2. ii
About the Author
Robert Lane lives in sunny Tucson, Arizona,
United States. He is an internationally recog-
nized speaker, trainer and author, specializing
in digital media techniques for interactive com-
munication and teaching.
Robert earned a Bachelor of Science in physics
in 1987 and a Master of Science in educational
technology in 2008 at the University of Arizona.
He has devoted the past 10 years to developing,
researching, and teaching a visually interactive
style of presentation known as Relational Presen-
tation, and is author of the book Relational Pre-
sentation: A Visually Interactive Approach. Many
of these same dynamic presentation techniques
are vitally important to successful sales and
persuasion activities, and, therefore, form the
basis for flexible content delivery techniques
featured throughout this book.
Aspire Communications
Robert’s company, Aspire Communications,
provides training, consultation, and support
to a wide variety of individuals and institu-
tions implementing relational presentation and
visual selling techniques. Team members in-
clude trainers, researchers, executives, presen-
tation professionals, graphic designers, media
specialists and software developers. Aspire of-
fers workshops and seminars, both onsite and
online (live or self-paced), to promote learner
success. They also provide full enterprise-level
solutions and project management to organi-
zations wishing to implement this book’s con-
cepts on a large, multiuser scale.
3. iii
About the Author
Andre Vlcek is a sales consultant based in Mel-
bourne, Victoria, Australia, where he services
a global network of corporate clientele. He
specializes in the design and implementation
of advanced selling strategies for business-to-
business sales organizations. Andre earned
postgraduate qualifications in sales and mar-
keting from Swinburne University in 2004 and
advanced sales management accreditation in
the United States with The Prime Resource
Group and BSRP Inc. He is a frequent speaker
and trainer, and has devoted the past 15 years
to researching and documenting the time-
honored selling approaches found in his sales
courses. Throughout this book, Andre expands
upon traditional sales wisdom to incorporate
and maximize the emerging potential of inter-
active digital media.
Sales Psychology Australia
Andre’s company, Sales Psychology Australia,
provides sales consultancy and sales training
services designed to help organizations find
and win new customers, as well as maintain
and grow their existing customer base. These
complete, end-to-end solutions integrate sales
strategy, selling skills, and sales tools to deliver
increased profit margins and improved levels
of customer satisfaction. In recent years, SPA
and Aspire have collaborated in designing and
delivering new selling concepts and tools that
leverage Aspire’s Relational Presentation tech-
nologies. The fruits of this successful venture
appear on upcoming pages.
5. v
Contents
Section 1
A Different Look at Sales Presentations
Chapter 1
The Quest for Flexibility
High Stakes........................................................................................... 2
.
Learning to Dance with the Moment................................................ 3
.
This Book’s Purpose............................................................................. 9
What You’ll Learn................................................................................. 9
Chapter 2
Changing the Paradigm
The Realities Salespeople Face......................................................... 14
Converting Sales Presentations
to Sales Conversations....................................................................... 17
What You’re Getting Yourself Into................................................... 20
Chapter 3
What’s in It for You
Expanded Vocabulary....................................................................... 26
Power and Simplicity......................................................................... 27
Professional Appearance................................................................... 27
Differentiation: Standing out from the Crowd.............................. 28
Tailored Solutions............................................................................... 29
Shorter Sales Cycles and Higher Sales Conversion Ratios........... 29
Multiuser Capabilities....................................................................... 30
Brand Management and Quality Control....................................... 30
Content Management........................................................................ 32
Sales Training Platform..................................................................... 32
Design Efficiency................................................................................ 33
Feature. ................................................................................................. 35
.
6. vi
Contents
Section 2
Making a Visually Interactive Platform
Chapter 4
An Overview of Your Project
Manage Your Project Well................................................................. 40
Your Project’s Principle Steps........................................................... 40
Chapter 5
Project Analysis
The Importance of Planning............................................................. 46
How Project Planning Works........................................................... 47
Card Sorting........................................................................................ 47
Issues to Ponder.................................................................................. 50
Chapter 6
Content Planning
Moving into Step 2............................................................................. 60
A Tour of Topical Navigation.......................................................... 60
.
Determining the Platform’s Topics
(Upper Link Categories).................................................................... 63
Recommended Platform Topics....................................................... 64
Company...................................................................................... 65
Capabilities. ................................................................................. 65
.
Customers.................................................................................... 67
.
Partnerships................................................................................. 68
Products........................................................................................ 69
Services......................................................................................... 70
Solutions....................................................................................... 71
Processes....................................................................................... 73
Pricing........................................................................................... 74
Change.......................................................................................... 75
Concepts....................................................................................... 76
Resources...................................................................................... 77
Feature. ................................................................................................. 79
.
7. vii
Contents
Chapter 7
Content Analysis and Organization
Got Content?....................................................................................... 82
Top-level Categories.......................................................................... 83
The Step 3 Process.............................................................................. 85
Other Important Considerations...................................................... 90
Chapter 8
Customizing the Template
Moving into Step 4............................................................................. 94
Getting Started.................................................................................... 95
Examples of Interactive Platforms................................................... 96
About PowerPoint’s Slide Master.................................................. 100
Opening and Using the Slide Master............................................ 101
Changing Upper Navigation Shapes. ........................................... 104
.
Changing Lower Navigation Shapes. ........................................... 106
.
Changing the Slide Master’s Remaining Visible Elements........ 107
Chapter 9
Building the Platform Shell
Moving into Step 5........................................................................... 112
Exploring Topical Navigation: Title Slides................................... 112
Exploring Topical Navigation: Slide Masters.............................. 115
The Platform Shell............................................................................ 117
Creating the Platform’s Regular Slides......................................... 118
Completing the Upper Topical Links............................................ 121
Tying Together the Masters............................................................ 122
Completing the Lower Content Links........................................... 124
Adding a Glow Effect...................................................................... 125
Assigning Slide Masters to Slides.................................................. 130
Testing the Links. ............................................................................. 137
.
Making Changes............................................................................... 138
Final Thoughts on the Platform Shell............................................ 139
8. viii
Contents
Chapter 10
Adding Content
Moving into Step 6........................................................................... 142
Content Prioritization...................................................................... 143
Creating a Folder Structure. ........................................................... 144
.
The Logistics of Adding Content................................................... 146
Key Design Principles...................................................................... 149
Content Layout Strategies............................................................... 152
Picture Roles...................................................................................... 159
Incorporating Visual Cues.............................................................. 165
Seed Presentations. .......................................................................... 167
.
Hanging Presentations.................................................................... 169
Linking Together Multiple Platforms............................................ 174
Finalizing the Navigation Elements.............................................. 175
What to Do Now. ............................................................................. 177
.
Chapter 11
Platform Testing
Moving into Step 7........................................................................... 180
The Testing Process.......................................................................... 181
What If You Play Both Testing Roles?........................................... 183
.
Strategies for Managing Errors During a Performance.............. 185
Section 3
Using and Maintaining Your Sales Platform
Chapter 12
Using Your Platform: Important Truths
The Transition into Interactivity.................................................... 192
The Deceptive Seduction of Glitz................................................... 193
Old Habits Die Hard........................................................................ 194
Interactivity DOES NOT Imply a Lack of Control...................... 195
Interactivity DOES Equal Good Customer Service..................... 196
9. ix
Contents
Chapter 13
Using the Platform: Preparations for Taking It Live
Know Your Business and Competition......................................... 200
Understand Your Value and How to Communicate It............... 201
Create a Section for Customer-specific Information................... 202
Feel Comfortable Navigating......................................................... 203
Practice Handling Objections......................................................... 205
Condition Yourself to Deal with Nervousness............................ 208
.
Feature. ............................................................................................... 211
.
Chapter 14
Using the Platform: Best Practices
Sales-related Best Practices............................................................. 214
Presentation-related Best Practices................................................ 225
Chapter 15
Additional Resources
10. x
Foreword
I first heard about visually interactive sales presentation techniques through An-
dre’s work with PerfomanceCentre on our sales performance improvement strate-
gies. When he initially introduced the idea it sounded a little too good to be true. It
sure didn’t sound like the “death by PowerPoint” I had experienced and doubtless
been guilty of!
Nonetheless, Andre and Robert were soon to be demonstrating the techniques at
one of our local American Chamber of Commerce meetings. I signed up to attend
to check it out and see if this new process was something we could use.
Wow! Was that ever an eye opener. They seemed to have random access to who
knows how many hundreds of slides and could find exactly the ones they wanted
within seconds. I was thinking to myself, “Wouldn’t that come in handy during
a sales presentation, when you never really know for sure who will ask the next
question and where that question will take you?”
The idea of being able to dynamically adjust what I show to what I say really makes
intuitive sense to me, and the concept really hit home that day. A few weeks later
I invited Andre to drop by and make a similar presentation to our staff. We sub-
sequently decided to integrate the concepts across daily operations and commis-
sioned Andre to help develop a visual selling presentation platform for our or-
ganisation.
The book you are about to read didn’t yet exist at the time, but I now see in its
pages a mirror reflection of our experiences. It contains the same seven steps we
went through to plan, organise and build our interactive presentation materials.
What a tremendous resource you have at your fingertips, all that practical advice
packed into an easy-to-read guide. I predict Selling Visually with PowerPoint will
become a go-to handbook for every firm wishing to improve the personal touch
of their sales procedures. And, hopefully, “death by PowerPoint” will become the
exception, not the norm in sales presentations.
Hold on for the ride. The pages ahead shatter old sales presentation paradigms.
David Marshall
Managing Director
PerformanceCentre
South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
11. xi
Getting Started
This book is a delicate marriage of sales and persuasion psychology, media cre-
ation skills, and highly flexible public speaking techniques. Yes, the combination is
a bit exotic but—hold on—the synthesis may give you a whole new perspective on
what the word influence really means. In days past, influence was mostly a matter
of building relationships, fostering trust, understanding the other person’s per-
spectives, and waxing eloquently with words. Now another factor cries out for at-
tention: technology. Our world of touch screen mobile phones, high-speed Internet,
and ever-present PowerPoint presentations requires a nimble mastery of visual,
media-based communication—such that words alone no longer are enough. We
must show people what we mean, demonstrate what they can gain, model what
is possible, and visually distinguish ourselves from competitors. Oh, and did we
mention that such visual fluency must flow from your brain with the same elegant
grace as words rolling off the tongue?
That’s what you are getting yourself into by reading this book. You will harness
the power of visual media and use it to accentuate your natural persuasiveness.
Those formerly linear, bullet-pointed talks you gave will flow with a new-found
graphical liveliness while tailoring visual content to the needs, interests, and buy-
ing inclinations of viewers.
What does the process look like? It’s pretty simple, really. We’ll keep the use of
technology as basic as possible. In fact, initially you will forsake technology alto-
gether and work with low-tech index cards and markers instead. When software
is needed, an old friend will come to your aid—namely PowerPoint. We’ll build
a special kind of interactive slide show platform that maximizes PowerPoint’s po-
tential and allows you to map out, and dynamically access, critically needed infor-
mation while speaking.
“I don’t know how to use PowerPoint,” you say? That’s OK, too. We’ll start with
basic principles and gradually add advanced material. Complete beginners may
wish to supplement the instructions here with an appropriate starters book, Pow-
erPoint Help files, or Aspire’s video workshops. Those of you using some other
form of presentation software, such as Apple Keynote or OpenOffice, still can join
in the fun as well. Simply adjust instructions given to the functionalities of those
products. Instructions throughout this book appear in both PowerPoint 2003 and
PowerPoint 2007 formats.
13. xiii
A Different
Look at Sales
Presentations
Section 1
14. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
xiv
In younger days, I was a sales engineer for an international valve and equip-
ment manufacturer of steam heating and process systems. My leather case
full of sales materials—a 3-inch product binder, engineering guides, and a
mountain of other papers—seemed to weigh 80 pounds. Then the company
gave me my first laptop. The thought of moving to PowerPoint was excit-
ing. I quickly set out creating the most spectacular presentation mechanical
engineers had ever seen.
Here’s what happened in the first sales call using the new approach. Out of
40 slides, I made it through three before the customer threw a curve ball by
wanting to discuss something not in my slide deck. I abandoned the show
before even making it to slide four. Surely, I thought, the situation would im-
prove in the next sales call, but it didn’t. I became aggravated enough with
linear slide decks that I eventually abandoned PowerPoint altogether and my
computer collected dust back at the office. Then I discovered hyperlinking!
I found a marketing pamphlet our company produced showing a complete
mechanical diagram of a steam system, along with where our products fit in
that system. I then scanned that pamphlet and hyperlinked every product
to a technical data sheet. Later I hyperlinked to slides containing formulas,
lists of questions to ask, and forms to fill out.
It was a beautiful presentation strategy, and it worked. The visual
nature of the diagram allowed me to invite participation from cli-
ents. They could point to where they were having a
problem with their steam system, and I then would
click to display additional data or other sub-pre-
sentations addressing the situation. My sales
calls once again became multidirectional.
I found the experience to be so effective, in
fact, that after 15 years with the company
I made a career change and now coach
people in how to make powerful
presentations with an approach
called presentation-IMPACT. Be-
lieve me, interactivity is an im-
portant part of this process.
M. J. Plebon
mplebon@nhorizons.ca
15. Chapter 1: The Quest for Flexibility
1
Chapter 1
The Quest for
Flexibility
16. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
2
High Stakes
Mark Devon sat at his desk, flipping though diagrams, pictures, tables of
data, and progress reports. He wondered how he could organize this mess.
How would his team present this mountain of information in a way the
customer could easily understand. He had to figure that out; the upcoming
financial stakes were huge and there were no prizes for second place.
In about four months, Mark and his team would pitch a billion-dollar
proposal to the U.S. Department of Defense, showcasing plans for a new
weapons system. The DOD always expected lots of detail; they might want
to see anything and everything that sat on his desk at the moment.
Mark also knew that times recently had changed. Past proposals required
reams of paperwork, with every gory detail mapped out in physical form
across hundreds of bound pages—but not anymore. From now on, every-
thing had to be in a digital format.
Eventually, his entire proposal would culminate in a single, eight-hour-
long, computer-based presentation designed to exhibit operations, capa-
bilities, experience, supplier relations, costs, and a thousand other details.
Presentation? he thought. No, that wasn’t the right word for it. This per-
formance would be more like a brutal grilling requiring fast, flexible, on-
demand answers to a daunting number of questions delivered by multiple
presenters to multiple buyers, in tandem.
What kind of presentation platform could handle such a task. PowerPoint?
Are you kidding? No doubt thousands of those ghastly things were float-
ing around the company somewhere. Those
wouldn’t help much, he thought. Surely nor-
mal presentation software wouldn’t support
a job like this. He needed a more powerful,
more versatile, and much more compelling
communication system.
17. Chapter 1: The Quest for Flexibility
3
Learning to Dance with the Moment
Months earlier, Paul Kinney had momentarily paused to glance around
The Home Depot floor area while setting up his demonstration materials
and presentation equipment. A few customers milled about, waiting for
the hands-on home improvement sessions to begin. Paul would be one of
several speakers today, showcasing his company’s products and explain-
ing how they could be put to practical use—alongside several other ven-
dors. As one of National Gypsum Company’s senior account managers, he
had participated in countless other such events, and never knew for sure
what questions to expect while interacting with a store’s customers. Today
something especially unusual was about to occur.
Not long ago, Paul had been on the same quest as Mark, searching for a
new approach to sales presentations, one that offered a potent combination
of content management and flexible access to individual topics. He now
had a solution in hand, or at least the beginnings of one. Today his newly
built interactive presentation platform (his carefully designed baby, as he
liked to call it) would go live, giving him unprecedented ability to move
around quickly and smoothly among many different visual presentation
topics, even while answering spontaneous questions from the audience.
When his time slot arrived, Paul launched into an hour of demonstrations
and slide displays. His performance looked like a regular PowerPoint-
enhanced talk in many respects, except that he wasn’t just scrolling from
slide to slide like everyone else. Rather, he navigated within what amount-
ed to a visual database, with convenient access to just about anything
needed from his 25 years of hard-earned experience. To Paul’s delight, his
interactions with the audience went well. He finished perfectly on time,
and then yielded to the next speaker, who had already begun setting up
equipment. That’s when it happened.
The next speaker encountered technical difficulties. Serious difficulties. So
serious, in fact, that within a few minutes he called Paul over and said,
“Hey, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get this going. Do you want to
cover the rest of my time slot?”
Such a question a couple of months ago might have been met with a stut-
tered, “Well, I … I … don’t know. I only prepared one presentation for
18. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
4
today.” But not this time. Paul jumped at the opportunity like a cat on
a mouse. After all, his new navigation-laced presentation materials con-
tained probably at least a hundred hours worth of valuable content, all
available for any occasion, at any time. This would be a great opportunity
to showcase more of his company’s products and services, and, besides,
The Home Depot was one of his major accounts. Wouldn’t it be great to
pull them out of this awkward situation? So, that’s precisely what he did
during a spontaneous performance.
The experience that day paid even higher dividends a short time later
when Paul met with another important customer. By then, Paul had gained
enough confidence with his new platform to use it during regular meetings
with customers—even throughout unpleasant conversations.
Figure 1.1: This aerial view shows one of Paul’s new products called e2XP. The purple-
colored panels installed on the building’s exterior resist moisture, mold, and fire, and
provide a substrate underneath whatever siding eventually covers the building when
finished. Photo courtesy of Paul Kinney, National Gypsum Company.
19. Chapter 1: The Quest for Flexibility
5
On the day of the meeting, Paul walked into the president’s office not
knowing for sure what surprise might be lurking. But he soon discovered
that purchasing wished to radically alter an existing agreement with Paul’s
company, in favor of less expensive, alternative products made overseas.
Paul was about to lose an account.
He subsequently spent an entire afternoon with the executive and his buy-
ing team, using interactive presentation materials to explore underlying
needs and interests. Those understandings enabled dialogue that eventu-
ally led to mutually beneficial solutions.
Yes, in the end Paul saved the account. His ability to move effortlessly
within a repository of visual content helped him access critical objection-
handling slides at just the right moments and otherwise explore technical
details relevant to the customer.
Truth be known, the company representatives probably never really want-
ed to end the business relationship that day in the first place. They just
needed to see more flexibility and solutions to their problems. Paul smiles,
thinking back on the president’s parting comments: “I called you in here
today because I had made up my mind to cancel your account. I now see
that you really do care about and understand our business and can work
with us. That’s what I needed to know.”
She phoned early in the morning, frustrated and disillusioned. We’ll call
her Sharon. The golden world of opportunity recently had slapped Sharon
in the face, and she needed a better solution. Preparing a well-thought-out
sales pitch wasn’t her problem. Learning how to make that pitch dance
certainly was.
Sharon had a brilliant idea for a new way of doing Internet-based food
distribution and felt her plan was a sure bet to become the next online com-
merce phenomenon. For months she had labored to gain the attention of
key venture capital investors who could provide funding for her project.
She even went so far as to have a presentation expert make up a special
slide show that mapped out all the minute details from beginning to end.
Certainly, she surmised, someone risking millions of dollars on her inven-
tion would want to see that all foreseeable issues and problems had been
20. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
6
comprehensively acknowledged and resolved. Not surprisingly, her sales
presentation contained a lot of slides, with numerous facts, figures, and
details packed on every one.
Sure enough, one day it happened. She landed an appointment with a key
investor. Oh, did she ever prepare for that meeting, carefully contemplat-
ing everything to be said, in the right order. She practiced her timing and
made sure the pitch could be delivered in about 40 minutes. “That will be
a little rushed,” she thought, “but all these details are important and they
need to be in there.”
On the day of the appointment, she confidently fired up her computer,
started the slide show, and put it into presentation mode. That’s when the
investor responded with a sarcastic scowl, “Look … you know … I really
don’t want to see all that nonsense! Just show me what this thing’s gonna
do and how much it will cost.”
What the investor really wanted at that point was a quick five-minute sum-
mary of the concepts, a scenario Sharon failed to anticipate. He probably
was thinking, “Why should I sit through a 40-minute sales pitch? I might
not even be interested in her invention. Besides, I have 20 other people
waiting. Honey, you’ve got five minutes to catch my interest and show me
something that’s worth sinking money into. We can look at the details later
if I like your idea.”
The jolting change of plans proved devastating for Sharon. Compacting 40
minutes of carefully scripted content into what amounted to a five-minute
commercial just didn’t seem fair—or feasible. The only realistic solution
was to abandon the slide show altogether and summarize the investment
verbally.
She would leave the meeting that day having learned a valuable lesson
about business reality. Ultimately, a salesperson’s desired agenda means
very little. We must be prepared at any moment to compact our value
propositions into an elevator pitch (two or three minutes) as well as expand
them in exquisite detail. Sharon had done her homework and prepared
well for what she thought would happen, but she didn’t think of every-
thing. None of us ever can. A more flexible message delivery platform
might have allowed her to make crucial adjustments on the spot and deal
gracefully with unexpected circumstances.
21. Chapter 1: The Quest for Flexibility
7
Contrast Sharon’s situation with one that happened to us recently.
We had recently spoken to a group of 65 Australian business professionals
about the ideas featured in this book—applying visually interactive pre-
sentation techniques to sales situations. During the talk, attendees were
offered follow-up consultation slots on a first-come, first-served basis.
Now we were going to one of those consultation meetings, what basically
amounted to a sales call.
Walking in the door, we had no idea what to expect, other than possibly
meeting with senior personnel. It was a Friday afternoon.
We were shuffled upstairs into a conference room and soon stood toe to
toe with the managing director, the Australian equivalent of an American
CEO. Another person in the room identified himself as the managing di-
rector’s boss, a regional director for the entire Asia/Pacific division. He just
happened to be in town and decided to attend. That was a surprise.
While setting up equipment,
we explained that a number
of topics could be covered
during our meeting time (not
elaborating that more than
500 hours of content await-
ed if they were so inclined).
How much time had they
allotted for this meeting, we
asked. “Oh, maybe a half
hour,” one of them respond-
ed. That information was im-
portant because it allowed us
to quickly frame and priori-
tize the number of topics that Figure 1.2: This screenshot represents a typical
could be covered in the allot- slide we might use during training events and con-
ted amount of time. “Sure,” cept demonstrations. The slide displays an interac-
we responded. “That will be tive design strategy known as Topical Navigation
that you will soon learn. Navigation elements on
fine.”
the left allow us to move dynamically among hun-
dreds of available slides. During this slide selection
Two and a half hours later, we process, the navigation components remain fixed in
finally walked out the door. place, even while desired content choices fade into
view at right.
22. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
8
They certainly were interested in the topics and wanted to see far more de-
tail than we anticipated showing. As it turned out, they had just started re-
structuring their regional sales presentation materials before meeting with
us, a fact we didn’t know in advance. Those circumstances, along with the
relaxed Friday afternoon time slot, facilitated an extended exploratory ses-
sion that caught us by surprise. We anticipated a relatively short presen-
tation initially, but fortunately were prepared for whatever the situation
demanded: a 5-minute overview, a 30-minute discussion, or a 2-hour free
for all.
Those executives had also noticed the shift in plans. Never before had they
seen such a flexible use of presentation technology and decided they want-
ed their sales team to be empowered with a similar competitive advantage.
Those stories, and many others, inspired the book you are reading. Al-
though these experiences likely differ from yours in specific details—not
many of us end up facing down a billion-dollar military proposal—chanc-
es are you found yourself thinking, “Hmm. That sounds kind of familiar.
I’ve been in circumstances like that.”
We speakers who use digital presentation as a regular part of sales, consul-
tation, and leadership activities find ourselves in complex, unpredictable
predicaments all the time. What we think will happen usually doesn’t go
quite as planned, or we end up needing content that was never anticipated.
Facts assumed to be true frequently evaporate before our very eyes.
We long for agility in such moments. In a perfect world, our presentation
technology would support rapid, nimble responses that allow us to dance
with the swirling dynamics of customer dialogues. If such presentation
materials could morph into a fighter jet, we would be able to flick a control
stick to send all that informational power careening in new directions, ac-
cording to viewer input.
That would be nice. Unfortunately, most organizational presentations fall
way short of a fighter jet metaphor. They are more like a bowling ball plow-
ing straight down an alley, whacking the customer senseless with lists of
fixed assumptions and proposed solutions.
23. Chapter 1: The Quest for Flexibility
9
This Book’s Purpose
This book is designed to challenge existing presentation paradigms and
empower presenters with a new way of approaching audiences. In par-
ticular, we focus on changing sales presentations, and look at the various
ways sales professionals use interactive presentation media to their benefit.
However, that doesn’t mean you nonsales types are out of luck. If your job
description doesn’t involve direct selling and you are reading this book out
of curiosity, that’s great. The same concepts can significantly enhance your
persuasive potential, as well, if simply adapted appropriately. As the say-
ing goes, we all sell something: leaders sell vision, trainers sell expertise,
and motivators sell hope. There’s something here for everyone.
Even so, you may want to check out Aspire’s more general presentation
handbook, Relational Presentation: A Visually Interactive Approach, for more
interactive presentation concepts (see Chapter 15).
What You’ll Learn
The journey from here can be summed up in a single word: adaptability. It’s
time to begin transforming the way customers experience and interact with
our computerized messages.
What they see and hear must be highly relevant to their interests and
needs, and that only happens when we are able to adapt visual messaging
strategies on the fly. Molding value propositions to the understandings
and contexts of the people we face is an important part of sales success.
Oh sure, making that kind of adaptability possible takes some work and
usually requires a pretty significant change of mindset. You’ll be tearing
apart those static, linear sales presentations your organization provides
and turning them into a highly versatile platform, with random access to
hundreds, maybe even thousands, of individual ideas.
24. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
10
We guarantee, too, that you don’t have to be a computer geek to pull off a
transition to visually interactive presentation. It’s easier than most people
realize. Plus, upcoming chapters walk you step by step through the process
so that you’ll be a pro in no time!
Best of all, you won’t need any additional software beyond PowerPoint. It
already contains an enormous amount of built-in functionality most speak-
ers have never heard of and works well for everything you’ll need to do.
We also chose PowerPoint because many people already have Microsoft
Office (the software suite containing PowerPoint) installed on their com-
puter. You probably already have it on yours.
If preferred, you can use Keynote, Impress, or like software instead, al-
though we’re not sure if every technique discussed here will work exactly
the same as it does in PowerPoint. Some experimentation with alternative
strategies might be necessary. All instructions and illustrations in this book
apply directly only to operations in PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007.
And getting back to that change of mindset, here’s what we mean: Soon
your performances—those sales calls, conference speeches, and organiza-
tional updates—will feel a lot less like giving a presentation and transition
into having a visual conversation with viewers. The distinction between the
two phrases is subtle, yet important.
Giving a presentation implies that you are the one controlling the agenda,
basically delivering a one-way lecture that audience members are expected
to listen to in silence and passively absorb. Having a visual conversation,
on the other hand, suggests active, two-way communication—a partner-
ship between presenter and viewers that strives for participation and mu-
tual understandings.
The latter description is especially important to sales because sales encoun-
ters usually are intimate affairs—you and a few other individuals convers-
ing around a conference table or in a café. Such an atmosphere is naturally
conducive to conversation, not lecture. Those of us who charge into op-
portunities with fixed agendas, fixed slide shows, and fixed assumptions
(hell-bent to deliver our value propositions) invite failure from the very
beginning.
25. Chapter 1: The Quest for Flexibility
11
Opening up exploratory dialogue sets an entirely different tone. You don’t
have to give up control of an encounter entirely. Just relax it a little.
Let the conversation flow but listen to your audience. They’ll help guide
the conversation, and your visual presentation, allowing you to identify
their interests and needs and to give them only appropriate viable solu-
tions—both verbally and visually. And you won’t waste anybody’s time.
Don’t be surprised when you become a distinctive as well as a welcome
salesperson.
26. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
12
Rock Aronheim is the quintessential salesman. He owns Doogies, a throw-
back ‘50s eatery in Newington, Connecticut. In less than five minutes with
him you’ll hear mouthwatering descriptions of his world’s longest hotdog (16
inches) and the best cheese steak outside of Philly.
But Rock lives a dual life. Several months out of the year, he leaves behind
his beloved wife of 40 years, packs up a team of sales people, and travels
to other cities where he liquidates furniture. Have you ever been to one of
those huge sales where a furniture company clears its entire inventory at
rock-bottom prices? Probably Rock was there, coordinating the event. In
fact, he has been in furniture sales most of his life.
Rock doesn’t use digital presentation and probably wouldn’t know a Power-
Point slide if it bit him on the ankle, but he sure knows sales. So we asked
him to share a sales story or two for this book. Two hours later we were still
writing notes. Of the stories he told, you’ll find our favorite preceding the
next chapter. Rock said something particularly interesting during the inter-
view that has profound implications for you as a reader. He emphasized the
point several times, even without knowledge of what we would be writing
about on upcoming pages.
He said, “When a customer comes in the door, the mistake most sales people
make is to start selling right away with a comment like ‘Can I help
you find something?’ or ‘What are you folks looking for today?’ His
”
approach is more subtle; he introduces himself and
then says, “Would you like to browse?”
That freedom to browse and exert some con-
trol over the sales encounter puts people
at ease and helps Rock follow up later with
soft sell techniques such as stories and an-
ecdotes when they begin showing inter-
est in particular products.
You can do the same thing—dig-
itally! By the end of this book,
you will be empowered with
similar possibilities that warm
up buyers as they essentially
browse through your interactive
presentation materials.
28. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
14
The Realities Salespeople Face
We’ve noticed over the years that a large number of salespeople (along
with consultants and executives) hate PowerPoint with an almost religious
zeal. They use it but more as a necessary evil than a valued tool. If pressed
for an explanation of why, they complain about having to look at end-
less bullet points, say that such performances are boring, or wince at the
thought of nervous presenters flicking that ridiculous little red light all
over the screen. No arguments from our side; we agree with their opinions
wholeheartedly.
It’s quite likely, though, that a far more destructive (and less-often men-
tioned) factor lurks under the surface, stoking dislike into white-hot pas-
sion. Let’s face it: The standard way of using PowerPoint—a strictly linear
movement from slide to slide from the beginning of a presentation to its
bitter end—forces people to be lecturers rather than conversationalists. They
simply cannot interact with people in a normal human-to-human way
while stuck inside fixed sequences of bullet lists, animations, and slides.
That’s a HUGE problem for salespeople. As soon as their projector light
hits the screen, any pretense of casual dialogue pretty much goes out the
window. Those informal chats around the conference table turn into “I’m
pulling out my computer now. So all of you just sit there and shut up for the
next 30 minutes while I plow through my 25-slide canned spiel.” It destroys
the collaborative atmosphere we try so desperately to create with customers.
Amazingly, organizations all around the world actually encourage, and
sometimes mandate, such horrific sales presentation behavior. They give
sales team members a master corporate presentation bulging with care-
fully laid out and scripted company history, who we are, where we’re heading,
products and services, value to the customer, success rates, and blah, blah, blah.
These master shows usually contain somewhere between 25 to 35 slides,
packed full of bullet points from top to bottom. They can be larger. We’ve
seen them come in with a whopping 100 or more slides!
Company representatives are expected to cover all the topics in the show
(or as many as they can before being thrown out on their heels) by advanc-
ing through the materials from beginning to end, just like everyone else.
29. Chapter 2: Changing the Paradigm
15
The only problem is … taking one of these exquisitely crafted masterpieces
into a real-life sales situation usually doesn’t work.
The prospect you are meeting with today probably couldn’t care less about
your company’s history, its accomplishments, the clients you’ve worked
with, or whatever situations you’ve identified as problems needing to be
fixed. He is struggling with a pressing issue you don’t even know exists yet
and is wondering if you have the solution.
How are you going to immediately address his interests when the slide
needed is somewhere around the middle of your show? Let’s see, was it
slide 22, 25, or maybe 30? Even worse, often that slide is in another show
entirely, either somewhere on your computer or, heaven forbid, back at the
office.
Usually, it’s right about at this point when most sales professionals think,
“Oh, heck with this!” and abandon their presentation materials in favor of
verbal-only discussions. The prospect’s facial expression basically says it
all: “Don’t waste my time lecturing through your spiel. Let me ask a couple
questions and determine if our time together is worth pursuing.”
Wouldn’t it be nice if he really could ask those questions—any questions—
followed by your answer of, “Sure. Let me show you something you might
find interesting.”
I [Robert] once had an
interesting conversa-
tion with a sales man-
ager between sessions
at a conference. She
had just watched my
demonstrations on in-
teractive delivery and
still wasn’t convinced.
“Yeah,” she said, “but
you don’t understand.
We don’t just give our
people stock presenta-
tions and expect them
to blindly use those
materials. Our sales
Figure 2.1
30. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
16
staff thoroughly researches leads to get a sense of how things are done,
how much they are paying, the scope of their budgets, what their biggest
needs are, and so forth. Why do we need the kind of flexibility you are talk-
ing about when we already know our market very well?”
Her logic sounded good on the surface, but she had missed the essence
of just about everything presented during the talk. Sales success involves
more than just plugging facts into equations and making sure everything
comes out right at the other end. It’s a living, evolving relationship that
often requires quick thinking and changes of plans.
Good salespeople certainly do prepare, practice, and strive to understand
the unique variables affecting their territories. At the same time, they rarely
control those variables. Anything can change at any moment, or facts may
have been misinterpreted.
How do we know for sure whom we will face during any given meeting,
how much time they will have for us that day, the extent of their knowl-
edge about our key topics, or what kinds of internal politics may be raging
inside their organization at the moment? Maybe last week you made an
appointment with Suzy Q. Johnson in purchasing, but upon arrival dis-
cover that Suzy Q. called in sick this morning and Bubba Rockford from
marketing is covering her appointments instead. Whatever planning you
did up to this point now faces a different set of variables, and the agenda
may require fine-tuning or a complete makeover. Sometimes we just don’t
know in advance what’s going to happen.
I [Andre] found myself in just such an awkward situation a few years ago,
back before I began using interactive presentation strategies. I arrived for a
scheduled one-hour meeting with the human resources manager at one of
Australia’s major petroleum companies. This was my first meaningful con-
tact with them, the proverbial foot in the door. The plan was to discuss the
firm’s sales recruitment process. Certainly I had my detailed linear Power-
Point show in hand, for what was supposed to be an informal meeting with
only this person—and certainly I had thought a lot about what he needed
to hear.
As soon as I walked into his office, I sensed trouble brewing. The room con-
tained five people, instead of just one. My HR manager contact proceeded
31. Chapter 2: Changing the Paradigm
17
to enthusiastically introduce me to his unexpected guests, including the
general manager of sales, a psychologist HR consultant, the firm’s call cen-
ter manager, and—of all people—the CEO! His guests happened to hear
about the meeting just that morning and were curious about individual
issues related to their job responsibilities. All of a sudden my simple, ca-
sual talk turned into a full-blown sales demonstration, addressing multiple
competing interests and perspectives. Those careful, late-night prepara-
tions for this meeting subsequently evaporated into thin air.
Five minutes into the talk, the psychologist interjected that another meet-
ing was coming up and he had “just a few quick questions” to ask. Of
course, my slide show didn’t contain appropriate answers to his issues, or,
in some cases, slides sat somewhere 30 transitions away. Other attendees
soon asked questions, as well, and a discussion ensued. The GM of sales
wanted to know to what extent previous projects had increased sales rev-
enues. The HR manager hoped to explore the candidate testing process,
and the call center lady was wondering how all this related to her call cen-
ter environment. Over the next hour, most of my PowerPoint content sat
worthless and unused before me because I couldn’t properly adjust it to
the rapidly changing situation.
That meeting, and others like it, set me on a mission to find better ways of
using media in sales situations. Careful advance planning obviously was
important, but that didn’t mean I had to settle for feeling trapped within
those preparations during sales calls.
Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan once said of the former Soviet
Union, “Trust, but verify.” In the same way, savvy sales professionals trust
their experience and preparations—to an extent—and then go on to further
probe and analyze circumstances while meeting with customers. On-the-
spot information can be highly valuable.
Converting Sales Presentations
to Sales Conversations
Here’s an analogy that explores traditional PowerPoint use (and problems
associated therewith) from a different angle: Imagine you and a friend
meet regularly in a café for conversation. Discussion topics meander ran-
domly through many subjects: politics, movies, relationships, vacations,
and whatever else comes to mind in the moment.
32. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
18
Then one day you get a bright idea. Wouldn’t it be cool to add visual ele-
ments to those spontaneous conversations—pictures, video clips, charts,
statistics and the like? That would greatly enrich the café experience be-
cause you could show snippets of favorite movies, pictures taken during
trips, and many other details that go beyond verbal description. Naturally,
PowerPoint comes to mind, considering that it’s easy to use and handles
visual media well. So you and your friend decide to bring computers to
the next rendezvous, complete with long, comprehensive slide shows that
guide discussions and predict all the topics likely to be discussed, in the
right order.
You probably already can see the oncoming train wreck. When the two of
you meet and pull out your machines, what will happen to the conversa-
tion? You both planned your linear shows with great detail, and you pretty
much know how the other person thinks. So, theoretically, the conversa-
tion should proceed smoothly.
It doesn’t. Invariably, some of the topics you thought surely she would
want to address are not in her show at all. A few topics are the same but are
not in the same order or contain either more or less detail than you like. In
other words, it is utterly impossible for the two of you to go through your
Figure 2.2: A lovely little café in southern Belize.
33. Chapter 2: Changing the Paradigm
19
respective presentations simultaneously and have any kind of meaningful
encounter. The prepared agendas vary too much across several fronts.
Two options are possible: Either you’ll agree to watch only one of the slide
shows at a time and let that author control the “discussion” accordingly,
or you’ll abandon the slide shows altogether and have a normal, spontane-
ous, verbal conversation.
Neither scenario is ideal. Isn’t that exactly what happens during interac-
tions with prospects and customers? Either we dominate their time with
our planned agenda, or we abandon our potentially helpful presentation
materials in favor of real interactions with those folks, all of whom prob-
ably have agendas different from ours.
Fortunately, you don’t have to make a choice between the two extremes
because a better option combines the best of both. You can have your con-
versation and show it, too! Fixing the problem is quite straightforward
and doesn’t involve dumping PowerPoint. On the contrary, the only thing
you’ll be throwing away is that strictly linear attitude most people harbor.
Pause for a moment to rethink our visual café conversation. What if we
re-engineered the two comprehensive, long slide shows by first dividing
them into little pieces, and then arranging those pieces into descriptive cat-
egories? We could even go a step further by subsequently adding random
access to every single slide within all the categories. When finished, we
would be able to quickly find and access any slide in the show, from any
slide in the show.
What would that do to our casual discussion? Well, for one thing, we
wouldn’t necessarily need to start with the first slide in the show anymore.
Either conversational partner could start a discussion with any slide, in
any category, at any time. Furthermore, we wouldn’t have to show all the
slides in the show just because they’re there. Maybe you planned an exten-
sive diatribe on the latest United Nations scandal, but your friend quickly
bores of the topic and wants to talk about her latest shopping experience
at the mall. No problem. Skip the rest of the slides in the politics category
(or quickly sneak in one that’s further down the line, in hopes of renewing
interest).
Actually, there’s no need to follow any fixed discussion at all on some oc-
casions. If a topic arises that neither of you anticipated—that isn’t repre-
34. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
20
sented in either of your slide shows—temporarily set the visual compo-
nents aside and come back to them later. After all, once slides are available
for random selection as described, they are like visual words that can be
added to a discussion at any moment, or just as easily ignored. That’s the
kind of adjustability salespeople crave and is exactly where you are head-
ing in chapters ahead.
Imagine having such flexibility during a sales call and being able to change
message focus instantly, according to a prospect’s needs and interests. Few
would argue with the fact that tailored interaction is the essence of good
salesmanship and superior customer relations. There’s absolutely no rea-
son why a computer should be allowed to steal that away from you.
What You’re Getting Yourself Into
On the other hand, we should mention one more tiny thing: Mastering
such adjustability and flexibility has relatively little to do, ultimately, with
your computer skills. Other factors are more important.
Certainly the techniques you will be learning revolve around digital pre-
sentation—knowing how to get the most out of what you show to viewers.
At the same time, this book is not merely a help manual for PowerPoint.
Becoming visually interactive with customers and colleagues is a much
deeper process that goes way beyond throwing pictures on slides and add-
ing hyperlinks. In a sense, it’s a quest to digitize your brain and capture
how it responds to rapidly changing circumstances.
Soon you’ll begin contemplating the complexities of your selling environ-
ment at a level beyond what you’ve ever done before. We’ll provide guid-
ance during that process, but only you can work through the specifics.
Those contemplations then must be organized into efficient patterns. If
your café friend asks to see pictures from the rain forest part of your trip
to Costa Rica, you better have organizational logic in place that helps you
instantly locate the relevant slides.
Without a doubt, eventually you’ll need to get down to the nitty-gritty of
building your PowerPoint platform, but that’s still not the end of the jour-
ney. Learning how to use that presentation-based tool effectively is a fas-
35. Chapter 2: Changing the Paradigm
21
cinating experience all
on its own.
The journey ahead is
like striving to become
fluent in a new lan-
guage—a visually dy-
namic sales language.
During discussions,
you will navigate
within collections of
reusable content as if
rolling words off your
tongue to match situa-
tions faced. Your ver-
bal words will be laced
with visual examples, Figure 2.3: Hardy explorers get ready to cruise through the
analogies, metaphors, steamy treetops of a Costa Rican rain forest on a long zip line.
comparison-contrasts,
and picture stories.
Your whole way of
thinking about digital
delivery must morph
into a connection be-
tween human and
machine. Rather than
merely building a slide
show for a perfor-
mance next week, the
first question you’ll ask
yourself is, “How can
this upcoming perfor-
mance make use of my
permanent reservoir
of visual sales strate-
gies that have evolved
gradually over the
last few months—or
years.?” Eventually,
you’ll discover that any Figure 2.4: Oh my! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
36. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
22
given performance requires very little content creation because of all the
reusable components from past performances.
That’s when everything changes and you start exploring the secrets Paul
discovered, the same secrets that eventually engulfed and hooked Mark
as well. Both realized that selling is not a simple process reduced to a few
abstract formulas, glib phrases, or proverbial sales pitches. Rather, it is
a complex set of actions and reactions, a living, interconnected jungle of
ever-changing value propositions, egos, human dynamics, technology fac-
tors, coincidences and luck. In other words, the selling process is a messy,
evolving system, just like weather patterns, ecosystems, our bodies, and
the birth of galaxies. Countless variables exert influences on (and are influ-
enced by) countless other variables. Learning how to adjust to that chaos,
with powerfully visual, on-demand sales materials, dramatically improves
your chances of success. That’s what you are getting yourself into.
Of course, some of you already are racing ahead with thoughts of an even
higher-level application. If an individual can wield so much power using
an interactive presentation-based platform, why not build structures that
span entire sales teams or departments? That way, multiple people might
benefit from the same materials, either separately or in tandem. At that
point visually interactive presentation would become an organizational
norm and usher in a new level of media efficiency.
Such enterprise-level applications certainly are possible, with a few extra
variables considered. In this book, however, we’ll pretty much stick with
the simpler route of getting an individual platform in place. The larger
scope can happen later.
37. Chapter 2: Changing the Paradigm
23
Figure 2.5: During the building activities in Section 2, we’ll start with a
template like this and build what is known as a platform shell—basically
an intricately linked collection of slides within a single slide show. After
completing the shell, we’ll add content to the individual slides, within cat-
egories that match your presentation contexts.
38. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
24
Thirty years ago, Rock Aronheim worked the showroom of an upscale fur-
niture retail store. The items for sale were high quality, and their prices re-
flected it. Only discriminating (and presumably wealthy) customers shopped
in this establishment.
One day a couple walked in. They milled around the floor area for awhile,
not focusing on any item in particular. They eventually, however, settled in
front of two lamps.
These were not your ordinary lamps. Each cost $400, and $400 back then
was a heck of a lot more money than it is today. The couple milled around a
bit more, but the woman kept gravitating back toward those lamps.
That gave Rock a clear buying signal, and he struck up a conversation in his
usual jovial manner. Yes, she really liked those lamps, but she just couldn’t
make up her mind which one to get. They both were one-of-a-kind and
uniquely beautiful. What a tough choice. First she would decide to buy one
and then the other, and then back to the other again. Her indecision went
on and on.
Of course, Rock was a commissioned sales representative back then, and he
knew that spending so much time with this particular customer prevented
him from meeting others who might pay several thousand dollars
for a new dining room set or sofa collection. He needed to push her
to a decision point, but couldn’t think of a graceful
way of telling her, “Come on, lady. They’re both perfect
for you. Just pick one for crying out loud.” Right
about then, the idea hit—more as a joke out of
frustration than anything else.
He said, “You know what you should do?
Why don’t you take both of them? You
can have one for spring and summer
and the other for fall and win-
ter.”
Her face lit up, and she prompt-
ly bought both lamps without
another thought!
40. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
26
We’re almost ready to jump into the hands-on building components of Sec-
tion 2, an experience we think you’ll find rewarding on many fronts. Before
doing so, though, let’s take a moment to explore the benefits that go with
these new presentation strategies—the what’s in it for me and my organiza-
tion part of the process. That way you’ll have a clear sense of your well-
deserved return on investment. Think of the benefits outlined here as your
competitive advantage. More than likely, the competition doesn’t yet know
what you will be learning.
Expanded Vocabulary
Earlier we mentioned that breaking down large sales presentations into
bite-sized chunks essentially adds to your vocabulary—your visual vocab-
ulary. Here’s what that really means:
What we show people tends to be far more impactful and memorable than
what we tell them. That’s because our ability to perceive, interpret, and re-
member visual information goes way back to very ancient times.
The brain is wired at the deepest levels to seek out such stimuli. We learned
how to visually recognize food items, lurking danger, potential mates, and
sources of power much, much earlier than the invention of spoken and
written language.
The implication is that if you want people to fully understand and better
remember what’s being sold, and its importance, your messages should
be as meaningfully visual as possible. Answering questions or handling
objections through verbal information alone is not enough.
The only way to reliably enable such visual expression during spontaneous
interactions is to have all your ideas separated onto individual slides, and
then provide instant access to every slide. In a sense, the platform being
built is like a repository of visual words, allowing you to augment spoken
vocabulary and typed text with another deeply meaningful form of com-
munication. Once dynamic selection of graphical content mixes smoothly
with verbal expression, you reach an admirable state known as visual flu-
ency.
41. Chapter 3: What’s in It for You
27
Power and Simplicity
Your interactive sales platform will be created with PowerPoint, in part
because so many people already have the software installed on their com-
puter. But there’s also another reason: PowerPoint strikes an excellent bal-
ance between potent functionality and simple, intuitive design. It has ev-
erything needed to form the kind of robust, versatile tool you need, but at
the same time is extremely easy to use.
That ease of use benefits you in countless ways. Once you’ve mastered
the core design techniques of upcoming chapters, making changes to your
materials, and adding new components later, will be practically effortless.
Of course, in theory you potentially could build similar communication
strategies using other software applications such as Adobe Acrobat or even
Web authoring programs … but why? Nothing matches PowerPoint’s sleek
combination of power and simplicity. It does what it does very well, and
that allows you to spend less time wrestling with technical design issues
and more time doing what you do best—selling and persuading.
Professional Appearance
Most presentation materials found in organizations today have two com-
mon characteristics: They are boring to watch, and they are ugly.
These quickly produced, low quality, bullet-point-filled, clip-art-infested
monstrosities typically are made for single performances only, and then
thrown away afterwards. Little attention is given to aesthetic quality or
visual effect. After all, who would put a lot of time into building something
that soon will be discarded and forgotten anyway?
Not surprisingly, most PowerPoint performances suffer from a lack of pro-
fessionalism as a result. Sure, the backgrounds may look pretty, but every-
one knows that overall presentation materials have little more value than a
plastic bag soon to hit the rubbish bin.
42. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
28
What you are about to build is different. Your slides will be worthy of far
more quality, more time, and more resources because of their reusability.
You are not creating a throwaway presentation.
Most of the content added to your platform should be generic enough to
span numerous events and a wide variety of audiences. In other words,
you’ll build your slides to represent core ideas that are communicated over
and over again. You’ll build those slides well, using meaningful pictures,
attractive graphics, descriptive video, and so forth.
If you follow such guidelines and treat your presentation platform with
the same respect that would be given to a high-quality Web site, television
commercial, or computer-based training program, then you can approach
customers with confidence, knowing that your ideas project a professional
appearance.
Differentiation: Standing out
from the Crowd
As sales professionals, we constantly search for ways of distinguishing
ourselves from competitors. We promise greater value, higher quality, bet-
ter service or superior solutions—all in the interest of looking different and
attracting notice.
Being visually interactive with prospects and customers will certainly get
you noticed. Probably these individuals have never seen the kind of visual
customer service you will be able to provide.
The categorized nature of your new materials alone will distinguish you
from your competitors. Plus, the less cluttered nature of your slides will
communicate information in more effective, visually stimulating ways,
even while everyone else continues with the same monotonous presenta-
tion designs that have been around for the past 20 years.
You alone will be able to coordinate what you show to what you say in the
midst of answering random questions and probing customer motivations.
Leave your viewers thinking, “Wow. That was different.”
43. Chapter 3: What’s in It for You
29
Tailored Solutions
Being able to steer visual messages in various directions, according to cus-
tomer interests and needs, benefits both buyer and seller. It helps the buyer
better understand a seller’s value propositions because they see only what
is relevant to their situation, rather than being distracted or bored by irrel-
evant material. It helps the seller by cutting down on guesswork and mind
reading. There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying something to the
effect of, “Here are the three products or services we have available that
might work well in your situation. I’ll give you a quick overview of each,
and you can tell me which one seems most applicable. We’ll look at that
one in more detail.”
In a tailored-presentation context, buyers become participants in the sell-
ing process rather than simply targets. They get to explore the possibilities
you present, and then focus on the most interesting or promising options.
Such exploration helps you discover interests and pain points you didn’t
even know they had, along with appropriate upselling opportunities.
Shorter Sales Cycles and Higher
Sales Conversion Ratios
Focusing attention on underlying customer needs during sales interactions
helps you build better long-term relationships, resulting in faster sales con-
versions, increased sales revenues, and higher profit margins. Think about
it. If you were on the receiving end of a sales pitch, would you prefer a
canned spiel that rambles on about everything the salesperson considers
important or a chance to get right to the point, looking at specific solutions
you find intriguing?
Most of us have a reasonably good idea of what might improve our organi-
zation’s performance, especially after seeing a number of competing offers.
We don’t need to hear a slick sales pitch. What we do want is a problem
solver, someone who takes the time to understand our situation and part-
ner with us as a trusted business advisor. We crave a person who truly has
our best interests in mind, or at least is willing to adjust his or her priorities
to better meet ours.
44. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
30
It’s that kind of individual who is likely to receive our confidence and
investment, if for no other reason than we feel more comfortable during
the decision-making process. We might even be willing to pay a premium
price for his or her solutions, or offer more long-term buyer loyalty as a
reward for such customer-focused professionalism.
Multiuser Capabilities
If your interactive presentation materials eventually expand to service mul-
tiple people, a whole world of potential awaits. For example, you might
create several categories of information that are universally usable by ev-
eryone on a sales team, and then allow each of those people to add their
own customized categories, addressing particular accounts or regions.
Similarly, you might create little packets of interlinked slides that any pre-
senter can add to his or her platform at any time. A hospital, for example,
would give all their doctors a base platform that contains universal content,
and then allow them to pick and choose additional information packets
they want—perhaps various branches of anatomy, pathology, nutrition,
exercise, or whatever. Adding one of these packets to anyone’s platform
requires only seconds, using a single hyperlink.
Brand Management and Quality Control
After months of uncertainty, you’ve made up your mind … well, almost.
Maybe you’re going to have that cosmetic surgery after all. You’ve seen the
TV advertisement for a well-known surgeon portraying beautiful imagery,
before and after shots highlighting the transformation you want. Driving
to the shopping mall, you see a glamorous billboard from the same doc-
tor, offering an identical value proposition that promises to transform you
overnight into a more beautiful person.
You decide this cosmetic surgeon may be the one for you and contact her
for an exploratory consultation. Upon arrival you notice that the facilities
are modern, very clean, and calming music is playing in the background—
just as you would expect from a professional organization. Staff members
are attentive, smiling, and courteous, and they are wearing the same style
45. Chapter 3: What’s in It for You
31
medical uniforms shown during the commercial and on the billboard. The
waiting room colors are the same, too. The cosmetic surgeon appears, and
you are similarly impressed by her charm and professional demeanor. Fi-
nally, you are hooked.
The transition to a yes decision didn’t happen by accident. All along the
way, your impressions were carefully scripted and managed, so that you
felt as comfortable and confident as possible going under the knife with
this particular surgeon.
That is branding. Companies often spend millions to micromanage every
detail of such branding and customer experiences: colors, logos, mottos,
imagery, atmosphere, staff behavior, procedures and more.
With stunning frequency, however, they neglect applying the same brand-
ing rigor and quality control to their sales presentations. Employees some-
times receive a blank PowerPoint template featuring company colors and
logos, but that’s about it. Few go on to offer enterprise-wide communica-
tions strategies accompanying the template, or otherwise guide the presen-
tation activities of company representatives.
Salespeople in such situations often end up designing their own sales pre-
sentations, with minimal organizational input, coaching, or supervision.
That’s a shame for several reasons. Many of us have mediocre or poor design
skills (it’s not our specialty) and, therefore, have no business creating content
that represents our firm’s brand. Also, most of us don’t even know about, or
care about, such branding strategies, nor do we have a clear sense of what
presentation materials other people in the organization are making and pre-
senting—how they express the company’s branding elements and values.
This situation changes when an interactive sales platform evolves to the
enterprise level and begins to guide an entire sales force. Then, customers
experience clear, consistent, high-quality branding elements, regardless of
whom they interact with and irrespective of which day they see any given
presentation.
At the same time, individual speakers retain full freedom to leverage their
unique personality and industry knowledge, in a way that best satisfies
individual customer requirements. They benefit from the wisdom of the
entire force—and the graphic design skills of someone trained to be in that
position—while sacrificing little individual decision-making.
46. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
32
Content Management
Most organizations have thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of
PowerPoint slide shows scattered all over the place. Possibly, any of those
shows, or slides within the shows, might be valuable to someone, some-
where. A slide built in Singapore last month might be usable by a staff
member in Melbourne, Hong Kong, or New York next month, if only those
people knew of its existence.
Finding, organizing, and leveraging those valuable far-flung resources (at
least the most important ones) is the holy grail of your future endeavors,
especially if elevating the interactive platform to an enterprise level. Basi-
cally, you will be creating a potentially stunning visual database full of
hundreds, possibly thousands, of randomly displayable topics that address
every foreseeable company offering and probable customer need. Your ef-
forts will produce a content management system full of vitally important
slides that are neatly categorized, arranged, and readied for action.
Sales Training Platform
We’ve noticed that people easily overlook a hugely useful benefit associat-
ed with reusable presentation platforms. The same interactive components
that allow you to answer questions, handle objections, and craft solutions
in front of customers can have a secondary purpose as well. They make an
ideal training tool for new sales professionals and other company present-
ers.
Your organized content categories are like a blueprint of the firm’s corpo-
rate culture and intellectual property. The platform can be a great training
tool to induct and road-test new sales and marketing recruits, as well as a
valuable coaching framework for developing effective speaking skills.
By navigating around inside the platform’s categories, trainees learn the
company’s brand values and practice critical methods of visual expression.
The content they see stimulates learning in an organized way, while they
learn about the firm’s capabilities and selling strategies. Definitely consider
using your interactive sales platform in this alternative capacity—as a cost-
effective learning and development tool.
47. Chapter 3: What’s in It for You
33
Design Efficiency
Finally, consider this: Constructing an interactive sales platform requires
a certain amount of upfront commitment and resources on your part, no
doubt about that. However, those efforts pay big dividends later. After the
core structure full of frequently used content slides is in place, prepara-
tions for future performances become very efficient. Much needed content,
in that case, already exists somewhere in the platform and is ready for
display at any time, with any audience. There’s no need to build a presen-
tation for each new event.
The process becomes exponentially more efficient at the enterprise level
because individuals aren’t wasting their own time developing separate sets
of core presentation materials. The core is built once, and then distributed
to all. Individuals then add on supplementary content they need for spe-
cific contexts.
To emphasize the point, consider this story a customer recently shared:
“I hired Cliff to help develop high-dollar new business opportunities for
my company,” Susan told us.
“For the most part, he was reasonably competent and successful at his
tasks. I guess you could say he typified the normal business development
professional found in most firms.”
At one point Susan and Cliff began preparing a sales presentation for a
high-stakes contract worth approximately $500,000 per annum.
“For two solid weeks prior to the scheduled meeting day, Cliff sat at his
desk, eyes glued to the screen of his laptop, designing our PowerPoint
sales presentation,” Susan continued. “On the last day before the meeting,
he came to my office, holding his laptop up in the air with both hands and
proudly proclaiming ‘The sales presentation is done!’
“He gave me a dry run of the slide show. It was a decent effort and reason-
ably attractive, although heavily bullet-pointed. At the show’s end, Cliff
looked to me for approval and said ‘What do you think? Do you like it?’
48. A Different Look at Sales Presentations
34
“Yeah, I guess I liked it; it was kind of OK, except for the fact Cliff had
spent nearly two working weeks redesigning our stock corporate sales
presentation that was available to everyone from the sales library on the
company intranet. He proudly told me how he had customized it, to in-
clude fancy animations, GIF images, slide transitions and a screenshot of
the firm’s company logo on each slide. Well, overall, I’d have to say that it
came across rather amateurish, really.”
Worse still, Cliff really believed it looked great; he resisted constructive
feedback Susan gave him and reacted defensively to every recommenda-
tion she made. For some inexplicable reason, he was convinced that add-
ing fancy PowerPoint functionality somehow made their proposal more
irresistible. Apparently Cliff’s ego wouldn’t take kindly to Sharon messing
with his carefully crafted little jewel.
Says Sharon, “We did go on, in fact, to win the deal—our sales pitch was
successful. In reality, though, I doubt Cliff’s flying bullet points had much
to do with our success. Perhaps our competitors had a sales presentation
that looked and sounded worse than ours. Who knows. At any rate, I re-
member thinking at the time, ‘what a waste of productivity, spending so
much time basically adding fluff.’ ”
Every firm has tens, hundreds, or maybe even thousands of Cliffs. The
overlooked loss of productivity associated with these individuals design-
ing and producing their own PowerPoint presentations for every perfor-
mance is enormous. The hidden costs must be frightening.
Their talents could be put to better use, especially if spending more time
in front of customers. Taking steps to establish a permanent, reusable plat-
form that evolves over time is a far more cost-effective strategy.
49. Chapter 3: What’s in It for You
35
Feature
Keeping a company’s sales force happy, healthy, and productive is not an easy
task. In fact, it requires a certain level of insanity even to try. Fortunately, the
world has people like Richard and Vicki Forrest around. They run Alterant Strate-
gies Group, Inc., a sales consulting firm that helps the rest of us mere mortals
make sense of our company’s complex sales dynamics.
Richard called one day to discuss how visually interactive presentation techniques
might augment their work with clients, where they teach everything from pros-
pecting and proposal-writing skills to presentation techniques and team selling. It
didn’t take long before he saw a perfect fit and dove into Aspire’s workshop ses-
sions. Within a week, he and Vicki were busily building a whole new side of their
sales-coaching activities.
Richard explains, “What’s nice is that we now use the strengths of interactive
presentation techniques in two ways. They help us teach sales principles and
methods to clients, and likewise give us a convenient way of representing our
own services to prospects. Before going the interactive route, we pretty much did
the same thing as everyone else, delivering our value propositions while work-
ing through 30 sequential slides. Not anymore. Now ideas bubble up naturally in
the course of problem identification and solutions development. Our presentation
materials act as a support system that we move around in as needed.
“What we realized, too, is that having all our valuable content categorized in such
a professional, flexible way differentiated us from the other suits-with-briefcases
standing in the hall trying to get the business. We stood out. That fact further
improved our credibility because
people could see firsthand that we
really did have the knowledge to
help them look different with their
sales activities as well. Presenting
this way in any kind of sales con-
text simply makes common sense
to us.”
Richard & Vicki Forrest
Alterant Strategies Group, Inc.
PH: 909-626-2453
www.alterantstrategies.com
Figure 3.1: Slide courtesy of R. and V. Forrest
51. 37
Making a
Visually
Interactive
Platform
Section 2
52. Making a Visually Interactive Platform
38
Alan has worked most of his career at one of Australia’s leading electrical
retailers. During that time, he has consistently exceeded his retail sales
targets and been awarded entry into their Number 1 Sales Club—an honor
bestowed annually on only a handful of retail sales executives.
Despite his enviable track record, Alan is an unassuming salesperson; some
would even describe his selling style as laid back and relaxed. What’s the
secret of Alan’s success? It certainly doesn’t come from the school of hard
sell, where everyone is seen as a viable sales target. As Alan says himself,
“People want to feel like they can trust you. They don’t like pressure or
having the sense they have been oversold or upsold. Therefore, I try to
downplay the hype and undersell rather than oversell, always acting in the
buyer’s best interests.”
He continues, “Recently a customer came into our showroom looking for a
wall-mounted plasma television. The gentleman had done a lot of research
on the Internet prior to visiting and was pretty much settled on what he
wanted and how much he was prepared to pay. I asked him about the size
of his lounge area and realized right away that the model he was considering
was way too big for that room, considering he lived in a small apartment. It
would be like sitting in the front row of a movie theatre.
“I pointed out this fact and eventually persuaded him to buy a more
compact, less expensive model that saved him $1,500. True, the
advice cost me a couple of hundred dollars in lost
commission, but I acquired a more satisfied and loyal
customer in the end.
“The payback came two months later when
the same customer walked back into the
showroom, now wanting an HD video re-
corder and an uncompromisingly superb
surround sound stereo system. Money
was no object. Interestingly
enough, this time he hadn’t
done any research on the Inter-
net and sought my direct advice
instead. The sale took less than
30 minutes and came in at twice
the price of the original plasma
television.”
53. Chapter 4: An Overview of Your Project
39
Chapter 4
An Overview of
Your Project
54. Making a Visually Interactive Platform
40
Manage Your Project Well
Let’s get started creating your interactive sales platform. During the next
few chapters, we’ll walk through a series of steps that help you map out
your ideal presentation structure—and then build it!
Well, OK. We’ll start building it. In reality, building activities usually ex-
tend over a period of time and never really end, actually. That’s because
the structure you are bringing to life truly is a living creature in a way. It
continues expanding and changing over time as your marketplace evolves
and shifts.
From now on, we’ll refer to your development activities as a project. You
are starting a project, you know, much like designing a Web site, writing a
book, or bringing a new product to market. It’s a substantial endeavor and
should be given necessary respect.
Those of you completing this project on behalf of your firm should con-
sider setting up formal project management procedures, with someone as-
signed to oversee planning, tracking, and implementation. Although we
will be working within the simplicity of PowerPoint, other aspects are not
as simple. Visually organizing your brain, and understanding how to fully
leverage your firm’s assets in the process, is no small task.
It requires a lot of thought. It takes time. Resources and talent are required—
usually both internal and external. It demands commitment, patience, and
not a small amount of methodical persistence. Taking a lackadaisical ap-
proach while moving forward is not an option.
Your Project’s Principle Steps
Assuming the last three paragraphs didn’t scare you off, here’s an over-
view of where we’re heading—a time period that typically spans two to
three months for most people:
Project Analysis. The first critical step looks at im-
portant project logistics that must be considered
55. Chapter 4: An Overview of Your Project
41
before actually building anything in PowerPoint. Such considerations not
only save substantial time down the road, they also provide a much bet-
ter picture of your (or your organization’s) true communication and sales
presentation objectives.
During this first step, you’ll ponder key issues: what presentation situations
you want the platform to address (its purposes), who will build the overall
structure and associated content, who the content experts and presenters
are, how much money is available for the project’s budget, and what mile-
stones and time frames should guide and confine its development.
During this step you ask those BIG questions, exploring why and how the
interactive presentation content will come into being. It’s a careful analysis
of all the people, resources, and project details needed for turning objec-
tives into reality. Equally important, Step 1 also prioritizes those objectives
so that they occur in the proper order.
Content Planning. When all those project parame-
ters are in place and you have permission to move
forward, attention shifts to determining what
kinds of content should fill the platform’s slides. Keep in mind that you’re
not building anything yet. You’re just brainstorming.
The platform eventually can contain whatever content sections you like, of
course, but we definitely are going to do our part to telling you what WE
think they should be. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be anything left to fill the
pages of this book.
Assertive guys that we are, we’ll outline 12 content categories that seem to
work well for most firms, regardless of what you are selling. While reading
through the descriptions of each, you can be thinking to yourself, “Yes, sir.
I need that one” or “No thanks. I’ve got a better idea.”
Content Analysis and Organization. Like most
business professionals, you and your colleagues
probably have a mountain of existing PowerPoint
slides lying dormant somewhere, along with more mountains of potential
content inside filing cabinets and spread across computers. Some of those
slides might be usable right away in your new platform. Other slides can
be included after appropriately modified. Much valuable content probably
doesn’t yet exist in slide format at all and must be created. Sorting through
56. Making a Visually Interactive Platform
42
all that mess to determine what is ready now, what is not, and what must
be built from scratch is the goal of Step 3.
During this step, you’ll gather together all existing slide shows and other
potentially valuable content (pictures, video, documents) and then ana-
lyze that material for relevance. While in front of any given audience, on
any day, in whatever context, what possibly will be needed? What can be
thrown away? Looking at your current content collection, what gaps must
be filled?
Perhaps you’ll find a slide containing five bullet points and decide that
even though it holds valuable information, those bullet points should be
separated onto individual slides and redesigned in a more visual way. By
the end of this process, you’ll have an even better understanding of what
is, or should be, in your overall content arsenal.
Step 3 also entails organizing all that burgeoning content and arranging it
into hierarchically meaningful clusters and branches. And in case you’re
wondering … no. You still haven’t done anything in PowerPoint at this
stage. You’re merely planning what should be built, and how.
The organizational logic put in place during this step is vitally important
because it will allow you to quickly locate relevant content during perfor-
mances. In a sense, you are laying out the platform’s site map, a blueprint
that guides later construction activities.
Here’s a secret, too. Many people conduct Steps 2 and 3 simultaneously, an
approach we recommend.
Customizing the Template. Far be it from us to
make you build all of this interactive wizardry
from scratch. That would be mean. We’re going to
give you a starting template, instead, that has everything needed already
laid out and begging for use.
The only problem is, the template at the moment doesn’t contain your
branding elements and probably doesn’t match your company colors. You
should make those changes before starting the building activities of Step 5.
Waiting until later steps will cost you a lot more work—not a good thing
for job security or sanity.
