A Road Warrior's True Stories

#1 I’m travelling to a meeting and the airline loses my bag. It’s 10pm by the time I’ve finished waiting to see if it will turn up. Now I have a problem I have to attend the meeting wearing the casual clothes I’m wearing now.

But it turns out ok, when the others hear my story two of them tell me that the same thing happened to them also.

#2 My colleague is going to give a key presentation to raise finance for a new project. When he clicks the mouse on his laptop computer, nothing happens and he can’t make the presentation he had intended. He makes an attempt to improvise a pitch, but the meeting is a disaster. It was expensive in both money and time to arrange and now he’s blown his opportunity.

Don’t let this happen to you. Work out how to make a presentation which you can give with no sales aids.

#3 In the days before digital projectors, I used an OHP supplied by the venues. Guess how often it was out of order! As a result I made it my practice to travel earlier in order to have time to check the meeting room the evening before the event.

#4 Allow for the unexpected. Get to the meeting place early in case some disaster has struck.

* I’ve been in places where a pipe has burst in the ceiling above, a football club has had a party the night before and no one cleaned up.

* On a hot summer’s day the heating was stuck on and the windows were non-openable.

* The meeting is arranged for 9.00 and by 9:10 the staff member who should have unlocked the conference room has failed to turn up.

* For a meeting scheduled to start promptly at 9:00 the delegates drift in gradually through to 11:00.

* The projector is faulty and there is no replacement.

* The conference room is right next to the canteen and there is a loud clattering of dishes and peoples’ conversations intruding into my meeting.

* Go for a drink the night before the meeting, and find out that a business companion is an out and out alcoholic who leads you astray. Wake up the next morning with a splitting headache|prize hangover.

* Assume that your audience has been told the wrong start time or was expecting you to talk about a different topic. And that they will have to leave early to see a customer. So check and then check again.

* My bags have been lost by the airline on four occasions and once someone left the airport with my suit-carrier by mistake and I picked up another one of the same type belonging to him and didn’t reaize it until I unpacked at the hotel.

* A work gang starts demolition outside of the venue.

* Following the midday break a member of your audience is obviously drunk and starts to heckle.

* You finish the event and go to settle up with the hotel for the use of the meeting room and discover that your credit card is declined, there is no balance on your other one and you don’t have a check book with you. (This happened to me twice. On one occasion, my client helped by coming round with my fee in cash, in an envelope).

* The flight I’m catching is delayed, then it’s announced that when the plane leaves it will be diverted to another airport 200 miles from my destination. The only onwards transport at that time being a taxi.

* We wait for 4 hours in the terminal because all landings in the London area are cancelled because of a snowfall. Finally we embark the aircraft, and then have two more hours wait before finally departing. On arrival at the destination it is so late that I miss my train connection, wait all night in a railway station, eventually reaching my hotel in the early hours of the morning, sleep until 7.30 and go to meeting for 9.00.

* I’ve been stuck on a busy road miles from the meeting place, no taxis available, no buses and no signal on my cellular phone.

To make a sales presentation persuasive and apparently effortless – ironically what is required is thorough preparation and practice. And a constant awareness of

Murphy’s Law. ‘If it can go wrong, it will’.

Article Source: http://www.myaddirectory.com

Download a Free Sales Masterclass Information on the Selling for Engineers manual and Seminar Robert Seviour is a sales trainer specialising in business development for technical companies.

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