Educating Potential Customers – Avoiding Yawns of Boredom

The people who make their living in the aviation industry are not particularly impressed by PowerPoint presentations and brochures.

And yet, many of the sales presentations and education sessions we have the pleasure of attending are fraught with some salesperson or spokesperson reading words from a slide, or handing us a dull corporate brochure that might as well be from a bank or an insurance company.

If you are in the same room with the prospect, for heaven’s sake don’t waste the opportunity by walking them through a document or reading words from a presentation screen.   If you have managed to land an appointment, or have invested in a trade show, you have anl obligation NOT to waste your prospects’ time by boring them to death!

Here are some ideas:

• Can you get your product into a prospect’s hands?
• If it’s an online product, can you hand them a computer or iPad to demonstrate it?
• If you sell a non-physical product, can you make the concept physical in some way?
• Can you involve other senses? (Passengers love that “new airplane smell.” Military aviators love the smell of jet fuel and shoe polish.)

Most of our interactions with prospects these days are via the Internet, mail, or email.

Think beyond the traditional limitations of the platform to educate potential customers:

• Can you demonstrate the product (or at least the concept) using a video?
• Can you use animations, video clips, or sound effects?
• If you must use text, can you make it more conversational and/or descriptive?
• Even when using legal “fine print,” can you make it more interesting that the typical legal boilerplate?

We love this “Lifetime Guarantee” from Pelican cases- it’s a great example of how even the legal boilerplate can illicit a chuckle; in particular – “. . . does not cover shark bite, bear attack or damage caused by children under five.” Touches like this make customers are more likely to remember your product favorably in a crowded marketplace.

 

 

In other words, what can you do to make your materials more interesting, sensory, authentic, or unexpected?

 

 

 

 

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