Setting up Your Presentation Contractor for Success

You have a BIG pitch presentation coming up, and you’ve decided to contract a professional to help you put together the slides. You are hoping for the help with clarity of your brilliant product but also looking to tell your story that’s worth paying attention to. You’re hoping to build a deck that is above humdrum quality because of the significance toward your upcoming opportunity. It’s time to deliver an impact and an unforgettable impression!

After deciding the best approach toward perception success is to outsource the presentation production, you then bare down on your expectations for the slides. The reality is what you see as apparent to you may not be the same for others, including your Presentation Specialist. The last thing you want to do is push your resource into the deep end of the pool because this will only come back to bite you in the end. Mistaken direction adds too much back and forth, which increases frustration, completion time, and a higher expense.  

Follow these five tips to set your presentation contractor up for pitch success:

1- Present a Solution - Most salespeople want to leverage their slides to resight the product features that they have to offer. Note, your audience doesn’t care about shiny buttons or appealing interface shapes. If your product doesn’t have the potential to help them in any regard to reaching their desires, then it’s not worth mentioning. Your strategy should be razor-sharp to your product benefits and how they will change the lives of your audience. Recognizing this and that your target can’t live without your product to overcome their challenges will generate an invaluable connection.

2- Rough Outline - The most efficient way to deliver direction is by executing a blueprint of your expectations. From the presentation software like PowerPoint or Keynote that you are planning to produce your pitch from, use it as well to build a most useful draft. This method will not only help you map out your thoughts but will help to set up the contractor to understand a rhythm to collaborate. Think of your message like you’re the director of a movie that will be plotted by each slide like a storyboard. Your contractor will be able to follow the intended flow much more straightforward. Next, use brief descriptions and visuals on each slide to have a discussion around. If you have an example presentation from the marketplace that you like, don’t hesitate to show your resource to help inspire thinking. Here is a basic outline to use:

Cover

Opportunity:

• History – Of the problem
• Statistics – Around the problem

Solution:

• 30-second elevator pitch
• Experience – short overview history
• Point-of-Difference
• Approach to the problem with examples
• Package Plans with successful examples

Thank You:

• Q & A
• Contact info

3- Content Direction - Understand that copy and visual necessities will make an impression; however, don’t overthink what the message per slide needs to be. Understand less is more, especially when it comes to displaying copy on a slide. Your slides should be background noise to your sales charisma. You shouldn’t be referencing slide details unless they warrant a brief explanation. People can’t listen, read, and take notes at the same time so give them a break! Memorize, practice, or utilize the presenter notes to keep you focused on what matters the most - benefits. If you possess a company Brand Guide, please supply this to your Presentation Specialist to aid them in their efforts. 

4- Tracking and Managing - Develop a form of an ongoing communication means for both parties to stay in sync, which is in one location. Realize back and forth emails is not the answer and becomes inefficient that you can’t get ahead. As much as it has become a staple of communication in our business world, emails will add more time and frustration to comb through trying to find something of importance. Seek to adopt the tool Slack or even try using a spreadsheet that displays different column topics that will enable you to communicate more productively. Segregate each of your slides to allow more isolated and detailed dialogue. Also, be sure to divide and organize your working assets into one folder with subfolders residing in a destination like Dropbox.

5- Leave Behinds -In the past, leaving behind a printed version of the presentation that you just gave seemed to make sense. The thought behind it was it acted like a brochure, and your prospect could review it later. Aside from the extra time and money that it will cost you to accomplish this objective, understand it only makes it into the trash. These days, people are overwhelmed, and by adding another to-do item to their daily list is not the best intentions to share your info. If they are genuinely interested in receiving a copy of the presentation, it’s best to send them a digital version. Even better yet, turn your slides into a video that you post on your company YouTube channel. You would send this on another day as a follow up which becomes a reminder/touchpoint of your successful meeting.

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