Identify Who You are Presenting to – Part 2 of 3 (Auditory people)

The next listener types are the auditory people. Auditory people absorb information by listening – they need to be able to clearly hear what it is that they are being told. They will look you directly in the eyes to hear you better, where as visual people are looking around, searching for visual cues so they can comprehend better.

Auditory people enjoy talking with others and conversation is something that they find very interesting. They might lean forward to engage you, just to test and hear if what you are saying is true. They will remember what you say – and possibly challenge verbal claims you make, later on in your presentation. So dial down the BS button with these folks.

Auditory people like to use phrases like, “that sounds good”, “that is clear as a bell” and “listen to me”.

Simply put, auditory people understand spoken language more than anything else. Therefore, when making a presentation to them, focus more on your verbal part of the presentation, (and with less speaker prompts to guide you, you will need to know your product benefits better). Verbally communicate your 5-7 main benefits (or value propositions). Tell them what you plan to tell them using a verbal roadmap of where you are going with your presentation. Writing things down or trying to create a vision for them may appear condescending to them. 

If your website has videos describing your product, service, and other values, that can play an important part of your sales process – they will have other people in your company to listen too that tells them the story of your company and its products. Click here for an example of a video I created for a website that communicates directly to an auditory type person.

For auditory people their world is represented by sound, therefore, to get their attention and engage them, you must say something that sounds very appealing to them. Also make sure you clearly annunciate and be careful with embellishment – this group "hears" right through the BS.

Just as visual people like to look at directions, auditory people would rather hear directions read out loud by someone else, because retaining information by looking at it can be difficult for them, whereas hearing is better comprehension for them. If they are that type of listener, don’t waste your marketing budget dollars leaving behind your standard folder full of literature – ask if there is anything else they need, and listen to them like they listen to you.

http://www.wix.com/ggre95/3d-illustrations

Identify Who You are Presenting to – Part 1 of 3 (Visual people).

Illustrations for business website.

When most sales people make a presentation, they assume that the most effective way to gain acceptance and buy-in from prospects is by sharing all of the many features of their product or service as they have time for. The reality is that when they are trying to communicate value to a prospect, they must first gain the prospect’s attention. That is the first obstacle to overcome, because most people really don’t listen to what the salesperson is saying, they just simply remain quiet and wait for their turn to talk. People love to talk more than they like to listen to others.

They key to engaging your prospects is to construct your presentation around their needs and what kind of listener they are; as opposed to overwhelming them with what you have to offer.

The way you construct your presentation to fully engage them, is to understand how they listen and absorb information. There are three general ways in which people listen and absorb information – Visual, Auditory, and People-Persons. First, the visual people relate to the world generally by the way they see things. When they speak, they will use terms like “I see, what you’re saying” or “I can see why you would think that way”.

Visual people better relate and “get” your message by seeing pictures, diagrams, flow charts, and other descriptive imagery. Visual people also like to observe others and may be fascinated with photography or things that generally involve envisioning. They will remember concepts, product names and the value you offer – as a result of a visual cue that they receive. Also important, is the “professional look” of your brand, and they will compare your brand’s image to your competitions brand. If you look cheap, they will think your product is cheap, and they will expect your prices to be cheap too.

 

Visual people listen better when following a visual story and the value you have to offer – when it is clearly written down. When trying to influence a visual person, your best bet is to provide them with visual examples,  “proof on paper” of what you’re speaking about. A marketing piece that is specifically designed to be left behind – that summarizes your presentation, is more effective for them to not only remember your points, but be able to retell your story to other stakeholders in the decision making process.

It takes patience and a little extra work to create a presentation that appeals to all three types of listeners. I've heard comments like, “I don’t have time for that, I have sales calls to make” or, “I have no idea how to vary my presentation to appeal to all audiences, I just use what the company gives me”.  In the long run, making the effort, or hiring someone who can create those tweaks for you, will make for a higher percentage of sales wins for you and your company. You can run around from call to call – putting lots of lines in the water and hoping for a big hit, or know how to cast an effective sales presentation and catch more customers on a regular basis.

The next couple of blogs will talk about the other two ways people listen and absorb information – and how to identify the other types of listeners, click to follow, and you will get a ding when the next blog is posted.

Improving a restaurant's customer experience.

Branding a new place to eat.

I went to an interesting new little place for lunch in Clearwater called, Campfire Vittles. hhttp://www.campfirevittles.com/location  It has a very fun atmosphere, with the walls and ceiling mural-painted like you are outdoors at a campsite. 

Unfortunately, the place at lunch time had just three people in it. So as a branding consultant for many different types of companies, here's my quick take on how they might be improve the customer experience and be more successful –

The good: Campfire Vittles has a great logo, unique campsite atmosphere and uses the back of a chuck wagon for drinks and set ups. The hot dog was very good, with lots of topping choices -- it was large and a meal in itself.

Build a Better Burger: If they specialize in just hamburgers and hotdogs, then the hamburger needs to be bigger and better like you might get at Applebee's (thick and juicy). My hamburger was just ok, about like I might expect from a fast food place or maybe a Sam's Club cooked burger. To set themselves apart from being a fast food place (which they are not with a $5 burger), with very limited choices -- they need to be known or thought of as the gourmet king of hamburgers, and not a small step above a fast food place with a limited menu. As cool as the outdoor mural of a campsite atmosphere is, people won't come back unless the food is a good value that brings them back.

Food presentation communicates the brand: Instead of serving the lunch in a brown paper bag which looks like a bag for take-out -- they should serve it in a pie tin like they did out on the trail at a campfire from a chuck wagon – that would be a much better way to present the food. Branding is about communicating value. If food is presented in a brown paper bag that you have to dig through to get your food, it doesn't have the same level of perceived value of your food being served on a plate.

Those are just a few thoughts on how to improve their customer's experience. 

(If you haven't been, it is a fun little place for the atmosphere to check out, and they do have chicken and veggie burgers as well).

http://www.campfirevittles.com/location

How to Improve Your Resume!

First, some of you reading this might be thinking – 
• How can a marketing guy help with resume writing? 
• What does he know about me and the jobs I'm looking for? 
• Resumes are supposed to be written a certain way – so I'm locked into that, how can he help me?


What I do is help companies sell products and services, so why not sell yourself using some of the same principles?

If you are looking for an illustrator, email me (ggreer@tampabay.rr.com), for my illustration website URL.

I recently had been contacted by a couple of friends looking for work, and they sent me their resumes. Yikes!  Because I thought they needed to head in a more value-based direction, here is the advice I offered (names and positions were changed to protect the innocent).


Here’s a few suggestions to make your resume have more pop and communicate more of the value that you can bring to the job. First, use action verbs to make yourself sound more active and dynamic.

The typical introduction paragraph is a summary of what you have done, but consider writing about the value of what you could do for a company. That will help focus the reader as to what kind of position you are looking for, how you could add value (save them money, increase efficiency, improve their bottom line, etc.).

Think ROI – Important: What is the company going to get for their return on their investment of time and money, by hiring you? You need to tell them, not assume they will figure out what your value is by combing through your resume – they don’t have time to do that! 


Avoid long, run-on sentences – make them short and punchy that communicate your value. Secondly, use action verbs to make yourself sound more active and dynamic.

If you are looking for a management position – I don’t recommend using the words “responsible for” as that sounds like you have just been following directions. Write with active phrasing using key action verbs – like this example:

Typical opening paragraph for a specific company;
Responsible for developing new business and for providing recommendations and launching initiatives to improve the overall management of a leading company in the field of power transmission.

Opening paragraph using action verb phrasing:
Improved the efficiency of the marketing and sales processes to create new business opportunities. Developed and launched initiatives that improved the overall management of the company. During my leadership at ABC Company, it was the number one supplier in the power transmission marketplace. 


(Note the use of action verbs. They may have been the number one supplier before you got there, and may not have been when you left, but during your time at ABC it was the number one supplier, and by stating that you will catch more attention and can go into more detail if required at your job interview).


Also, at many companies resumes are filtered on-line or scanned internally by resume auto readers that sort for key words. Know the system, check out this URL: http://www2.ferrum.edu/career/guide/keywords.htm.


Even if you know your resume will go directly to the hiring person and not through a resume scanner, it will still help to use key words. So remember, incorporate as many different action verbs as you can, and you might get more action on your resume.