Jazzing Up A Sales Pitch Content & Quality
Still Count in Multimedia Sales Presentations continued...

At best, a computer-based sales presentation can speed up the decision process, by making ideas visible, and by making a sales pitch more persuasive and understandable.

For example, Daniel Reid of The Reid Group communications firm, was contracted to make a presentation for a new ice gardens facility at York University in Toronto. He created a 10-minute presentation to make the ice gardens visible to the audience. "The best proof of its effectiveness was the result," says Reid. "The presentation was made in February, the project was signed off in June and the ground-breaking was in November - a short time frame for such a project."

Multimedia can even garner sales from an unattended, automated kiosk. In 1991, I prepared an interactive display for a Northern Telecom phone promotion, and according to the retailers involved, phone sales at locations with the display were more than 60 percent greater than at similar sites without the presentation.

Microsoft gives away a copy of Microsoft PowerPoint presentation software program with every copy of Microsoft Office. This act of generosity has made PowerPoint multimedia sales presentations ubiquitous, but it has also created thousands of terrible presentations. "Microsoft hasn't done anybody any favours by giving away Powerpoint," claims Paul Chato, co-founder of Electramedia, a Toronto-based firm specializing in software development and corporate multimedia. "In Europe, business people understand the value of a corporate brand and image much better. They would never dream of letting someone who knows nothing of art and design, or writing, lay a finger on their corporate image in a presentation that is going to be seen by potential customers."

According to Reid, computers are only one part of an overall communications and sales strategy. "If corporations want to make sure the message properly reflects their organization, they should enhance the presentation with help from good graphic communicators."

Catharine Devlin, founder of Devlin Multimedia, a Toronto-based company that creates multimedia presentations, was given the task of boiling down a 13-inch stack of Bata product and sales information into a presentation for an international Bata sales partner network. "The important thing is to make the presentation concise, and precise," says Devlin. "If people can take one idea, one phrase, from your presentation, then you have succeeded. But it had better be the main message you were trying to communicate." This kind of conceptual marksmanship is often difficult for an amateur to achieve. Forthis reason, it makes sense to have a multimedia professional prepare the presentation, and a sales professional deliver it.

Successful salespeople view sales as a process that involves constant feedback from clients resulting in a long-term business relationship. In the same respect, using multimedia technology in a presentation should be seen as a device which sells a product or service and the quality of the seller's organization.

As multimedia sales technology moves out from the PC onto the Internet, the key to doing business will not be mere mastery of the technology, but using it effectively to allow buyers and sellers to get to know and trust one another.