Michael, I'm following this thread with interest as group presentations are somewhere on the horizon for me as well, be it teaching or selling.
It does occur to me to explore the difference between teaching and selling. With teaching, we're interested in a detailed examination of the subject material (and thus tools to demonstrate are important), but with selling we're interested in sizzle, so I would offer that whether to use tools such as a projector or not depends on the mission. The 'ultimate' sales person is really selling one thing: him or herself. This is at odds with the super technician who can't wait to jump into technical details and has a demo to prove it. In this context, while the salesperson is honing people skills, the technician is preparing to bit-twiddle technicalities. I've had the good fortune to personally know some amazing sales people, the guy who founded Candle Corp. immediately jumps to mind (he recently sold Candle to IBM for mega-millions). Of all the meetings he ran, not a one ever involved a projector or on-screen demo. Instead he sold with the sheer force of his personality along with, of course, a deep and apparent grasp of the subject material. On occasion he would draw something on a white-board (or flip-chart substitute), but the focus of his attention was the chemistry and interaction between himself and the attendees. Not that we can all be like that, but the example does serve to highlight the difference between selling and teaching. As proprietors we have to master both. Footnote: how I can know these things and still be so broke is another discussion :) Bill _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
