Our lives are so seamlessly interconnected with technology that it feels impossible to be able to function without the aid of gadgets these days. Our mobile phones have become more important than our left arms and our days, so integrated with some gizmos that we forget what it was like to live without them. Until they stop working that is. Full scale panic attack anyone?
These situations are exactly what I am talking about. Technology failing you on your big day, (no, not your wedding, the more important one; your presentation day) can be the salesperson’s ultimate nightmare. No, I don’t mean to raise your anxiety through the roof with these fun hypothetical scenarios. I want to help you feel prepared and be self assured in your ability to tackle any curve balls thrown your way. Things going wrong shouldn’t necessarily spell disaster unless you are caught unaware. If you are prepared it can actually enhance your image.
Curve Ball 1: The Conference room goes Dark
Your opponent needn’t be a scheming competitor in cohorts with the local IT guy, you could just be up against…power outage! Yes, this happened to me and it can happen to you too. Don’t go calling your local exorcist right away, darkness is not evil, it is just the absence of light. And hopes. And dreams. Do call the electrician meanwhile.
I learnt this lesson a few years ago while I awaited the Vice President of a multi-billion dollar company to come for a visit to watch the demonstration of the prototype of the technology we were selling. All of us had flown in from different countries to India to watch the demonstration. My team and I had worked tirelessly for many days so everyone’s itineraries lined up and everything was geared to go. Confident in our preparation and planning abilities, we met the VIP prospects and led them to our sophisticated media room when BOOM! The power goes off. I remember how we all looked at each other and laughed it off and made small talk while I tried to maintain a calm exterior and left the room to make frantic calls to people responsible for making sure the backup generator was connected. They let me know that it was the backup generator that had given up and actually there was no electricity since morning. That’s when I realized my first mistake. There is no such thing as over prepared. I should have made sure to have more backup options to even the worst imaginable scenario.
I went back inside and announced that it is going to be an early lunch for us that day and that our entertainment will have to wait. We did end up building a better personal relationship that day, rather than having to go upfront, diving head first into explaining the technology before getting a chance to connect with my audience. The silver lining came in two parts.
a) First, I got to introduce them to my colleagues at the office premise and had the chance to show them the way we work and our work ethic. It was more impactful for them to actually see their future employees and people responsible for making the magic of the prototype possible. As I said before, if there are many sales people selling similar products at similar prices, the prospect will choose the sales person they personally like best.
b) Second, If I had proceeded to give the demonstration first, I would have had to make them sit around the table, go to the front of the room and turn my body away to start the setup. This would have put physical distance between us and a loss of eye contact for most of the duration. Body language is essential in sales. People can zone out and their eyes can glaze over as you speak if you are too self involved in what you present rather than how you are presenting it. It is risky to lose attention so early and have the prospect leave right after the demo, to go about their day and not give you the opportunity to personally relate or leave a lasting impression.
Thankfully, the generators were up and running after we returned from our meal and we were all happier and more energized for it. The prospect felt enough at ease to interrupt me and ask questions at any point since that ice was broken and we both had a feel of how the other liked to work. Therefore, if the technology fails, the onus is on you. You can often emerge better off than if the equipment had worked fine.
In day to day selling, the problem won’t be as big as the collapse of the entire electrical unit, but more localized. Maybe your computer will not work, the internet connection might be erratic or the projector won’t sync up with your devices. Problems which can be embarrassing especially in this day and age where everyone is intelligent enough to know exactly what went wrong. But this scenario presents a unique phenomenon. Everyone is now actually rooting for you!
The Champions of the Underdog:
Standing in the shoes of the audience, let us consider what is going through their minds when the presenter is going through a technical problem. Each person is:
- Thankful that this isn’t happening to them
- Eager to see how the presenter handles it.
That first thought is human and huge. This glitch has made the audience sympathetic to the presenter and made them identify and root for their success. They are thinking of how they would like to be treated in a similar situation and they would surely want everything to work out for them in the end.
However, turning this into a success lies solely on the planning and preparation of the presenter and what he/she says in the moment.
Curve ball 2: Laptop failure
If you have an important presentation, back it up in various drives. Upload it on the cloud or arrive with your good old pen drive in your back pocket with your presentation on it. Setting up the computer and figuring out that it does not work can be daunting but it will be less so if you can just plug your pen drive to a replacement laptop as you continue to engage with your audience. It will be memorable to all if you manage to waste zero minutes of everyone’s time by arriving ready for an eventuality as small as this. However, to be on the safer side, make sure that your presentation is in a compatible format. If you have used fancy formats like Prezi, Presto or other websites that require you to sign in, it is always best to use a professional username so you can sign in on a different laptop with zero embarrassment. Powerpoint point, slide show executables or regular Adobe pdf are a good idea for a backup format as they can run on any device old or new. This way, no matter the substitute, your show can go on.
What can you say in these situations?
Be confident and let your audience know what is happening in the situation and what you will be doing to resolve it. Say something like “We are experiencing some technical issues but don’t worry, I have a backup which should start working in the next couple of minutes. If we can’t, I’ll still continue with the presentation but you’ll get just me without the fancy slides”
This will reassure the audience that the presentation will resume shortly and they should stay seated. It will also show you as a professional who plans well, does not waste any time and resolves problems quickly.
Curve Ball 3: Projector Failure
This is definitely a bigger problem as replacing a projector is not as easy. Also, this can potentially happen in a bigger crowd where crowd control is key and once the situation spirals out of control, getting back to the same amount of attention is difficult. Do not be intimidated by the scenario where you are running about finding and powering up a replacement. Just make a similar announcement and be prepared to do the first few minutes without slides. In fact, you will find that it will be easier for you to get the introduction going as it will be more succinct than the barrage of information that would have been there on the slide. You can always reassure your prospect by saying “The presentation mostly had artwork to make our numbers look fun, but our numbers are big and interesting on their own! Don’t worry our best key points will be understandable even without the Powerpoint.”
If you do not find a replacement, be ready to speak your key points clearly without slides. Use fewer technical terms and more layman terms in your explanations so the audience is able to retain your explanation without visual aid. What I suggest next will seem outdated, but it is always a good idea to have a summary of your presentations printed out and distributed to the audience members at the end of the meeting so they have the most important information in hand as soon as they are done listening to you. This reinforces the takeaway from your presentation and will serve as a memory aid even in the absence of slides.
Curve ball 4: Internet failure
Can you imagine the internet giving up on you right before your most important zoom call? This one is probably the biggest and scariest of the technical failures to face currently. A slow connection may actually be worse than a complete loss, as it will put the viewers under the excruciating ordeal of looking at fuzzy audio and video and trying to make sense of distorted words and visuals. It is downright dangerous to have given incomplete information. As scary as this scenario is, it is also one which you have more control over. Even if you are confident about your latest router and wifi setup, you must have two separate sources of networks, up and running before your meeting starts. Here, I would advise a few things:
- Educate yourself about Hotspot on your mobile phones and how to set it up at a moment’s notice. Ensure you are sitting at a spot which receives full network and is showing a good connection to your laptop.
- Do a trial run, the meeting is not the place to first discover the practical aspect of things even if you have a vague idea of how to go about it. If the network is already recognized and saved in your laptop, it will seamlessly switch over without much ado.
- Wifi is our fourth basic need. You must have different sources to connect if your trusty router fails you. An Internet cafe may not be the best option to present your super secret and important technical know-how.
What should you do if you are physically present in an unfamiliar room to give your presentation over poor wifi? Screen save the slides beforehand if downloading them is simply not an option.
I remember being a fresh recruit and having supervisors who lived in Chicago and Washington. As a new graduate, in an MNC that was a frontrunner in the Indian tech industry, it was something of an eye opener to see the extensive networking between different time zones. I was the dude with poor wifi and bad audio and my first real investment was buying the most expensive internet package and mobile carrier. I even treated myself to a super sleek external hard drive as a bonus!
Curve Ball 5: Unfamiliar Devices
This is not a technical failure nor a technical know how failure, it is just unfortunate. Many devices use different softwares which you may not have used before and are impossibly hard to work on. This is happening more and more as everyone competes to have state of the art technology installed in their swanky conference rooms and offices. As tech sales people, everyone expects us to be fully aware of the latest upgrades and new releases out there and as an elder millennial, I atleast find it hard to keep up with the new Gen Z tech recruit. The basic functions might be easy to perform but elaborate slides and supporting documents and videos will be harder to sync effortlessly during the presentation. The best thing to do is arriving at the venue early and figuring out what you will be working on. It also makes sense to have their tech support ready to help you walk through the new software and add ons.
CONCLUSION
As always, there are no shortcuts to being well prepared and being calm in face of adversity. There is not much a winning smile can’t solve and it is always best to have backups of all backups in your arsenal, especially if it is a meeting you cannot afford to fail. Looking incompetent while selling technology will not inspire confidence in you or your brand and might be more damaging to your reputation than if anything else had gone wrong.
