When presenting a complex solution, the most effective means of engaging the audience is to create and tell a story that is relevant and is modeled around the prospect’s business.
Most will have a story built around their demo data, for ex. “This is ABC Company and they produce widgets”. ZZZZZZZ…oh sorry…I was just thinking about ABC Company and thier god-forsaken widgets.
The mantra that our teams use for prepping for presentations is “Accurate, Compelling, and Timely“.
Accurate
This sounds obvious but even demo data has to be accurate. If you produced watches and the demo model was wrong are you going to get the sale? Treat all information presented in your presentation with the same care that the prospect would treat their live data.
Compelling
If you have a solution that can not be customized on a per presentation basis, at least have examples ready to go that are very relevant to the prospect. Example, “<PROSPECT>, so lets discuss how your team would use our workflow to publish out a press release to your website. ”
The one thing that is actually more compelling than talking about the prospect, is talking about the prospects main competitors. When our team presented our web content management system to a large private equity firm, we went out to their three top competitor’s sites – captured some screens and pointed out flaws in their sites. Then knowing the systems they used, we explained the specific advantages that our system would deliver and the advantages that would provide them over their competition.
Timely
Keep your presentations, demos, and sample data timely. If your “current” information is over a year old, update it. While it doesn’t matter in the execution of the presentation, if the prospect sees a bunch of old dates on the screen this will enforce the thought of “this is not real”. Your goal is that you want them engaged to the point they can visualize your system working in their organization.
The Greatest Sin
Is having no story at all.
If yours is a technical solution, resist any urges to “let the technology speak for itself”. Remember that “Cutting Edge” = “Still Has Bugs That Can Kill Your Deal”.
In an effort to keep your presentations from becoming too literal, we share this video.
