business has been lost because the presenter failed to connect and engage with an audience – never happened in your company? How many times has your company ended up simply competing on price because the prospective customer didn’t see the differentiation in the proposition? Have you ever felt that the audience really didn’t grasp what your product or service could really deliver in terms of commercial benefit?

Imagine for one moment what it takes to describe unscrewing the lid of a jar using bullet-point text only. Compare this with a five-second animation. Which one would comprehend faster and which would you remember?

Using 3D animation, sound and video is not for the faint hearted. You’re going to be outside of your comfort zone, you’re going to have to stop talking and start watching and listening to your prospective customer! That sounds potentially interesting too! And you are going to have to risk getting an immediate reaction from the audience! Are they going to love it, or hate it, or be amused? Our experience says all three but the key thing is they want to talk about it and tell you about it. Not next week, but right there and then! Feedback from the prospect! Hallelujah!

If your reaction so far is positive but cost is causing you concern, let us consider return on investment (ROI). Firstly you need to appreciate that there is significant expense associated with managing a prospect through a sales process. For example in the IT industry, dependent upon the product or service, to identify, qualify, sell to and hopefully close a new account will certainly cost 1000’s of pounds and potentially, for larger systems, tens of thousands of pounds. Faced with these facts doesn’t it make sense to invest some money in trying to ensure that you improve the closing ratio?

Typically securing one new customer is going to easily cover the cost of having created a set of 3D animations, designed to support the process, particularly if you create the material using highly talented offshore resources at very competitive rates.

In practice, you can build a library of material that you can re-use; not only for external presentations but also for training, exhibitions and to incorporate into your online marketing material. Furthermore, you can create material with a long shelf-life by explaining the concept rather than just illustrating the product. The ROI therefore will be very positive. You will have differentiated your messages and greatly improved your chances of winning business. Creating versatile, re-usable material to ensure that you always deliver your message consistently.

Competition is fierce. Differentiation is vital and creating maximum impact can only provide a more competitive edge. If getting each appointment is expensive and increasingly difficult, doesn’t it make sense to consider something that makes your messages more memorable and potentially animates your audience?

Written by Mike Smart, Managing Director, GOWI Group.