Point of Business

03/28/2007: Screen Sharing Pitfalls - Part 1 - Downloads

It seems that a big buzzword to get people to purchase online subscriptions is 'No Downloads Required.' And for good reason! Making your audience download and install software just to get your pitch online is a major time waster. But screen-sharing technology, by definition, is proprietary. It is not built-in to the operating system (yet!) so it simply isn't possible to attend a Webex or Gotomeeting presentation without first downloading and installing their software. If they tell you otherwise, it just isn't true.

Many companies are making the claim that you don't have to download anything but in reality, they are forcing the download and making it 'automatic.' But in the end, you have software on your machine that came from their servers.

Issues:

Even if you don't mind installing software on your machine, you have to consider what your audience wants. There are several factors that cause customer headache:

1. They may become confused during the download and install process, thus compromising your meeting.

2. Even if they don't mind downloading the software for your meeting, they will have to do it again and again as the technology keeps improving and new downloads are always coming down the line.

3. Your customers also work with other vendors. Can you imagine their headache when they have to download and install software for all of the Screen Sharing vendors? And on top of that maintain updates? What a mess!

4. Many companies' IT departments control what gets installed on each user's machine so attending your presentation online may require additional time, hassle and red tape.

Solution:

PresenterNet surveyed over 1000 Web Conferencing users and found that more than 83% of them found downloading and installing Screen Sharing players to be a hassle. More than 41% said they had decided not to attend at least one presentation to which they were invited purely because of this annoyance. So PresenterNet was designed to work across all platforms using technology already on your computer.

There are times when Screen Sharing is a good solution, such as when demonstrating a software product. But even in those cases, a better solution is to develop a simulation that never crashes (how often have you had beta software crash during a demo?) and deliver it through the 'No-Downloads' environment of PresenterNet.

03/22/2007: The Myth of Lead Generation CRM Software

CRM companies and related software providers offer a myriad of tools to identify, qualify, and track sales leads. Many of these offerings sound great to potential CRM users, but they all have one basic flaw that can leave them useless. They all depend on a system being able to identify qualification criteria, or simply offer database searches based on plug-in criteria like industry, size of company, revenues, etc.

Salespeople know that there are only three TRUE criteria for qualification: prospects must be interested in speaking with them; the product must meet the prospect's needs; and the sales contact must have the capability to make or drive a buying decision. Unfortunately, these criteria can only be defined by prospects themselves, not by database searches or even by sales rep call reports.

The most successful sales of any product or service are those that occur when a potential buyer informs a sales organization that he or she is ready for serious discussions. The success of Webinars as lead generators has grown exponentially for that reason, but Webinars alone aren't the full answer. The fact that a potential prospect attended a Webinar is indeed an indication of some level of interest, but the overwhelming majority of attendees are not prospects, having participated for a variety of reasons other than buying interest.

Webinars on PresenterNet however, add the most important element for qualifying a true sales lead. By providing InterActors on slides that enable attendees to respond onscreen to various questions during a Webinar, they capture information directly from the potential prospect. These are the kinds of questions that a salesperson would want to ask if given the opportunity to speak candidly:

"Would you like us to call you for an appointment?"

"Do you have a need for the kind of product we sell?"

"Are you the decision maker, or should we contact another person in your organization?"

"Do you currently have funding to commit to this area?"

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you?"

"How do you see our product potentially fitting into your company's plans?"

Answers to questions like these help sales people to find and close the very best opportunities. Interactive slides with these capabilities therefore become the missing links to making Webinars the top business drivers available to any sales organization worldwide.

03/21/2007: Are you Sure you want to Share your Screen?

Screen Sharing is probably the most common type of Web Conferencing done today. Screen Sharing is incorporated into Webex, Gotomeeting and several other popular Web Conferencing systems. The idea is simple enough; get someone on the phone and let them see what you see on your screen. It sounds easy enough but is it really what you want?

There are many problems with Screen Sharing that you should be aware of before making the decision to spend your hard-earned money on remote presentation technology. Among the considerations are audience convenience, quality, performance and security.

In the next series of short blogs on the topic, you'll learn how Screen Sharing works and whether or not it is the right technology for your needs. Armed with a firm grasp on exactly what is happening technologically, you might find that other technologies offer a better solution to your online presentation needs.

03/20/2007: PresenterNet Showrooms Beat the "Shot Clock"

Experienced sales executives know that they don't lose as many deals to competitors as they lose to "the shot clock." The shot clock metaphor in a sales environment simply means that the sales cycle stretches out too far, and sales momentum disappears before a deal can close. It therefore follows that executing each step of the sales cycle as soon as possible beats the sales-shot clock, and results in more closed business.

The most difficult steps of a sale are often in getting all necessary decision makers and recommenders to attend meetings to discuss products, present business proposals, and negotiate final agreements. When presentations have to be postponed repeatedly due to schedule changes of key people, the sales process is in danger, while the shot clock keeps running.

Web conferencing in general is an important tool in scheduling meetings as early as possible. It enables people to attend meetings remotely without being present for a face-to-face presentation. But what can be done about key people who miss the meeting entirely? How can sales people get a timely repeat performance scheduled, to ensure that the sales process does not bog down?

PresenterNet's new Showroom version provides a perfect platform for scheduling an encore performance of any presentation. Absent participants can enter a Showroom with a simple Web address, log-in and attend a self-operated version of the presentation, listening to the same speaker, responding onscreen to answer questions or furnish requested information. They can even ask questions, and have responses captured for answers by email or phone.

The new Showrooms can also be set up in multiples, so that different rooms can be reserved for specific customer company executives. This enables sales people to create a customized follow-up presentation with a specific login, to ensure that the right person logs into the right presentation.

The result of using Showrooms in this way is that no meeting will ever have to be pushed back to keep the customer decision process flowing. In effect, people can participate from anywhere and at any time, to ensure that all key people are constantly updated. This in turn means that every sales action can be executed as soon as needed, and the final cycle time will be greatly reduced. That's how Showrooms help beat the shot clock and close more deals.

03/19/2007: What is the Tipping Point for Web Conferencing?

Two years ago, a senior sales executive from a large cosmetic company opened a PresenterNet account and became her company's first-ever Web Conferencing user. Though the company's sales force routinely used PowerPoint presentations in face-to-face settings, no salesperson in the company had ever tried presenting online.

What started as an experiment soon became the sales exec's major method of reaching customers. Within a month of online success, the once-reluctant PresenterNet user began telling her fellow sales execs about her new online successes.

After a few more weeks a second salesperson from the company subscribed as a PresenterNet user, and then a third subscribed shortly thereafter. As time passed, more of the company's sales people became users, until they comprised about 10 percent of the sales organization. Then in what seemed to be an overnight change, a significant number subscribed every day, and PresenterNet has become a major part of the overall company sales strategy, with more than 90 percent of its sales people using PresenterNet.

This pattern is fairly typical for any user population encountering a successful new technology. Only a few people become early adopters, while most stay on the sidelines. Then at some point, the benefits become so overwhelming, that a tipping point occurs, and suddenly an overwhelming majority embraces the new concept.

Although the overall numbers for the Web Conferencing environment continue to grow impressively, users represent only a tiny percentage of the business professionals who could potentially derive huge benefits from presenting online. After all, what business person wouldn't like to eliminate wasted travel expenses? What salesperson wouldn't want to pre-qualify prospects before traveling for face to face meetings? Virtually everyone would like to have a company capable of selling to remote customers without traveling to far-flung outposts.

Over the past 12 months, PresenterNet has begun to hear from increasingly knowledgeable users, as our customer base expands rapidly. Inevitably, the entire marketplace will reach its tipping point, and every industry player will see rapid expansion. For business planners, the only questions are, "when"? And "what are the magic numbers that will predict the tipping point?"

03/17/2007: Cisco Acquires Webex: What Does it Mean?

The acquisition of Webex announced last week by Cisco marks an important milestone for the Web Conferencing/Online Collaboration industry. In paying a reported $3.2 Billion, Cisco acknowledged that it needs to supply more than the nuts and bolts of the Internet. As explained by the company's chief development officer, "It's really about expanding the experience people have when they interact with each other."

In effect, Cisco has re-stated what major technology companies have learned in every generation over the past 40 years. Beyond the initial excitement of technological breakthrough, people buy products for how they work in their own environments. In the long run, it is the value of applications—NOT the technologies themselves—that make IT providers successful.

For companies offering Web conferencing as an Internet application, this acknowledgement by Cisco is especially good news. A major industry leader has spent billions of dollars to integrate the power of collaborative online applications. Beyond the endless technology hype, marketplace leaders understand the value of presenting interesting, complex information to colleagues, customers and prospects, anywhere and anytime, without traveling to face-to-face meetings.

To PresenterNet, Cisco's increased awareness is even more exciting than it is to other industry players, because PresenterNet's major differentiators support applications capabilities that other companies do not. PresenterNet enables conferencing audiences to enter informational responses onscreen for database capture, and report generation. These are application capabilities demanded by sales people, training people and numerous other professions. Online Showrooms that provide interactive presentations operated by viewers without live presenters provide yet another element of what people want to do, regardless of the underlying technology supporting them.

Web conferencing and collaborative applications are still in their infancy. As Cisco and its new Webex business unit grow, the marketplace will continue to expand for every industry member. For PresenterNet, leadership in applications capabilities can only mean exciting times ahead.

03/09/2007: Interactivity Explained - Manipulation of OnScreen Objects

This first type of interactivity is defined as simple interactions where an attendee of a presentation or webinar is allowed to manipulate something on the screen. If an audience member is allowed to rotate an object, move a slider or change the color of an item on the screen, he or she is more likely to become and remain engaged in your presentation. It is a simple thought but think back to how often you have been allowed this simple gesture when you attend a webinar.

Think about the information you present and then think of parts of the screen you could allow your audience to manipulate to hold their interest. What interactive elements can you think of?

Note: This cannot be done with "desktop-sharing" web conferencing software such as Webex or GoToMeeting because with those systems, each audience member does not have independent screen control.

Some examples:

Issue 1:

Problem: A PresenterNet banking customer makes monthly internal presentations to his company. Financial information can be dry and boring if you put up a small-print spreadsheet and expect remote audience members to follow along.

Solution: An interactive (Type I) slide is presented that allows the user to move a slider and watch how revenue over the past 12 months has changed changes over time. It doesn't matter what part of the discussion the presenter is in. Each audience member independently adjusts his own slider to suit his own needs while the presenter speaks.
Benefit: Audience member remains engaged and participates in the conversation -- albeit silently.

Issue 2:

Problem: A PresenterNet customer is an art dealer who sells sculpture. About 80% of all art sold in galleries is sold over the phone to previous customers. But sculpture is a three-dimensional, emotion-evoking entity. A static photograph will not appeal to every customer in the same way.

Solution: The customer created a 3-D Flash movie of the pieces being sold. This allows each audience member to manipulate the piece to an indivudually appealing angle while the salesperson is discussing the various aspects of the art and the artist.
Benefit: The customer moves towards a purchase faster because more emotions are stirred by finding a viewing angle that is most pleasing to individual tastes. The gallery sells more art in less time.

Please share your ideas on how simple on-screen object manipulation might enhance the online presentation experience.

03/01/2007: Interactivity Explained - A Brief Introduction to Interactivity Types

PresenterNet is in the business of providing interactive presentation tools yet most of our customers don't really understand the impact and power of interactivity. For many, the word 'Interactive' simply means that the presentation is comprised of rich media, rather than plain text. But they miss a key difference.

To keep things simple, let's define interactivity as the action of interacting. If you take an action, then you have interacted. This is simple enough in and of itself, but there is far more as well will discover in future blogs.

Most web conferencing systems are really just elaborate, online lecture services. You talk and your audience listens while they look at your desktop. Your desktop shows up very slowly (once every 2-3 seconds on even the fastest systems). Some systems claim to be interactive because they have simplified polling tools. But there is much more to interactivity than that.

There are many types of interactivity but they all are comprised of three basic elements: Interacting, Observing the Interactions and Recording the Interactions. We'll show you all combinations of these attributes, what benefits they offer and show you examples that you can use in your own presentations.

Stay tuned!

12/04/2006: Continuous Branding

The world of Interactive Presentations brings with it a plethora of business building capabilities. We have spoken before on the notion of Continuous Lead Generation. Recently, I was able to spend some time on branding guru Rob Frankel's website and discovered that the same approach might be used to build a methodology for Continuous Branding.

According to Rob, "I build brands like yours from the outside in.." which provides the perfect opportunity for continuous branding with interactive presentations. When delivering a presentation to a remote audience, whether a single customer or a large-scale webinar, you can continuously build your brand by keeping two things in mind:

1. Make every slide you present represent a snapshot of your company's brand
2. Solicit input from your audience that provides feedback about your brand.

Over time, take the feedback and update your branding efforts and constantly collect input about your brand, then improve and upgrade your messages for the next presentation. It is an on-going circle that can lead to a solid brand-building strategy.

Compare the costs of a major branding campaign for a year to a subtle infiltration of branding methodologies in your sales team's efforts. With very little increase in marketing cost you can build a world class brand and improve your sales at the same time.

I am not a branding expert so I cannot offer specific advice as to the content of your slides or how to best implement this idea. I'll leave that to Rob.

11/23/2006: Rubber Bullets

Using a bullet point in a remote presentation is like using a rubber bullet to stop a charging rhino. It creates a brief noise, but really isn't very effective. But across the world thousands of presentations are given every day with conferencing tools such as Webex, Microsoft Live Meeting and PresenterNet where the most important information is communicated through bullet points.

Or, should I say, NOT communicated.

When giving a live presentation, it is possible to throw a few bullet points up on the projected screen, one at a time, and then visually engage your audience as you discuss each one. But that's the trick -- they aren't looking at the bullet points, they're looking at you. When you're presenting online, the audience has nothing to stare at but your bullets.

Why do we use bullets?

We believe that they are the easiest way to communicate a point. Cliff Atkinson, noted guru of not using bullet points suggests that you never use bullets in a presentation, live or remote! He may be right. You can read more about this BBP (Beyond Bullet Points) philosophy in his blog and in his book of the same title. I find this position to be a good starting point, but a bit extreme. Bullets can be useful, for example, when you want to communicate information that belongs in a list like "The top 5 reasons not to use bullets."

Simple photos are far more powerful than bullets in most cases. Imagine a bullet that quotes a statistic such as "Over 100,000 children die each month in Africa." Now imagine putting up an image of an african child in the throes of starvation while you state that "Over 100,000 children die each month in Africa." See the difference?

The next time you're organizing your company's information into a presentation, think about charts, images and diagrams that might support your conversation, rather than just repeating yourself with lifeless bullets. Bullets could take the life right out of your presentation.