Imagine you’ve just landed a meeting with a big potential client. A week from now, you’ll have their senior leadership in your conference room, and you’ll have their full attention for one hour. What kind of prep work would you do to make certain you close the deal?
Your presentation would likely include a visual component, but a slide presentation doesn’t leave much room for collaboration. The more you can incorporate the client’s real-time feedback into your pitch, the more likely you’ll be to close on the spot.
Here are two unexpected ways that the latest generation of collaboration technology can make every in-house sales presentation an interactive experience:
Your Customers: Make Your Presentation “Their” Presentation
A purpose-built room for presentations works well for a one-to-many presentation. But what if you empowered your clients to become part of the experience? An interactive presentation solution, combining a whiteboard, a projector, and a suite of powerful collaboration tools can work in many spaces your office has outside of the board room. Newer projection technology can display an interactive presentation experience up to 100” and be installed in any room of your office – with the ability to annotate and integrate your client’s feedback in real time.
When you need to point out a detail, you can circle it, write directly on the wall-sized surface with your electronic pen, and even save changes immediately. It’s like having a fully interactive video screen right at your fingertips — literally. If they’re interested in changing the direction of the presentation, you can just hand them the pen and let them make edits to your diagrams right there, in real time.
What’s more, the flexibility to make real-time changes, right in the middle of a presentation, is rapidly becoming the new industry normal. In many cases, interactive spaces with the right technology can make an impact on your clients not always evident when giving presentations in large, classroom or boardroom style spaces.
And After You Close The Deal…
Those who are in business today are flexible and mobile. Alongside sharing of your information, why not provide the opportunity for them to share with you as well. Also, think of scheduling meetings in your workplace. Are the conference rooms always open or are they booked? Do they have the right equipment? Are they tucked way in the back of your complex?
Huddle rooms are emerging as one way to host modern, comfortable, working meetings of up to six meeting participants, and are often adjacent to lobbies, lounges, and workspaces. They are typically furnished with a table, several chairs, and perhaps some simple shelving. The space can also be reinforced with branding and color themes to leave a lasting impression about the company.
Equipment in the huddle room is primarily set up for collaboration – a whiteboard and display system that can easily tether to the laptops, smartphones and tablets you and your clients bring to the meeting, a telephone, conferencing equipment for remote attendees, a strong broadband connection, and universal connection methods to display information.
Especially in on-going working sessions with your client, this meeting style space is one consideration to foster creativity, information sharing, and non-intimidating interaction. And an exciting place for your staff to use outside of client presentations and working sessions, also.
Learn more about interactive display technology and meeting spaces in “Huddle Rooms and The Changing Nature of Business Meetings”. The paper continues this discussion, explaining demographic shifts in Baby Boomer to Millennial workforce implications, considerations in creating huddle rooms, and how culture and technology go hand-in-hand to accommodate these major shifts.
