Starting and Ending With a "BANG"

Hello again...
A lot of people don't realize the strong importance of beginning and ending a presentation or pitch. The introduction is what will interest your audience to want to listen to the entire presentation. Grabbing your audience's attention right away is crucial. If your audience is not interested right away, they will have no desire to truly hear everything you have to say. Starting and ending your presentation can be sometimes stronger than your actual pitch! Believe it or not.

Here are some helpful hints and tips for your introductions:
-Start with a game or activity that involves your audience
-Tell a relative joke
-Ask audience to volunteer for something in your pitch
-Start with a relative poem or play-on-words
-play music (if appropriate)
-play a video (if appropriate)

Here are some helpful hints and tips for closing your pitch:
-Engage the audience in feedback from your presentation
-Relate your closing back to your introduction (this will also remind them of your great intro!)
-Give the audience a "take-away" ...a little gift of some sort

For more hints and tips on opening and closing your presentation/sales pitch, check out this website:
http://ezinearticles.com/?100-Creative-Presentation-Ideas&id=128782

Cheers!

~Effective Communications~

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Hello again!
I had the opportunity and pleasure of interviewing one of the experts in the field of marketing, managing, and presentations/sales pitches. Micheal Demmons is the General Manager and Marketing Manager for Sentry Security in Kingston ON. I'd like to share some of this interview with you as I'm sure it can benefit you, as it did me.
Here are some presentation hints and tips from him:
Keeping these fresh in your head when you’re developing a pitch or presentation usually will lead to a better end result.
1) Qualifying fast to avoid wasting time
a. Don’t wait for “yes” or “no”
b. Develop a list of qualifying criteria that a prospect must meet to “earn” your time
2) Getting commitments instead of a closing (recurring buyers)
a. Ask for smaller commitments instead of orders from prospects
b. “on your next project, would you give me the opportunity to provide a quote”
c. “would you have 10 minutes tomorrow to go through one of our demos together”
3) “SO WHAT”
a. This is what prospects are thinking when they talk to you
b. They care about what you’re selling if it can solve a problem that they have or make their business better.
c. What is your product to them, ie: benefits not what your product does (features)

He even included more helpful presentation hints and tips:
-Talk about benefits, not features
-practice and be prepared
-This isn’t always the best advice however I’ve had luck with it over the years: a presentation that is designed based primarily on a structured list of questions (sometimes directly from the customer) will lead the customer to sell themselves.
-and of course….be prepared to sell and close the deal. One major problem in business these days is waiting for the customer to close the deal. Always remember to ask for the order!


Cheers!

~Effective Communications~

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Shhh....

Shhhh.....here's one of the biggest secret hints for successful presentations and sales pitches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9zzsUULc6s

Cheers!

~Effective Communications~

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Fellow Bloggers

Hello!
Are you interested or curious about learning how others feel and think about presentations?
Are you interested or curious about finding out who the best presenters are in the world?
Are you interested or curious to enhance your blogging experience?

Check out these conversations via blogging that show how others feel about sales pitches and presenting:

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/338-best-%2526amp%3B-worst-tv-presenters-any-more-any-more%3F


Cheers!

~Effective Communications~