Ten years ago the average adult attention span was 10 seconds; today it’s five. With this emerging data, we now know that attention deficit disorder is not just limited to today’s younger generations. With the advent of personal computers, laptops, tablets and hand-held devices, delivery and interpretation of information happens so quickly it’s hard to keep up. Ad banners streaming along the top of a screen, icons flashing mid-screen and cartoon figures flickering along the bottom and we cannot reasonably expect anyone to pay attention off-line at the same pace that they do on-line. These trends can be particularly challenging for the traditional face-to-face sales presentation, even when accompanied by a laptop or tablet. This holds true whether the presentation is for one or two people in a back office or for a crowded room. For these reasons alone, a strong and distinctive launch into a presentation is increasingly critical. As one financial services professional puts it: “We must establish and invigorate the trust, respect and engagement of our audience—immediately.”  Securing instantaneous trust is much more easily said than done, though. The key is to be authentic, someone who truly wishes to have a personal connection with their listeners. There is an overabundance of articles and books on the topic of establishing authenticity, but three key themes seem common to all:

• Be personable, not personal
• Brand yourself
• Make it a conversation

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Incorporating a productive workflow into your project life cycle can greatly improve the accuracy and time-to-market of your marketing communications. We refer to “workflow” as a series of repeatable steps that transform a product into a desired end result. The idea is to move the product along in the project life cycle to catch and fix any potential errors early on in the process.Read More

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Why do sales departments fight presentation automation? Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to asset management marketers about pitchbooks. The typical sentiment is that these sales tools are a pain to update and manage. Also, they are a point of contention between the marketing and sales teams. Marketers spend a lot of time keeping their slide library up-to-date and organized. But often times, these beautiful and compliant pitch materials become compromised once they get into the hands of the sales force. “It’s total piracy!” said one Product Management Executive we spoke to.

It’s true though. Salespeople are notorious for going rogue. They like customizing their own decks or using old versions saved on their desktop without thinking twice about branding or compliance.Read More

By Kim Rebecca

Automating the quarter-end production of fund fact sheets and other marketing materials can be a life saver for marketers. It dramatically reduces errors and improves time-to-market. However, convincing your organization to get on board with an automation initiative isn’t always easy. Making a solid business case to leadership and key stakeholders is essential. At most firms, the IT group is often the hardest to convince, but their buy-in is absolutely critical. You simply cannot move forward on this type of project without dedicated resources from IT. The IT manager will want to be sure that outsourcing a solution to a vendor is the right move and that dedicating resources to an automation project is a good investment. So, how should you present your case to IT decision makers?

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