IBM
0199 IBM presentations
Despite what many of the more flamboyant practitioners might aspire to, it is inevitably the content that is the driving force of a professional presentation. It certainly was so for Frank Cummiskey, the IBM VP who was globally renowned within IBM for his presentations. His staff worked hard and long to provide the few elegantly simple thoughts he so superbly presented. The medium is only relevant in terms of the extent to which it gets in the way of communicating this content.
The pyrotechnics of presentation may be immediately impressive but they are usually just as instantly forgettable.
The danger of such pyrotechnics covering poor content was, for me, epitomised by the very high profile launch of IBM's replacement for its personal computer; the PS/2. The audience, of some hundreds of dealer principals including myself, was clearly rooting for IBM; it desperately needed something totally new to lift the whole industry out of the rut it was in. I believed then, as I still do now, that the PS/2 range had hidden under its covers all the revolutionary advances that the dealers wanted. What we got though was one of IBM's fabulous multi-media extravaganzas. Illustrated by specially made videos and excellent visuals, we were entertained to a series of lectures on IBM quality, as the products themselves were revealed. Most evident, though, was the constant repetition, duly interleaved with comedy interludes in case anyone was getting bored, of the theme that it was IBM's biggest announcement ever.
As we made our way out of the theatre everyone was saying that it had been a marvellous presentation - and it had been. Yet less than three weeks later the industry was saying that the product range was a damp squib, and IBM was desperately trying to reassure Wall Street that nothing was wrong; fulfilling a prediction that I had made as I left the presentation.
The problem was that there really was no meat in the content. Half the presentation was taken up with pitches on quality, which was largely irrelevant in the specific context of the new products. All we were told about the four new products themselves was their box identification numbers (ranging from 30 to 80, hardly inspiring stuff), and their bare specifications (which fell some way short of those of IBM's competitors already out in the market). This was backed up by dramatic references to the really revolutionary material, the operating system (OS/2) and the new 'micro-channel'; but apart from the repeated use of superlatives (it really was IBM's biggest announcement ever) no details were given about these all-important technical advances.
Over the next few weeks the competition, understandably, set out to rubbish the new range (gladly pointing out, for example, that the key operating system, which was the justification for the new products, would not be available for nearly a year); and they succeeded, for the audience had no knowledge, no meaty content, to rebut these stories.
Thus, IBM wasted a unique opportunity of offering an audience clamouring for its product a true understanding of the really powerful and revolutionary developments it had come up with. Instead it brought to bear all the skills of its multi-media specialists; and made an eagle look just like any old turkey, a delicious meal for the vultures that immediately descended on it!
My all-time worst experience of a presentation was that of a 45 minute presentation laid on by a leading software company. Of that time, the product received marginally over five minutes. The remaining 40 minutes were given over to embarrassingly amateur comedy sketches based on a TV series, backed by a girl singer, who did at least have the good grace to look embarrassed by the fact that she was singing off key! An American sitting in the seat next to me succinctly characterised it as, “The biggest turkey I've seen since Thanksgiving”; and I lost any interest I might have had in the product.
I also remember, for rather different reasons, the sales professional from one computer manufacturer who made a superb job of selling to us. We stocked his product largely on the basis of his sales presentation which, against my earlier strictures, was his first contact and was a presentation to the whole dealership. Unfortunately, the product and its support did not in reality live up to his claims. It simply did not, after all, meet our needs, and three months later we discontinued the line.
Some would argue that his slick, but not wholly truthful, presentation at least bought his company the possibility of sales through our outlet. But I believe he wasted his, and his company's, considerable investment in appointing us as dealers. He certainly wasted our time and money, and for this reason we subsequently dissuaded others from becoming their dealers, so his actions might actually have been, in the longer term, quite counter-productive.
In terms of the presentation techniques involved, within IBM it was a rule of thumb that largely new material required a ratio of between five and 10 times as long in the preparation as in the presentation, and totally new material a ratio of up to 20:1. Thus, a 45-minute presentation could take up to 15 hours of concentrated work (probably spread over at least three days), and would take at least five hours to rework for a different audience. Even with my experience I must admit that I still made a few presentations that were real turkeys. In each of these cases the subsequent post mortem concluded that the key factor in the failure was simply that I had not spent sufficient time on preparation.
On the other hand, I developed a rather idiosyncratic style; which was deliberately informal. So I often used the coffee break, before the demonstration or presentation started, to establish personal relationships with the key members of the audience The informal relationship was rolled over into the presentation. In particular it was used to start conversations which could be brought out in the presentation, to personalise it. I found that most prospects will open up, warmed by the informal atmosphere over a cup of coffee, far more than in the presentation itself. Having opened up, they will remain in this happy mood; the ideal start to the presentation. There is also a good chance that you can quickly establish their key questions (where these may perhaps have changed after seeing your competitors' presentations), and later impress them (both with your knowledge and with your personal interest) by answering these questions in the context of the presentation itself
I was so addicted to this informal, coffee break start that I used to deliberately slide from it into the presentation proper, almost the unnoticed, while the audience's defences were still down. Having got the audience seated, usually just by sitting down myself, and suggesting that they made themselves comfortable too, I would eventually start to develop a discussion across the whole group But (assuming it was small enough, say less than eight) I would then effectively start an informal, but conventional meeting. Then, at a convenient moment, I would start to introduce the presentation proper and switch on the projector.
In this way the audience – already asking questions - would be primed to be part of the presentation, and to be integrated in a participative meeting. In many important respects such a presentation becomes more akin to an ' extended call’ - which is exactly what I was aiming for.
I learnt my demonstrating skills in the early 1970s at the receiving end of an unusually unreliable IBM bureau system, called Terminal Business System (TBS). This was run on a large central mainframe, but the customer had a (typewriter) terminal. The system was almost totally unpredictable. You never knew when you would be able to get through to the mainframe, or when it would stop talking to you. As a result, demonstrations were a nightmare.
The eventual solution, I found, lay in combining the demonstration with a presentation; and walking a lot. When the system died on me, as it did once or twice during almost every demonstration, the golfball on the typewriter terminal would stop chattering. At this point I used to quickly suggest, “I think we should now have a look at some of the theory”, and transfer to the presentation. The walking was necessary because, to check if the system was up again, you had to periodically hit a key on the terminal. As I walked backwards and forwards in front of the terminal, while giving the presentation, I would surreptitiously hit the key. If the golfball chattered into life I would rapidly say: “Now is a suitable time to have another look at the demonstration.” Very few of the prospects ever realised that there were any problems; and very few of them even appeared to wonder why there were such peculiar switches between demonstration and presentation. It was superb experience in demonstration techniques and, after learning to cope, it was also great fun.
To support my Biomedical marketing, I organised several learned symposia. Each lasted a full day with a dozen or more speakers, presenting papers that were at the leading edge of medical research. Identifying who were the most important researchers in the forefront of medicine was no easy task in itself. I brought these speakers in from around the world, flying them from the USA as well as from Europe, at a cost of several thousand pounds in air fares alone. The audience, typically of around 600, had to be housed; and there are relatively few venues capable of handling this number and providing the atmosphere needed. They had to be seated, and had to be able to see and hear what was going on (which required full, professional, lighting/projection and sound teams - with up to half a dozen outside staff just for this). Of course, they also required feeding; and, where the details now counted, this had to be well done. It was a monumental task, and cost the best part of £10,000 each time; together with a number of weeks' work on my part. Again, though, it was a dramatic success, and significantly enhanced my group’s reputation.
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