Using Technology to Improve Your Sales Presentations

Sales presentations are a vital part of each and every representative’s job, which is one of the reasons they’re so challenging. When everyone is using the same tool in the toolkit, making an impression requires executing well and standing out from the crowd. And it is a crowd – Microsoft estimates that more than 30 million (!) PowerPoint presentations are given every day. Your direct competition, unrelated vendors, and internal staff are vying for your prospect’s valuable attention, so it’s important to make sure your presentation connects with your audience. Fortunately, there are a number of tools you can use to tap into your presentations’ potential and keep prospects talking long after your meeting is over.

1. Haiku Deck

   www.haikudeck.com

   PowerPoint is a valuable tool, but the sad fact is it’s easy to be lazy with PowerPoint. Choose a plain template, add some bullet points, and you can be done — but your prospect is more likely to be done, too. Haiku Deck gives you the resources to transform PowerPoint into a visually powerful tool. A free app for your iPad, it includes attractive and innovative templates, access to over 35 million free photos, and an interface that helps you make beautiful designs with these tools by adjusting spacing, text size, and other visual elements for you automatically. Easily Tweet or share on Facebook your presentation, keep it private, or export it to PowerPoint or Keynote.

2. Prezi

   www.prezi.com

   In giving a presentation, sales reps try to keep things fun and interesting by using visuals to help tell a story. Prezi provides new and exciting ways to do that, with expansive graphical features and the ability to zoom in and move through various points and content without leaving the same slide. You can include text, videos, and image as you desire in the course of the presentation. For remote presentations in particular this added infusion of personality can help. It also shows that you as a rep are on the cutting-edge, and can be relied upon to keep the prospect up to date on industry trends and sales trends at large.

3. SlideShark

   www.slideshark.com

   As a sales rep, you’re probably tired of lugging your laptop around from business to business. Valuable pitch time is wasted while setting up your computer to show your slides. Want a free way to skip the fuss and impress prospects by breezing into the conference room ready to go? SlideShark might be your answer. SlideShark allows you to upload PowerPoint to an iPad or iPhone. Using a VGA Adapter, you can connect your phone to a projector or TV and easily move through your slides. You can also broadcast your slides so that remote participants can follow on their own PC or smartphone. This makes it easier to catch prospects on the run, and they’ll appreciate — and remember – your technical savvy and consideration of their time.

What presentation tools do you use to make an impact on your prospects? Let us know in the comments!