Having never attended convention, Chris knew almost none of his 450 fellow attendees, and felt very isolated and unengaged as a result. As luck would have it, however, on the first evening of the convention, the company had hired a nationally known hypnotist, Ricky Kalmon, as a featured part of the evening’s entertainment. He invited the entire audience to enter into hypnosis, and under hypnotic suggestion, invited those who were willing to come to the stage and participate in a series of activities that released inhibition and opened up creative action. Chris was one of those who were willing.

What happened next was nothing short of a miracle for Chris. For the next couple of days his fellow dealers were coming up to Chris telling him he was fantastic, asking if the hypnosis was real. Chris’ instant celebrity status made him a part of the group he had felt isolated from. Suddenly people knew Chris’ name and he was one of them. Chris made friends that year. Instead of leaving the company, Chris returned to his store and began implementing many of the programs and best practices he had learned. In fact, Chris and his brother watched their once struggling store begin to flourish.

While not every attendee has the type of experience Chris had; no webinar, no email campaign, no online training can create that type of transformation. There is no equivalent alternative to live meetings for creating emotional engagement, consensus, and persuasion. Even the activities that may seem like “fluff” when used judiciously enhance that important payoff. In fact, the payoff of live events is critical to the success of business.

Project: Product Overview Video

Target Audience: Domestic Businesses with High Volume Shipping of Packages Under A Pound

Purpose:

• Develop updated, easy to understand, value prop driven piece that explained UPS MI’s small package offering that is partnered with the USPS
• Highlight state-of-the art sorting facilities and depth of reach and scope

Solution: Developed narrated piece with original footage of sorting facilities.

Results: Highlighted on website, as well as deployed to sales force laptops as an introduction piece for potential clients.

Project: 90th Anniversary Video Opener

Target Audience: Overhead Door Distributors

Purpose:

• Mark the 90th Anniversary of the Overhead Door Corporation
• Present the meeting theme of “Today, Tomorrow, Together”
• Demonstrate the commitment to continued growth and transformation, rather than rest on previous success

Solution: A two-minute video featuring both historical imagery with a brief history of Overhead Door, transitioning into vision for the next 90 years.

Results: Opened general session, produced by Actio Marketing, and set up executive presentation content.

Project: NetVanta UC Product Sales Videos

Target Audience: Domestic and International Telecom/Broadband Buyers

Purpose:

• Demonstrate the human benefit to a high-tech product
• Hi-light the most beneficial implementations  and features of product

Solution: Created 4 short ad-type spots that let “users” tell their own NetVanta story.

Results: Launched at national sales meeting as new tool for laptop sales, and became foundation of ADTRAN YouTube channel.

Moving in the Spirit

Project: Donor/Funding Video

Target Audience: Corporate, Private and Government Grantors and Funders

Purpose:

• Tell the Moving in the Spirit experience from the diverse perspectives of students, teachers, alumni, board members, and parents
• Help potential donors see the benefits their support provides
• Bring the Moving in the Spirit esprit d’corps to the donor who has not had the chance to experience it in person

Solution: Shot dance and rehearsal background footage to show the wide variety of dance and interviewed key individuals about their personal experience and growth through their involvement.

Results: Highlighted on website, YouTube, presentation and funding has increased even in an economic downturn.

SYNNEX

Project: “Solv” Short Series

Target Audience: SYNNEX customers and other IT channel resellers.

Purpose:

• Highlight bundled solution offerings by the Fortune 500 IT Channel Distributor
• Underscore executive presentations at SYNNX 2011 National Conference

Solution: Created six brief videos, narrated with info graphics to tell each “Solv” solution’s key features and benefits in a visually compelling, memorable manner.

Results: After successful run at the National Conference, videos were adopted by the solutions teams to be used in a variety of sales and tradeshow environments.

SYNNEX

Project: “Solv” Short Series

Target Audience: SYNNEX customers and other IT channel resellers.

Purpose:

• Highlight bundled solution offerings by the Fortune 500 IT Channel Distributor
• Underscore executive presentations at SYNNX 2011 National Conference

Solution: Created six brief videos, narrated with info graphics to tell each “Solv” solution’s key features and benefits in a visually compelling, memorable manner.

Results: After successful run at the National Conference, videos were adopted by the solutions teams to be used in a variety of sales and tradeshow environments.

Knowing you have a slide-slapping problem is the first step to getting the help you need. So how do you know when you are just over-sliding, or have truly descended to the depths of slide-slapping? The best course of action, if you think you may have a problem, is to abstain from using slides at all. However, there are a few questions that indicate it may be time to get help:

1. You have more slides than minutes in your presentation.
2. You need your slides to know what you are going to say next.
3. You spend more time creating your slides than working on your presentation.
4. You don’t understand the difference between your slides and you presentation.
5. If you could be at the meeting, your audience could just read your slides.
6. If your laptop or AV doesn’t work, you can’t present.

If any of these apply to you, it’s not too late. Many others like you have gotten help, and remained free of slide-dependency. They have realized that speaker support is really just that – speaker support. In the process they discovered that it is their knowledge that is of primary importance, and in order to communicate it clearly, they must give more though to the structure of their message, not the media.

Get more out your face time with him.
Dealer/Distributor Conferences