Wow your clients: presentation strategies that will impress your most discerning prospects - how to prepare a business presentation - Cover Story - Tutorial

Home Office Computing, Feb, 1994 by Carol Ellison

A GOOD PRESENTATION CAN ATTRACT, SELL, WOO, CONVINCE, AND GENERATE OPPORTUNITIES. YOUR MESSAGE is at the heart of any presentation, but sometimes it's your technique that makes or breaks a deal. Your goal--whether you're creating a simple flip chart for a one-on-one presentation or a more complex multimedia show complete with sound and motion video--is to win over prospects. Today's sophisticated hardware and software can help.

* Let's explore the possibilities. We'll follow Anderson McPhee, proprietor of A. McPhee Consulting, as he uses his computer to tailor a presentation designed to expand his business of customizing and installing computer systems for established and start-up small businesses, as well as providing the necessary technical consulting.

* Sure, McPhee could run some ads in the local paper, produce fliers, and rely on word of mouth. But he knows that behind many a successful endeavour stands a powerful presentation. So he's decided to spur that process by transforming pieces of his business plan into a presentation that he can use when meeting with individual prospects and when publicizing his enterprise before organizations, seminar participants, and at business expos.

* Follow along with McPhee to see how you can implement these techniques to enhance your own presentations, whether your aim is to win over new clients, sell more of your company's products, or address your colleagues at your industry's most important trade show.

Flip Charts & Handouts

For one-on-one calls to potential clients, McPhee assembles a portable flip chart presentation, as well as some handouts to leave behind. These are convenient because he will be meeting with prospects (start-up businesses, in particular) who often don't have a computer on hand to run a screen show. Slides and transparencies, which require projectors and darkened rooms, are impractical for these calls because he wants to keep the discussion free-from and encourage the client to ask questions. What's more, flip charts and handouts can be easily carried in a briefcase.

The running theme behind all the work, whether the final output is pages in a flip chart or slides for a slide show, is consistency. Consistent backgroynds, fonts, bullets, and clip art across all the slides or pages in a presentation are a must for a professional look. Programs like Software Publishing's Harvard Graphics 2.0 for Windows, Lotus's Freelance Graphics for Windows 2.01, Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0, and Aldus Persuasion 2.1 (the latter two are both for Windows and the Mac) offer a selection of master styles and templates for just such a purpose. Existing data can be easily imported into these programs from applications such as spreadsheets.

1. Personalize the presentation. McPhee personalizes the master templates by importing his business logo; logos discreetly placed in each slide are an effective way of keeping the name of his business in the audience's mind at all times. Put the logo in the same place in every aspect of a presentation--near the bottom so that it doesn't distract from the message. It's best to use a vector format for the logo--preferably EPS or PICT--because bitmap formats look jagged when the slides are scaled to small sizes in the handouts.

2. Spice up a static media. Paper-based presentations are necessarily static; a touch of clip art and special text or drawing effects add verve. Harvard Graphics for Windows 2.0, for example, ships with Harvard F/X. With such a program, McPhee performs maneuvers like fitting text around a circle or making text appear three-dimensional. (See "Put the Wow Into Your Words" in next month's issue for additional tricks you can try with text and type manipulation programs.) Thinkering with three-dimensional objects is another trick to try and it works particularly well for logos. Most presentation programs ship with a selection of clip art, and using the libraries that come with the program has the advantage of helping maintain a consistent look; for example, McPhee uses symbols of computers and peripherals to illustrate the price listings for his services.

Of course, if the presentation package he uses lacks appropriate clip art or is missing some symbols McPhee wants to use, he can turn to a plethora of other clip art programs, many tailored for specific categories--general business, health, borders, sports, or education, for example. (For more information on choosing and using clip art, see "Design Made Simple" in our October 1993 issue.)

McPhee also needs to make sure that he's using the right charts to convey his message; after all, he doesn't want to blow his entire presentation by using a pie chart to display how his other clients have been able to take on a greater number of projects in 1993, after they brought in McPhee to upgrade their technology, than they were able to handle in 1992. (See "Pictures Tell the Story" in our December 1993 issue for tips on picking the appropriate chart format to display your Data.) Outliners in the programs make it easy to add charts to any imported information.