Let us analyze this newspaper advertisement. "22.6% of the people living in my city (Hyderabad) are diabetic. " That's a big number. That's the attention grabber in this ad. This oil claims to help achieve three things. One, reduce blood glucose. Two, reduce bad cholesterol, and three r educe high blood pressure. This paper ad ends with two sentences. One, 'manage your diabetes with Fortune Vivo' and 'India's first cooking oil for diabetes-care'. What's broken in this ad?  #1 Dilution of main message   This ad will have more impact if it stuck to one message. The header talks about diabetes. The bottom two lines talk about the same. But what do the icons talk about? Diabetes, BP and Cholesterol. This ad will have a stronger impact if it sticks to diabetes and avoids cholesterol and BP. Deliver one and only one message on one slide. Resist the temptation to appeal to all kinds of audiences and say unrelated things. You can say other ...

  Are you finding it difficult to 'sell' your NEW product to large B2B clients? Are you not closing enough B2B deals because your clients just don't get it? You might be selling it the wrong way. New products and ideas cannot be sold the old way. And what is the old way? Old sales presentations start with 'About Us'. I have seen innumerable number of high-stakes B2B pitches as a senior marketer. A large majority of the presentations always started with About Us. There was once a time, when the sales person pitching to me went on for 20 minutes and presented 10 slides - all 'selling' his global MNC to us. Why do people start by 'selling themselves'? They believe, and rightly so, that people buy from people and before buying what you sell, they need to 'buy into' who you are. Are you the right partner? They need to respect your company. If you do not talk about your heritage and multiple offices across the globe you will be seen as...

I hosted my first webinar two days back. It was a new experience for me and I had lots of concerns. I have spoken many times before but how will I speak to my computer without seeing any faces. The webinar was an audio only event where I was sharing my screen and presenting with the help of slides. I had many concerns: How will I engage my audience when I can't even see them? What speed should I speak at for maximum comprehension? How will I ask questions and seek answers? How do I keep a track of time? How do I ensure I do not overshoot? How will I deal with technical snags? I was supposed to speak for 2 hours 30 minutes and I finished only 5 minutes late that too because the QnA session got extended (the audience wanted to continue). Here is what I learned from my first webinar which will help you deliver your webinar with confidence. 1. ATTEND A WEBINAR BEFORE HOSTING ONE Attending a webinar as a participant exposes you to the challenges of hosting one your...

Most people hate most presentations that they sit through. That's because most presenters bore their audiences and fail to engage and excite. This has given rise to the term 'Death by PowerPoint'. In this blog post I unravel 7 tips that counter Death by PowerPoint and make your audience love your content and love you too. Make your presentation easy to understand. Clarity trumps everything. Capture the attention of your audience. Do not try to tell them everything. They do not need to know it all. Make your presentation easy to pass on. Make your slides very visual. Shun lots of words and go for images and videos. Ensure you appeal to logic and appeal to emotions while building credibility for yourself. A presentation which fulfills the above six criteria takes time to prepare. There are no short cuts. CLARITY Creating content that your audience will love starts with clarity. You lose your audience when they do not understand you. There are a few simple...