Presentation, presentation, presentation

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I went to a presentation recently by a company that was attempting to sell me something. It's not important what it was, it was more important that it was expensive. It would have taken quite a lot of my time and money and so I was waiting to be impressed.
 
I'd already shelled out £20 to be there and at the end of it I would have been sold a course for £2000. This course would have apparently allowed me to earn a heck of a lot more, in the region of tens of thousands if I did it right (there's always a get out, isn't there?!) and to be fair, the speaker was fantastic. And then it came to the hand-outs.
 
I'd been persuaded to attend by a friend and I was to come away with a book that would explain to me some of the principals involved so I could go away and try it myself. Fantastic, I thought.
 
And then we got the hand-out. It was a hastily photocopied bunch of sheets, held together (just) by some staples. Really quite disappointing. Now, I can understand that they'd want to keep costs low, but why this low? I was impressed by the presentation, I loved the premise, but I just got the idea that the company was cheap!
 
I learned something that day. I learned that if you want to impress your customers, you've got to do a heck of a lot more that just speak well, you need to follow through and if your material doesn't live up to the presentation - you may well lose the sale.
 
Presenting things well need not cost a fortune, either. We sell binding machines and laminating machines that don't cost a packet - they could actually pay for themselves with the first use. So, if you really want your presentation to last in the minds of the clients - make sure the documentation doesn't fall apart as soon as they leave the seminar.

Posted at: Monday, 16 November 2009

Tags: laminators, binding machines

Comments (1)

Gerard | 23 December 2009 10:55

I know what you mean - it needn't cost alot to get the presentation right but SO many companies skimp on the documents they use for sales and marketing when it effects the perception of both the products and the company itself. Anyway i'm going to buy a laminating machine from you today so i can get our warehouse data sheets published in the new year so our guys know what they are supposed to be doing.

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