Choosing images for your sales presentations: don’t illustrate, suggest!
It is often tempting to illustrate words: the sales rep says “car”, and shows a picture of a car. In doing so, he is taking his client for an idiot, matching the image with a direct description, much like children’s books do. But that is not the goal: what you want to do is inspire your client, by creating inspiring analogies. To inspire the right brain and get it up and running, you have to allow room for imagination. Illustrating the word with a literal image does not allow any space for imagination. It is better to use analogies, from outside the business world whenever possible, to engage the right brain and the imagination… suggest rather than describe, to allow the client to imagine… let him imagine the situation, the parallels with his situation, the outcome, the whys and the wherefores.
The image should not serve to illustrate any given word, it should serve to engage the client’s attention. For instance:
See this news in French: http://presentations-de-vente.com/images-pour-presentations-de-vente-suggerer-plutot-que-illustrer
jfmessier
PowerPoint and sales: How to get the best out of the new technologies and make your presentations great. My approach to great sales presentations is based on three-pronged experience:
- 30 years of experience in and passion for sales: 16 years of B2B, retail, and pharmaceutical laboratory sales, and 14 years of consulting at Mercuri International, where I have trained some 5,000 sales representatives, as well as over 500 sales management executives.
- My experience with new technologies: As New Technologies Director for Mercuri International, I now travel to some 25 countries to implement the best that technology has to offer in terms of sales development.
- The example of the world’s best communicators:
Thanks to all those whose publications and presentations inspire me a little more each day:
- Garr Reynolds: The master of modern communication, he has influenced me the most. An American living in Japan, he is an internationally-renowned communications expert and the creator of the most popular website on presentation design, presentationzen.com. He has also authored a book of the same name, as well as several other books.
- Steve Jobs: It’s not his engineering skills that make him so indispensable for Apple … it’s his extraordinary ability to sell its products. Steve Jobs is one of the most captivating salesmen in the world.
- Nancy Duarte heads Duarte Design, one of the largest design and woman owned firms in Silicon Valley. Her client list includes the largest Fortune-500 companies, such as Adobe, Cisco, Google and Hewlett-Packard.
- Carmine Gallo is a communications coach who is passionate about the techniques Steve Jobs uses to captivate his audience.
- Phil Waknell: Philippe Waknell is the founding co-director of Paris-based Ideas on Stage, one of France’s best presentation companies. His “Phil presents” blog is a marvel of inspiration, originality and simplicity.
- Guy Kawasaki is an American born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Ex-Apple, he was one of the first directors of marketing at Apple, where his mission was to create a community of passionate users and defenders of the Apple brand.
- Seth Godin was vice president of direct marketing at Yahoo. He has written twelve books that have been translated into over 30 languages. All were best sellers. American Way Magazine calls him “America’s Greatest Marketer”.
- Olivia Mitchell is a presentation trainer based in Wellington, New Zealand. Her blog “Speaking about presenting” is a rich resource.
- Hans Rosling, a professor of international health at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, is the Zen master of presenting statistics when it comes to making sense and telling a story.
- Doctor John Medina is a molecular biologist focused on the genes involved in brain development. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules, which decodes how the brain processes and assimilates information.
- John Sweller is an Australian psychologist known for formulating the theory of cognitive load. He has authored over 80 scientific publications, mainly on cognitive factors, with specific emphasis on the implications of working memory limitations.
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3 comments
This is a new perspective to me, I have never thought this way before. This is a good idea, the examples are too good. The only thing that I’m worried about is that; can’t pictures be misleading? Not all the pictures but some of them. What do you do then?
Thanks for sharing your perspective, it made me think differently.
Arpit
authorSTREAM Team
Author
Yes you right, pictures can be misleading. This usually ocuurs when people illustrate words… don’t illustrate words. Focus on ideas. More explanations in this post: http://newsalespresentation.com/illustrating-ideas-words-guarantee-effectiveness-sales-presentations
Author
One thing more 😉 Don’t forget that “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Reason why people could understand any picture in many ways. Reason why we should never use pictures without words, in order to influence the audience understanding of the picture. Not many words, never more than seven, but a few.