Six Secrets to Designing Winning Sales Presentations
April 24, 2008
By Mike Parkinson
You have 13 seconds or less to make a positive first impression on your audience that may ultimately lead to a sale. So how can you effectively convey your message with so little time? By using a tool which communicates 60,000 times faster than text—graphics—and using the following six simple design secrets.
1. Use graphics to highlight your features, benefits and discriminators that may otherwise be lost in a sea of words. Remember to answer your audience's questions. Use your graphic to highlight your most salient, audience-focused points. Make it obvious why the information communicated is important and valuable to them.
2. Make all graphics customer focused. For example, which slide would be more communicative to the United States Army (A or B)?
Slide A focuses on the target audience and uses terms and imagery to which they can understand and relate. It addresses issues the Army cares about, so the likelihood that the slide will clearly communicate the intended messages significantly increases. Slide B is focused on the presenter and what they want to say about themselves without regard to their audience. The presenter of slide B failed to learn more about the target audience (and the slide reflects that fact).
3. Keep it clean and simple. Unnecessary visual clutter and too much data interfere with audience understanding. Focus on your audience's most important questions and make sure your graphic answers those questions clearly. Know your graphic's primary objective. Show value, communicate time savings and show efficiency and make sure every piece of your graphic supports that goal.
Avoid using too many different images, lines, shapes, patterns, textures and colors. Unnecessary visual noise interferes with your graphic's goal and can confuse your audience. If you have a complex solution, start with an overview graphic and use it throughout your presentation to tell a story. Turn your overview graphic into an icon and highlight each piece as you uncover greater detail.
4. Use a template. Define graphic and text style guides, create a color palette, and include sample imagery on a slide in template file. The more detail, the better. Templates help guarantee consistency throughout your presentation, which breeds trust in your audience. Choose colors and imagery that reflect your client. When choosing colors, be mindful of your goal. If your goal is to ramp up sales, use your customer's colors. If your goal is to increase mindshare, use your company's colors. If you aren't using customer or company colors, play it safe by using blues and greens—most Western cultures vote blue and green as the most appealing colors.
5. Label elements directly to avoid confusion. When depicting steps in a process, label them as such. The clearer your labels, the more effective your clarification and/or explanation. As a result, your graphic is more likely to be successful. Avoid legends. Legends add visual clutter and force the audience to waste valuable time deciphering your message.
6. Avoid clip art. Canned, unprofessional art tells the audience that they were not important enough to take the time to develop a professional presentation. Support your claim that you offer the best solution with professionally rendered, compelling graphics and photographs (You can find reasonably priced photos and graphics at iStockphoto.com, Dreamstime.com, BillionDollarGraphics.com and GettyImages.com).
If you have the luxury of working with a designer, be sure to verify that they are trained and experienced in the software required to complete the task. A skilled graphic designer understands how to engage an audience, communicate a concept, and generate a positive emotional state through the use of appealing aesthetics.
According to independent research, clear and compelling graphics can increase your success rate by 43%. So follow these six secrets to create better graphics and your audience will quickly see that you offer the best solution.
Mike Parkinson is an internationally recognized visual communication expert. He is a professional public speaker, graphics trainer and multipublished author. Mike recently completed his third book entitled Do-It-Yourself Billion Dollar Business Graphics: 3 Fast and Easy Steps to Turn Your Text and Ideas Into Graphics That Sell. To learn more, visit www.billiondollargraphics.com.
Mike is also a partner at 24 Hour Company, the premier proposal graphics and presentation design firm. To learn more visit www.24hrco.com, e-mail mike@24hrco.com, or call 703-533-7209.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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