Presentations About Your Product

I had the opportunity yesterday to go to a lunch and learn for a new product and service from a fairly large company. Now I have been to one of these before on the same topic and have realized a few key differences in my experiences and hopefully passing them on could help you during your presentations.

Lesson 1: Location

Many times a company will take you out to breakfast, lunch or dinner for the showcase of their product. I have been to some fancy ones with banquet halls, while others are one on one at a local restaurant. Location is very important, and you should always check out the venue before sending our invitations. Blind scheduling of a place you think might be nice, cool, comfortable will often lead you to a situation where you have too little table space, some parts of the ceiling missing and the built in projector shaky, askew, and small. I am not saying you need a 5 star restaurant, but definitely look and ask yourself if the presentation will be added to with the room or taken away.

Lesson 2: BYOT (Bring Your Own Tech)

Yesterdays lunch and learn was definitely one of regret. A few items brought by the presenter (just one in this case) will go a long way to ensuring your presentation goes off without a hitch and just as expected. I would recommend bring your own projector, mobile wifi hot spot, laptop, and last an extra VGA cable. Projectors at the meeting location (if there is one at all) might not be setup well, yesterdays was skewed, rotated slightly, one third the size of the projector screen and was out of focus. The end result? I saw almost none of the product being demoed, and that's a bit important. Wifi at a location can be hit or miss and bringing along a 4G enabled hot spot will ensure you to have a quick connection and fast experience every time (in 4G markets at least). Your own laptop should be brought so you are not relying on a slow Remote Desktop session to show the attendees things, and an extra VGA cable since when carried in bags they tend to break and go off color. There is nothing like a green colored screen while I am trying to eat some fish to really set the mood.

Lesson 3: Hand Out Something

A guest should never be leaving an event with nothing, give out anything to help associate the product with the venue, or the venue with your company. Ideas can be limitless, I have received picture frames, cups, polo shirts, stress balls, and the list goes on. The one that always catches my eye though is a folder with some papers filled with information (on the company, and product) and a contact business card in the flap. I left yesterdays event forgetting the presenters name though he said it at least 3 times, who would I contact now if I wanted to purchase the product? From a salesman point of view I would hope he would want the credit for the catch.