Andy Bounds again
I keep mentioning him, because his approach can feed into a lot of areas and it has forced me to think about presentations in more depth.
Yesterday a client and I made a preliminary pitch to someone in the business services space. We're still learning so we haven't got a series of vertically configured frozen demos which we unpack and deliver, although we had configured the software so that it would report the kind of things which would be of interest to the person we were pitching. It was good - he actually said "Wow" at the right points without being prompted and promised to introduce us to the CEO of a quoted business.
Reviewing the meeting subsequently, I realised that the logical flow of the demo was wrong. We had led the person we were pitching through the way the data was fed into the system and then shown the reports and functionality. The problem with that approach is that the "Wow" comes very late in the demo. We need to start with the "Wow" screen and then explain what has to be done to deliver it. That way, we hook people early and get them really focused on the "Afters" (a proper Andy Bounds word). For a small pitch like this, attention wasn't a significant problem - but for a larger audience there is no question in my mind that re-ordering the material would achieve better results.
Yesterday a client and I made a preliminary pitch to someone in the business services space. We're still learning so we haven't got a series of vertically configured frozen demos which we unpack and deliver, although we had configured the software so that it would report the kind of things which would be of interest to the person we were pitching. It was good - he actually said "Wow" at the right points without being prompted and promised to introduce us to the CEO of a quoted business.
Reviewing the meeting subsequently, I realised that the logical flow of the demo was wrong. We had led the person we were pitching through the way the data was fed into the system and then shown the reports and functionality. The problem with that approach is that the "Wow" comes very late in the demo. We need to start with the "Wow" screen and then explain what has to be done to deliver it. That way, we hook people early and get them really focused on the "Afters" (a proper Andy Bounds word). For a small pitch like this, attention wasn't a significant problem - but for a larger audience there is no question in my mind that re-ordering the material would achieve better results.
posted by John Diffenthal at 1:45 pm
2 Comments:
John,
I like what you have to say about the importance of the copy and headlines. Nicely put.
Richard
http://richpelletier.com
Richard, Thanks for the note. I see that you are a freelance copywriter - best of luck in what you do.
John
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