Client case : sales network animation, 2018

A leading insurance company organised a roadshow for its most important distribution channel. To boost sales, of course. But this time, they had nothing new to announce! Solution? Put new faces on stage: the client service managers. Their mission: demonstrate the fantastic value the company brings to its clients. With no experience in public speaking, no sales background, could they create a Wow moment?
Challenge
The director of distribution channels faced the following challenges:
  1. No big budget to get videos and shiny slideshow from an agency;
  2. Preparation meeting shows extreme diversity in styles and progress, meaning unpredictable outcome;
  3. Too many slides, pushy / advertising type communication;
  4. Some less trained speakers.

The speakers struggled:
  1. To believe they could appear as legitimate, credible representatives of their company on stage;
  2. To promote products and services ‘without talking products’;
  3. To advise the audience on how to talk value with their client (the speakers never trained in value selling, had no sales background);
Their first drafts confirmed that they wouldn’t meet their director’s (apparently elusive) expectations on their own.
There was no indication that the presentations would turn out to be a success.
Solution
Every team (one speaker per language, plus one back-up each) got 4 to 6 coaching sessions. The methodology helped the teams develop and test their presentation step by step. I guided through the following creation steps:
  1. Dry-run the existing drafts to assess current status and define priorities in coaching;
  2. Clarify presentation goal and key messages as reference points to take decisions during the creation process;
  3. Guestimate audience expectations, business needs, and reactions to frame the content around the audience’s interest;
  4. Offer analysis : select services and personas, perform value selling analysis, shape key elements into real cases and fictional stories.
  5. Test and adjust stories to achieve the highest consistency between goal, stories, messages and audience expectations... and a Wow effect;
  6. Add the station breaks, transitions and conclusions to highlight the take-aways;
  7. Set the expectations in introductions that to match messages in conclusions;
  8. Double check for presence of social intelligence (mirroring audience reactions, …) and speaking techniques to keep bonding with the audience;
  9. Test drafts with voice recorder then re-write to prevent written language and abstractions;
  10. Translate the key ideas into visuals to keep them lean and to the point;
  11. Rehearse in front of the camera without slides to detect stress in behaviour, adjust text to personal style, build confidence; work on body language and stress management in relation to stage set-up.
  12. Rehearse with camera and slides to finetune the flow and behaviour of speaker (eye contact with audience versus time on slides, …).
(help prevent the local host partner make an introduction that would set the wrong expectations; assist the organizer in shaping the general introduction  and conclusion to make sense of the event and connect with the audience on more motivational level.)
Impact
  • The speakers regained confidence and energy in preparation process from the first coaching session;
  • The presentations were shorter and stronger;
  • The roadshow engaged the audience from the very first words;
  • The audience enjoyed revisiting the services from a fresh angle, in direct connection with their client situations.
  • The audience shared very positive messages among its network.
  • (The speakers enjoyed reusing some techniques to improve their regular, internal presentations later on.)