I’m continuing with the Back to School theme from the last post.  This morning I received an email with a series of snapshots depicting “How to fail with dignity” (posted at the end).  Besides the laughs I got from it, I also had an “aha”!

When you don’t know something, humor can make all the difference in how you are perceived!  Think about situations you have been in…ever see humor be the right thing to make a bad situation better?

Last year I heard one of the best sales “humor” stories.  A high level financial (selling multi-million dollar financing deals) sales executive’s suitcase did not arrive in a city when he did.  It also did not arrive the next morning before his sales presentation either. 

 But he did have a small travel duffel bag which he planned to store out of sight before the prospects arrived.   When the taxi dropped him at the meeting he didn’t have a chance – they were all there waiting for him!

A quick thinker…he plopped the duffel bag on a table and announced “Gentlemen, the money you need is in this bag!”  After the laughter died down, he shared his missing luggage story and went into a great sales meeting discussing financing options. 

I’ve heard sales people bemoan the fact that they were “stuck” in nsituations when their technology didn’t work, or the venue of something changed, or they forgot something…it happens!  How have you used humor to avoid failing in one of these “stuck” situations?

Oh, and the examples of “Failing with Dignity in School” are below - hope you enjoy!

When is the last time you were subjected to a presenter in love with their own PowerPoint slides?  I think you know what I mean.  You, the audience, did not matter near as much as what the presenter had on their precious slides.  Personally I’ve been subjected to TOO many of these presenters.

One presenter had slides FULL of sentences too small for me to read.  But he could – and he kept looking at them and reading them.  There was no stopping him - he was going to read EVERY word he wrote.  Think that was bad enough?  What if you were his co-presenter?  YES!  I was. 

I had coordinated the sales calls and created the PPT (taking his submitted slides), formatting the information to make it audience-friendly by removing most of the text, inserting graphics instead of words when possible, removing detailed tables, etc.  After all, I had taught a presentations class with specific tips on how to/not to use PPTs effectively just that month.  Guess what?  He took the PPT at breakfast and re-inserted HIS slides!

We were in front of a VERY high level leadership team at a Fortune 100 company.  I watched my months of hard work evaporate as the audience checked out during this 25 minutes oration.  The more they checked out, the more my co-presenter hurried reading his slides to them.  And his volume kept going up as he tried to gain their attention!  Oh boy.  Might I add this was not a rookie…this was a very experienced sales pro.

Too often in sales the focus on the presentation trumps the focus on the audience – your buyers.  And sometimes an idea from outside the “sales” world can make us step back and challenge ourselves to be better.  Pecha Kucha is a great idea to apply and adjust your presentations.

Pecha Kucha is a presentation format in which information is easily and efficiently shared.  The presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds apiece – less than 7 minutes!  Pecha Kucha was started so that designers could make their presentations quickly and many ideas could be shared in a short period of time. 

This YouTube video is a great example of Pecha Kucha – the video by author Daniel Pink is entertaining and interesting with an “emotional intelligence in signage” message.  The ideas Daniel shares can also be applied to WHAT you include on your PPT slides.

Do you think you can present what you do in the Pecha Kucha format?  It might be a bit extreme, but there are some good pointers.  Think about your “presentation”. Does it:

1. Get to the point very quickly?
2. Provide just enough detail to engage your audience without boring them?
3. Provide a starting point for more discussion?
4. Use PowerPoint or other visuals as an AID to what you are saying – not a written script?
5. Focus on what is important to THIS audience?

I like challenges and any type of methodology that can help me be more effective and efficient (two of my favorite words.   It just may be that Pecha Kucha will be an easier way for me to get the idea across to future co-presenters NOT to read their slides!

What do you think?  How can we use the Pecha Kucha concept to increase our presentation impact?

Maybe it’s because we are in the middle of baseball season or maybe it’s because of the death of Billy Mays, the celebrity pitchman, is in the news…the word “pitch” is being used a lot these days!

Have you considered what pitch means?  From the salesperson’s  perspective, it may mean to present or explain something.  Sales people have their “pitch books”, sales managers tell their team to practice their “pitch”, etc.  Even Billy Mays’ profession as a professional pitchman was to promote with an approach that is extremely focused on a certain product with him doing all the talking!  It might be fun, energetic and engaging, but how is it received?

What does pitch mean from the customers viewpoint? Something much different.  As I heard mention of Billy’s death, I also heard “Good, time for him to shut up!”  “He probably died from an aneurysm with all the yelling he did.”  Wow, for as much product as he sold, there were many that did not care for that approach at all. 

From Dictionary.com, pitch means to:

• put, set or plant in a fixed position
• throw, fling hurl or toss

Pitching as a sales approach has never sat well with me.  What are we “throwing”, and who are we hoping will  “catch” it?  I observe that sales pitches are usually focused on features and TELLing people something.  What is wrong with that?  A couple of things…

• It means that the pitch has to be made a LOT of times hoping for a hit (sale).  There are probably more fouls and balls called.
• Pitching is done toward something stationary.  How many of your prospects are sitting stationary waiting for you to pitch something at them?  Not too many these days.

How can you avoid being a pitchman (or woman)?

• Focus your message to your specific audience.  Tie your features into the benefits that matter to them.  The closer the link, the higher the perceived value.
• Use your energy appropriately.  Being overly enthusiastic can send the message you are more fluff than substance.
• Stop and listen.  When presenting your solution, don’t talk AT your prospect.  Pause and ask for feedback along the way.  They will start selling themselves AND be more engaged.

Let’s leave the real pitching to the baseball and golf pros.  In sales. pitching takes more time and energy than the sales process really needs if you focus on presenting the right information, in the right way, to the right people.

What’s your perception of sales pitching?   

This week I had the opportunity to work for nearly 2 days with the best of the best sales pros in a client company. We spent our time together focused on taking their game up another notch with Powerful Presentations. One thing I noted is that really successful people generally are very open to new ideas and skills that will allow them to be even more successful!

A Key Idea I shared in this workshop was that our presentations are more powerful when we focus on WIIFT – from the open of the presentation through the close. Who wants to listen to 10 or 15 minutes of background on the speaker and their company? Do you really care if they have been in business for over 75 years? About three minutes into the “background” about you, they have disengaged – you can see it in their body language. Tie the message about YOU into what it means to THEM and they will engage! WHY is it beneficial to them that your company has been in business so long? Will it mean a better product? Or more expertise that will solve a problem for them?

Initially there were some skeptics who weren’t sure the WIIFT was THAT important. Until…the first practice presentations began and each professional had to sit through all the other presentations. Being on the other side allowed them to feel what its’ like to have a lot of information shared AT them and not tied specifically TO them.

As we ended today, these successful people commented that it IS powerful to make our message not about us – but that it is hard to do! The more successful and experienced we are, the harder it may be to do something different. To send a message adapted to our audience, with only enough detail that is important to them and then to link WHAT we do into WIIFT statements is not easy.

How much effort does it take to link the WHAT of your message to the WIIFT? Post your comments and let the rest us know we are not alone!