Parking was always an issue at my old company. Finding a space, especially in winter, was like dividing by zero; you got a null answer. It didn’t help that shift workers filled up the spaces by the time the office staff was collectively just rolling out of bed. Nor did it help that parking in the street was reserved for trucks lining up to be loaded with product.

There was, however, one primo space (near the entrance to the building housing our sales, marketing and customer service teams) that was never used. The problem was a large yellow X that signaled the space as off-limits. There was nothing particularly important about that space. It faced the window of a small office in which toiled no one in particular…or at least someone not especially particular because the office was poorly insulated and required a space heater in the winter months.

I did some investigating and found out that, years ago, there was an entrance to the building at that spot. The X kept the entrance clear of vehicles. But the door was eventually sealed up, the building re-sided and a window installed. Only the extra insulation was left out. The X was left behind. And, to this day, some 20 years later, it remains there…in all its yellow-splendored glory. And, to this day, the denizens of a 400-man operation - ever respectful of painted authority - leave the space empty.

My story, told to colleagues at a management committee meeting, was met with bemused smiles. People are funny, I was told. Indeed they are, I thought, as we moved on to other, more important topics. That was a year ago. 12 months later, winter approaching, the X still stands guard. The space remains empty. The world continues to spin on its crazy tilt axis.

You have to wonder. How many inefficient processes hinder operations simply because companies do things the way they always have? How many products does your company keep in its offering despite poor sales simply because they’ve always been there or simply because your competitors have them? How many HR or marketing programs are kept in place, despite their lack of results, simply because they were a good idea at one point in time… a long time ago? Why do so many companies cling to a corporate culture that has been rendered obsolete by a global marketplace?

Is your company a victim of the X Factor? If so, it’s time to park the past and jump at opportunities when they become available. Especially with winter approaching.

I’ve probably made several hundreds of presentations in my time, too many times by my reckoning, taking up altogether too much of my time. They seemed to detract – or at least distract me – from the business of doing my job. My boss, the then CEO, told me that selling – which when distilled down to its essence was what my presentations were – was precisely my job…and indeed that of all senior managers. We sell our plans to the Board, he went on, to the banks, to employees. We sell ourselves to customers, to suppliers, to analysts. He was right, of course. Once again. This was a disturbing trait that I never got used to. Anyway, I did learn a few things over the course of these presentations, which I share here:

Five Dos:

1.    Control the conditions. If at all possible, do the presentation on your premises. There are several reasons for this:
-    You won’t have to worry about being waylaid en route by snowstorms, cancelled flights, or traffic tie-ups. You won’t have to worry about arriving late, stressed or sweaty. Forget the commercials; getting there is not half the fun.
-    You can prep the room in advance, control the lighting, check the equipment and, even have time for a last minute run-through. If you are off-site, despite all the reassurances, you can never be sure that the room or the equipment will work for you.
-    You can tack on a tour, bring in support staff as appropriate (you don’t want to be out-numbered), and have complete control over the menu and washrooms…in short, you have at your disposal all the advantages and comforts of home.

2.    A two parter: First, Know your stuff! I find most nerves are related not to discomfort with the audience but with the material. If you know your stuff cold, you will be much more relaxed. If you don’t, frankly, call the whole thing off. Part 2: Get your facts right. Nothing makes you look stupider than being called out on information that is inaccurate. Even incorrectly added columns of numbers makes you appear incompetent and your thesis untrustworthy. Check and double-check your material. Ensure that anyone else present is using the same numbers as you so that your own people don’t embarrass you.

3.    Provide a context. There might be a rhyme to your presentation but, more importantly, there has to be a reason. Everything should be part of a whole. A strategic plan, perhaps. Or a response to the economic or competitive environment. Even something like the launch of an important new product portfolio or marketing program, seemingly big enough items to stand on their own, can be placed in a larger context. Just ask yourself, what is the driver of change? I once did presentations to what some of us considered corporate raiders. Talk about mixed emotions. We didn’t want them to acquire us but, just in case they did, we had to look good to keep our jobs. I had to find a context to cover both eventualities. I came up with ‘value’.

4.    Make sure you have enough meat. Don’t waste people’s time. Present something interesting, something with take-aways. They should leave the room thinking about what you presented. I always worry when people don’t ask questions. It usually means that they didn’t get it. Or worse, that they did and were disinterested. Which brings up the corollary: Do let people ask questions…the more the merrier. Even if they are distracting. Even if they cut into your presentation time. Questions mean involvement. Involvement means commitment.

5.    Say it like you mean it. Show some passion. We had a bright young analyst who not only kept coming up with brilliant concepts, but was a master at Power Point and could capture and illustrate these concepts in a compelling way. The problem was, his presentation skills were lacking; he would stand in front of an eager audience and put them to sleep. I once made his presentation and began this way: “I am going to show you something incredible, something different and exciting. It will knock your argyle socks right back to the old country. This is highly classified information, however, so there will be no handouts. If you are caught with this material, we will have to kill you. Thank you.” The audience was mesmerized, not because I was so compelling or because they were so easily charmed. I had them simply because they came in receptive and I told them to be excited for me so they were. Try it.

Five Don’ts

1.    Don’t get cute. At least, don’t get too cute. You can have a prop. I always use props. They could be relevant quotes, nifty graphics, working samples, whatever. But you don’t want too many of anything. You don’t want to have too much animation, too many link buttons, too many distractions. Accents give flavor to your presentation. Too much flavor, however, becomes cloying.

2.    Don’t eat beforehand. At least, don’t overeat. You don’t want to be sick during your presentation. I once watched a senior sales manager make a presentation while his stomach was in the process of self-destructing. Needless to say, his mind was not on the material. As a result, neither was anyone else’s. And while we’re on the subject of food, don’t drink anything if you can during the presentation. At worst, drink water to cure a parched throat. Coffee is a diarrhetic. Soft drinks…well, let’s just say that the carbonation has a way of repeating itself.

3.    Slides should not be hard to follow or hard to read. Don’t use a dark background. Don’t put too many words on a slide. Don’t have too many ideas on one slide. Actually, one idea per slide is a pretty good guideline to follow. Don’t use massive spreadsheets forcing the audience to squint to read the numbers; almost assuredly, more than half your audience is of an age that finds small type visually challenging. As well, it will be hard to find and focus in on the two or three numbers that are actually meaningful. Show less and then highlight the numbers that are important. Make them bold, circle them, add arrows…whatever it takes. With one exception: the laser pointer. Use it at your peril. Nothing is more annoying than the laser dot zapping around the screen, shaking uncontrollably, circling herky-jerkey. The laser pointer is not high tech; it is the device of last resort for those who have not mastered technology.

4.    Presentations should not be too long. People get fidgety. You can get an awful lot in in an hour. You can probably distill an hour-long presentation down to three-quarters of an hour. Or a half-hour. Whatever you do, don’t surpass your allotted time. If there is an agenda, stick to it. Have someone friendly in the audience signal you when you are running out of time. It is unfair to cut into other people’s presentations because you are out of control; you are not that important. As for how many slides makes a decent presentation, plan on an average of three minutes per slide (with questions). That means 15-20 slides max. If you can’t cut your presentation down to 20 slides, you don’t really understand your material.

5.    Don’t worry so much. It’s only a presentation.

My former company was not, in my opinion, adequately engaged in R&D, nor was it completely wedded to the concept of market tests. That relegated us, for the most part, to the class of companies launching me-too and second generation products with incremental improvements.

This strategy is not wholly without merit. Nor is the Poison Apple (let-someone-else-take-the-first-bite) strategy. Let others do the development work in the lab and the pioneering work in the field; once the product has proven itself but before it becomes established, swoop in with a clone and nifty marketing that ostensibly shows differentiation and you’re set. You have to be quick, however. An aggressive pricing strategy would also help but, generally, that was not our way. We were always about value-added, if not value-creation.

The Drivers

In the evaluation of new product potential, success was measured against a set of criteria. We would ask the tough questions: Does the new product play off existing strengths and to existing customers? Is it easily explainable (and, therefore, marketable)? Does the potential return justify the investment required? Clearly, incremental improvements, line extensions and value-added me-too products, which leverage existing brands and customer loyalty, would more likely give yes answers to these questions.

One study of 11,000 new product launches conducted by Kuczmarski & Associates (a Chicago-based management consulting firm specializing in accelerating growth through innovation) listed the primary motivations for launching new products. In order of importance:
-    Attract a new customer or market;
-    Gain or maintain a competitive advantage;
-    Retain customers;
-    Fill a growth or profit gap;
-    Arrest margin erosion;
-    Utilize new technology.
All but the last could be accomplished without adopting ‘risky’ innovation strategies.

In a business with small margins, a success rate of 10-15% for new products is unacceptable. And that’s after the cost of trials and errors getting past the development stage and finally to market test in the first place. Or is that second place. At any rate, market testing is far from foolproof and not universally accepted as the perfect way to go.

This includes market testing new merchandising concepts.

The Best Buy Example

In the September 15, 2008, issue of Marketing magazine, Lesley Young reports on Best Buy’s recent penchant to skip a step (ref. Launching Pad) when initiating new retailing options. Its new Best Buy Mobile mall store concept, for example, went straight to market launch.

Test marketing and launch marketing use basically the same techniques. But tests can eat up time (3-6 months) and save little on costs compared to, say, a true, though geographically-restricted launch. As well, with increasing ethnicity and socio-economic diversity blurring demographics, and with the spillover of regional media diffusing erstwhile targeted messages, there are few perfect test markets available anyway.

Best Buy also created Geek Squad departments inside their stores without testing. They found, probably to no one’s surprise, that the techies were as valuable on-site as they were on the road.

Again, back to my own experience, we found that segment-specific marketing was almost fail-safe as direct-to-launch programs. Of course, in-house specialists worked with customers during the entire design process so that we always knew we were on-target.

At the end of the day, despite all the budget and time restrictions, you’ve got to get results. If you are not introducing a whole new technology, market tests do not circumvent the restrictions, nor do they guarantee the results. The merits of the product or service, the simplicity of the message, and excellence in the execution of the launch will be the determining factors of success.

Last point: I referred several times to the issue of explainability. Will people ‘get’ the new product or program? Can the marketing message be simply defined and easily delivered? It is extraordinarily difficult to change people’s perceptions or habits. I would never consider launching a true innovation or a new technology (which tend to do both) without market testing first. There is a right time and place for everything.