Hi Everyone. I have been thinking about how much selling our auction services has changed in a world of PowerPoint presentations. Last week I was on a sales call where The Global 1000 client asked for oral presentations. They started the meeting by saying please no PowerPoint. We received six email presentations and can’t tell your firms apart. The slide decks are practically identical. Each of you is the world’s largest industrial auctioneer, with the largest database of buyers. Each of you maximizes value through your global exposure. Clearly you have all read each others propaganda.
My answer was honest and apologetic. I simply said I guess we’re just creating more work for you if we have failed to define ourselves. I said, charts, graphs, and logos of past clients can’t express the soul to our machine or the commitment of our team. Please call everyone’s references and ask the one defining question, did they please you or did they overwhelm you? Now I am trying to figure out how to create the overwhelm slide… yikes, I shouldn’t have told you. Anyway it makes defining ourselves a greater challenge and performing to higher standards even more critical. So the take away is maybe PowerPoint does work, forcing us all to be more and do more. At least a blog isn’t easy to copy. Cheers. RD.