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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.