Value Propositions.. proposing value!
First V-Blog.. thought I’d stick to my knitting.. please comment on content, and technology. First of many hopefully
Nick
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YouTube the sales tool
You can’t have not noticed the rise of YouTube. From nothing 10 years ago to 2 billion views a day now. On average humans watch 15mins a day of YouTube content and a recent Forbes survey showed that 75% of senior decision makers in business are watching more video to inform their decisions than every before. Why?
Why do humans prefer to watch a video than read text? For surely its not in doubt is it. I would rather watch a short 3 min video about a company than read 3 mins of webpages. More people would rather watch a 90 min movie than spend 8 hours reading the book.
And that’s the first reason we should all be using video as a sales tool, you can impart more information in 3 mins of video than you will ever get in 3 mins of written content and decision makers don’t have the time to read for hours to make a choice. When we are coaching bid teams we counsel them against believing that the audience for their pitch have read the RFP, some will have but it’s a minority, who has the time to ready a 100 page proposal. They glance through it, look at the costs and maybe a few pictures and then turn up to your presentation ready to make a decision.
So it’s faster, its also more effective. Video requires the use of two separate areas of the brain; it processes information simultaneously on different modes, Sight and Sound or Phonetics and Vision. It reduces the effort needed to assimilate information and therefore is a significantly more effective communication tool, which is why we all want to go and present rather than call a client
So why aren’t we using it more
Apart from viral marketing (Look at the Tippex Bear advert on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8CFMPpzjBc ) there is very little corporate sales making it to the platform. That may be the problem, YouTube isn’t really the right platform for corporate. It’s not secure, it’s not controllable and unless your careful once your content is up, they own it! But even more reliable, more secure video platforms like Kulu Valley (the guys Apple use) don’t really get used for sales pitches.
The answer lies in the fact that YouTube content works because its amateur in nature. Kids, webcams and PC video editing, its cheap, quick and easy to create content if you don’t care about what it says about your brand. But if you do then it’s far from cheap, definitely not quick and often as complex as hell.
Until now! We decided to build a TV studio at our offices so that we could produce videos of client’s presentations quickly and easily but as we did the research we found that technically it isn’t easy to do. I thought that a good camera and a large plasma screen would work but it doesn’t, something about lights resolution, exposure but for whatever the reason it’s a non-starter. So we looked at green screen technology but while it delivers a good video, it’s amazingly difficult to use; looking at things that are not there, is counter intuitive and takes practice. We found that a 20 min video needed a day in the studio and at least 2 days in post production (sooo expensive!) to get a reasonable result.
Then we found Sight Deck!
OMG! Its fantastic, just a screen and projector, step in front give your presentation as normal and stream the result to the web. No post-production, no retakes, no hassel but OMG!
It’s the future though; once you’ve used it you want it. The content is professional, slick and takes minutes to record, it is everything you need to make great content.
We think its about making great presentations better.. take a great PowerPoint and broadcast it to the world..
See mine here https://www.youtube.com/user/m62net
Selling in difficult times
I was chatting with a prospect the other day who was telling me how now we were coming out of the recession he thought he needed to change sales tactics..
So I pointed him to an old blog of mine from October 2008.. yup 6 years ago right at the start of the credit crunch..
Guess what.. still relevant!
See the post here
PS.. Oceanaire is still as good as ever…
Don’t be a Twit
If what you have to say isn’t more beautiful than silence… Shut up. Confuses for Presentations and tweets methinks.
Tweeted 25 Apr 2012
I’ve been looking through my twitter account, which is largely a soliloquy (for an audience of 1.. me) and thought I might occasionally share a collection of related tweets here.. so here is the first collection of 17
Those who think they are good find the need to state it. Those who know don’t.
Advice is cheap But good advice is invaluable (as it is rare.)
What they hear and what you say are not always the same
Win with dignity, Lose with grace
Never underestimate # of people capable of spending 8hr transatlantic reordering bullets\slides & believe they spent the flight working!
Presentations are what happened to the audience, not what was intended by the presenter.
Presentations without structure are not presentations they are ramblings; occasionally interesting often inane always inadvisable!
Simplifying Complexity is genius (& hard); Complicating Simplicity is foolish (& easy); which presenter are you, Wise man or Fool?
Knowing your philosophy is right isn’t important. Knowing it’s wrong is more productive.
Re-ordering slides isn’t presentation preparation, it’s a diversion tactic
If the best thing about your presentation is the design… You’re screwed!
What people feel influences what they do.. Not what they say..
Audiences don’t often care about what you want.
It’s difficult to over prepare for a presentation. But not impossible.
Strive for effective communication not just impressive presentation
Here I tweet, only started, wrote two lines, now departed
Excellence is not a gift; but rather a skill that takes practice.. Plato
Anybody who has attended either one of my seminars or a training course will no doubt be used to me talking about Plato and Socrates.. Socrates believed that the only way of improving our intellect was verbal rational debate; his love of philosophy (the love of wisdom) was driven from a verbal discourse base.
In the UK our political system is based on the same idea, stand up and debate your case. Prime Minister Question time for those who watch TV late at night! Written arguments, white papers, even blogs are not as persuasive nor as revealing as the cut and thrust of a debate. Having to make your case, justify your arguments and think on your feet is central to our political system; our education system and, I would argue, human relationships. I am in agreement with Socrates.
Well I am in agreement with what we think he believed, clearly we don’t really know ‘cos he’s dead! In fact the only reason we know anything about him is that one of his pupils Plato disagreed with him and felt that art of writing your arguments down helps you orgainse them and think about articulating them well. If he didn’t he wouldn’t have written about what Socrates said and we wouldn’t know about it 2362 years later.
So Plato’s quote above about practice applies to debating skills and the art of writing. I struggle to write (probably dear reader.. evidently! lol) and so blogging has always been a bit of a challenge for me. I am mildly dyslexic and don’t (unlike my kids) touch type.
I don’t believe that scripts work for presentations; I do believe that writing a script is a valuable exercise but learning it and repeating it verbatim is counter productive. I coach people to write the script to organize their thoughts (Plato) and then throw it away and get to their feet and practice (Socrates)
And what is funny is that the more we practice this.. the better we get at it. Most people put time and effort into avoiding practising (we call this practice avoidance.. clients often call it playing with PowerPoint!) but at some point the writing has to end and the practice has to begin.
