Lloyd Rothstein wasn’t always a believer in the power of presentation. As co-owner of Scoles Floorshine, a Farmingdale, N.J.-based jan/san distributor, he knows that customers are dealing with budget constraints, and they’re hungry for concrete numbers, not a lot of pretty pictures. A few years ago, however, Rothstein realized that a state-of-the-art sales presentation provides as much data as any spreadsheet can — in fact, it can provide even more.

“I was really set in my ways,” he says, “but I heard about how some of my competitors were using digital cameras to demonstrate improved cleaning and storage, so I figured that I should at least give it a try. Now, I regularly give PowerPoint presentations with facility images from my digital camera. I know it has really helped our business, and that we’ve gotten new accounts as a result of those presentations.”

Stadiums, large hotels, airports and universities represent some of the largest accounts distributors can hope for. Purchasing agents for these facilities want to witness the practicality of proposed cleaning methodology, says Mark Schuford, end-user development manager for Rubbermaid Commercial Products, Winchester, Va.

“Visuals are extremely important in our industry,” he says. “In the building market, the people are operations folks. They’re not like marketing people who can just spin a lot of words — they actually have to physically clean the concourse areas, and empty the receptacles and avoid bottlenecks, etc.”

Pictures That Pay
High-tech sales demonstrations do require extra work; some distributors spend hours walking through potential customers’ facilities, taking digital pictures and then placing those images into a presentation (either Power-Point® or simply onto a laptop).

Recently, Rothstein was able to use a digital walk-through to get the business of a large customer that has a lot of buying power. “I was in front of four purchasing agents for Rutgers University,” he says. “We already supply the housing and facilities divisions of Rutgers, but this was their foodservice division. I was able to go through each part of the facility with them, and show them what we planned to do. They were really impressed, and we landed the account.”

For the Rutgers presentation, Rothstein spent time walking around the foodservice area and took several pictures of “problem areas” — over-stuffed janitorial closets, heavy-traffic hallways and cramped kitchens, for example. He then took pictures of similar facilities that had a well-organized cleaning program. He was able to incorporate both sets of images into a before-and-after series of the demonstration, which showed exactly what the biggest problems were and how they would be solved by his company.

“They were looking for a proposal in a lot of areas,” he says. “They wanted to see how we’d handle equipment sales, soap dispensers, waste receptacles and a few other items. I just went ahead of time and took pictures of how they should organize their closets, and I included some other closets we had done for other Rutgers divisions. I put it in a PowerPoint presentation and they really took to it.”

Of the premier buildings that are likely to be impressed by a virtual walk-through, large stadiums — venues that host thousands of patrons at one time — may be the most likely customers to benefit from seeing a digital presentation that diagrams traffic flow and strategic cleaning methods.

Stadium-Size Sales
Schuford helped Rubbermaid Commercial develop a sales demonstration called “Project Stadium” that uses a CD-ROM program in tandem with a building’s architectural blueprints to create a powerful sales presentation that’s specifically geared to solving the cleaning needs of individual arenas and stadiums.

“When I started selling to stadiums, I would tell them, ‘This is how many receptacles you need,’ or, ‘This is where most of the foot traffic seems to be,’ and they would always answer, ‘Well, can you show me with the blueprint?’” says Schuford. “What we do now with Project Stadium is we take a copy of the facility’s blueprint, and based on the layout of the facility, we make recommendations.”

It might seem like there couldn’t be a sales presentation more advanced than the ones that incorporate digital cameras and facility blueprints. Believe it or not, there are presentations even more impressive, although they are currently rare occurrences in the sanitary supply industry.

Don Fedorko is president and founder of ImprovEyes, a St. Louis-based company that creates virtual “fly-throughs” and 360-degree presentations for some of the top facilities in North America. These digital demonstrations are almost always animated, but they look so life-like, that observers often mistake them for photographs.

Recently, the city of Indianapolis commissioned ImprovEyes to create a digital tour of the city’s yet-to-be-built international airport. Like Rubbermaid’s Project Stadium, the virtual fly-throughs use actual blueprints to take observers from the outside of a facility to the facility’s inner workings.

“We also recently did a project for a stadium in Hong Kong,” says Fedorko. “It’s a pretty big undertaking, because there’s really a lot of data for a stadium, especially if it has multiple levels like this one did. It’s very detailed, with people walking by, etc., but you could do a very basic diagram for a building that might show simple schematics — where waste receptacles go, where there’s heavy traffic. We can use bright colors to show where those cleaning stations would be most appropriate.”

Some jan/san professionals might think that fully animated sales demonstrations seem beyond their sophistication level, but Fedorko says that animated presentations aren’t just about showing off the technology. “We don’t just make pretty pictures; we’re in the business of finding practical building solutions,” he says. “We can increase the amount of communication between the architect, the building managers and the people who are working there. Often, you have a meeting and everyone thinks they agree about a particular aspect of building operations, but they actually all have a different idea about how it will work. These demonstrations really increase communication.”

An Industry on the Edge
Fedorko would like ImprovEyes to get more involved with doing presentations on the operational level, with industries like the sanitary supply industry. “We already do a lot of universities,” he says. “We diagram various zones and then zoom in and out to show key entrance points to the campus. We did a demonstration for one of the science buildings on a college campus to show where the cool air was coming from, so that they would be able to monitor their ventilation systems accurately.”

For distributors who are concerned about the cost of such a high-powered, one-time demonstration, it’s important to weigh the long-term benefits of selling cleaning programs to large accounts.

“Companies like mine can do a basic massing model that includes just simple floors, walls, ceilings and outer walls of a building,” says Fedorko. “Then you could have one of the portals where you walk in and see the interior in detail. We could show all the pertinent areas for cleaning and maintenance. A program like that might cost around $10,000.”

No jan/san distributor can afford to spend $10,000 unwisely, but if a quality sales presentation stands a good shot at blowing away the competition, it probably deserves some consideration.

The sanitary supply industry is primed to make use of the most cutting-edge presentation technology available, according to Rothstein. “I definitely think there’s a place for the 3-D animated demonstrations,” he says. “It’s more the younger generation that’s really going to take to that. We’re seeing a lot more young purchasing agents. If they’re under 35, they were brought up in the computer age, so that’s what they’ll respond to.”

Sanitary supply distributors who take the time to actually show facility managers how they can provide value won’t have trouble beating out those distributors who merely talk about what they plan to do, says Rothstein.

“People need to see,” he says. “When you talk to people, only a small percentage are actually listening to everything you’re saying. If you put a quality visual image in front of them, then they’ll pay attention.”

High-tech Sales Resources

Every sales manager needs a little inspiration now and then. Distributors will get some great ideas on how they can put their reps in a position to keep old accounts and attract new ones here. Along with categories like “Negotiating and Closing” and “Sales Strategy,” there’s also a link to “Presenting and Speaking,” under which distributors will find several articles on putting together spectacular sales presentations.

Articles are written by a variety of sales professionals who have experienced the peaks and valleys of a sales careers. While most of the site offers tips in the way of commentary, there are also several links to information on the newest sales presentation applications — from sales software to Internet sales to customer databases to mobile wireless presentations.

Learn Business Like an MIT MBA

Looking for business resources to pass on to your employees? You don’t have to be accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MBA program at the Sloan School of Management (or pay the tuition fees) in order to use its website.

Sloan has a well-earned reputation for preparing students for successful management careers in several distribution industries. Now, you can access that same instruction for free with management commentary, analysis and instruction at MIT Sloan’s website.




POSTED ON: 9/1/2003