Sales presentations depend on more than a good idea

David Meetings, Sales

Powerpoint presentations are extremely easy to put together with a minimum of training. That is both their strength and their failing. sales presentations are complex undertakings that need effective communication of your idea. But as well as what you are communicating, you need to look at how it is communicated. Powerpoint design can either strengthen your presentation – adding to its impression and convincing your hearers of your ideas – or it can seriously detract from it. If that’s the case, it may not matter how good your ideas or competitive your package. If you lose your audience with a dull presentation, they’re not going to be interested.

That’s why Powerpoint has to be employed with a pinch of salt. It’s a fantastically useful program and, delivered well, it can add significantly to the effect you are hoping to transmit. However, it has become the expectation that sales presentations must be accompanied by a Powerpoint presentation. That adds a pressure to put something – anything – together, even if it is badly thought through. Needless to say, relying on an amateur slide presentation is a recipe for disaster.

Part of this is unfortunately our culture’s love of multimedia. The more parallel strands of information we can take in, the better. So a talk isn’t complete without visual representations of what you’re saying – pictures and, better still, video clips. The problem arises when these distract from the chief content rather than adding to it. Simplicity is key. But additionally, the presentation needs to contribute something of itself. We’ve all attended lectures where the spoken content is mirrored on the screen – and, quite likely, in a handout too. Thus the message is simply triplicated, and you could equally skim the handout in five minutes than sit through the hour of speech. It’s frustrating and a waste of time – and something to be avoided in your own presentations.

So, Powerpoint presentations must complement, not replicate the content of your sales presentations. Careful Powerpoint design will enable you to communicate more effectively, rather than distracting from your spoken message. This is vital, since the expectation that a talk will be accompanied by overheads can push well-meaning but misguided speakers into hamstringing themselves and losing their audience on what would otherwise have been a fascinating talk. If that costs you a contract, then it’s easy to see that a little training or outsourcing can be an investment that is worth making and can pay for itself over and over.

Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Brise soleil: their role and importance

David Sun Protection

Every decent architect or builder should be familiar with certain important terms, and anybody who wants his or her designs to be amongst the best buildings of today certainly needs to know his brise-soleil from his glass louvres.  One need not be put off by the sophisticatedly confusing sounding French names – these structures are essentially fairly simple, and as soon as you get your head around them they are likely to be very useful.  This article aims to give a succinct explanation of these key architectural terms, so that next time external louvres come up in conversation with a builder or architect, you will know what they mean.

The word ‘brise soleil’ is from the French, meaning ‘sun breaker’.  The term refers to a variety of permanent sun-shading techniques, and the beauty of the technique is the range of architectural strategies that come under this umbrella.  They span from basic patterned walls to the impressive mechanical, pattern-creating devices of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.  In its classic form, this sun breaker is a horizontal projection extending from the sun-side façade of a building.  Façades with a large amount of glass can be in danger of overheating during the summer, and using a brise-soleil is a very effective way of stopping this from happening.  The structure can be further modified by incorporating louvres, which prevent high-angle summer sun falling on the façade, and allow low angle winter sun to provide passive solar heating.

Glass is one of the most useful and multifunctional building products there is.  It can be used formany different purposes, from creating striking glass façades to elegant internal screen solutions.  Glass louvres are used to control solar heat gain within buildings, and have traditionally been tinted to create the desired effect.  More elaborate finishes are available, too.  Ceramic frits, for example, involve baking a type of paint onto the glass.  These type of finishes create a more unusual appearance while reflecting the sun’s heat and helping to maintain a comfortable interior temperature.  Presently, glass louvres are taking on a more active role in buildings than ever before, with light redirection and photovoltaic systems allowing for various different functions.  These louvres can offer building owners and specifiers realistic solutions in terms of creating environmentally friendly buildings by lessening the need for air conditioning while providing renewable energy sources as well as shading.

Basic external louvres, on the other hand, are usually mounted in the vertical, with a row of horizontal blades shaped and positioned to minimise the ingress of water.  With relatively simple functions such as providing shade from the sun, brise-soleil, glass louvres and the like should not provoke confusion.  Once you know what they are and how they work, it should be fairly straightforward to assess which solution would be right for your project.

Please visit http://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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