A presentation on presentations
You’ll get some great points from this set of slides about engaging the brain in presentations… why you should fling your current PowerPoint presentations and take notice of this advice.
Put an end to work on spec
I read tonight of a new online business venture which not only encourages work “on spec” but uses it as a model for designers. What a disaster!
Before I get into this post, so you know what “on spec” means, from No!Spec, the definition of work “on spec” is:
“Spec” has become the short form for any work done on a speculative basis. In other words, any requested work for which a fair and reasonable fee has not been agreed upon, preferably in writing.
Back to the story.
The site in question — which I have no intention of promoting with a free link — uses this approach:
by having bidding designers (at least 25 entries) submit completed concepts rather than just proposals in the competitive process
Why have they determined that this model of business is okay for graphic design? Why should a provider — in this case a designer — invest their time, equipment and skills in a project where they’re one of at least 25 submissions to the client. So they have a four percent chance of being paid.
You wouldn’t think of doing this in other environments.
For instance, if you’re building a new home, do you ask 25 builders to build you a house “on spec”, and then choose the one you want to pay for? Hardly! Would a hairdresser cut hair all day “on spec” in the hope that 1-in-25 clients likes them enough to pay for it? No!
Design is no different.
Now, if you’re a new designer (or copywriter, desktop publisher etc) then you might want to take on some “free” work — pro-bono — to build up a credible portfolio before you have a lot of successfully completed projects under your belt. In that way, it’s a legitimate way to build up your reputation by showing a client the type of work (and client) you are capable of producing.
And there’s certainly a difference between creating personalised marketing samples to attract a client and creating full projects you “might” get paid for as one of several or even dozens of potential skilled providers.
But that client then expecting you to undertake full projects without the surety of payment … makes no sense for the provider … so in the end it’ll make no sense for a client. It devalues the intellectual property skills of the provider, devalues their time and ultimately costs clients more money anyway as that lost time is compensated for with paid hours.
A better approach — which I use regularly — is to guarantee my services and involvement in a project. The risk is on me to produce something suitable, or risk not being paid in the unlikely event my work doesn’t fit the bill. But — other than for poor performance — my involvement in the project is paid for, not “on spec”.
If a client is asking for work “on spec” because they don’t know you — then along with a guarantee you could use samples, existing work and client testimonials to help prove your value. So there are certainly ways to persuade a client who isn’t aware of your capabilities of your suitability for a project.
Stick to these proven, persuasive approaches and steer clear of the “on spec” requests!
More Getting Attention Insights
Let’s Connect is a presentation from Dutch agency IN10 in Rotterdam. The opening statistic highlights that only 5.5% of viewers are attuned to ads during tv ad breaks.
Again, while it’s based on big company tactics and “brand communication” it has plenty of lessons for small business on how to connect and get attention in modern marketing.
Some of the slides here refer to the briefings published by trendwatching – an excellent website that highlights “consumer trends and insights from around the world.”
The free monthly trendwatching briefings are well worth the viewing time — and the notification emails are some of the very few messages I allow to directly land in my inbox without being filtered (along with sister site Springwise — a weekly summary of new business ideas).
2007 Internet Marketing Trends
Another Slideshare presentation to point to … this time relating to trends in Internet Marketing.
There’s interesting data in here how PPC (Pay Per Click) is moving towards SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) — finding ways of getting search rankings without the cost of sponsored listings/Google advertising.
Slides 18 to 20 have some useful resources to note.
Strategies such as the use of blogs — like this one — definitely help get attention. And then, on top of that, specific blogging methods and tools ensure you maximise your decision to create and use a blog to build online traffic.
For instance, I’m using Wordpress (self-hosted) with a number of specific plugins to help drive traffic to this site (more about that in a future post). And I notice in my stats that traffic starts to arrive at my blog literally within hours of making new posts (you can read a blog post I did last year showing how fresh content is rewarded in search results).
If you view this presentation on Slideshare, you can see it in full-screen mode.
Engaging Customer Experiences
Here’s an interesting Slideshare presentation I’ve just watched called “Digital Experience Design and the Digital Agency”.
Although agency-focused and aimed at designers, it’s a nice reference to people-driven, citizen-based marketing and how experience matters to engage an audience and create customer conversations… to get the brain juices flowing.
What can you extract from these 27 slides and adapt to your own business approach?
If you view this presentation on Slideshare, you can see it in full-screen mode.