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Would low cost creative activities help you get lower-cost leads and more sales? You bet! Find out how to reduce the cost-per-lead, increase effective presentation skills and transform your sales results.

One of the most under-used activities for sales presenters is staring you right in the face. Virtual events.

Sure, I bet you’re already hosting virtual events to discuss products, services and solutions. You and your team are working hard: pitching products and sharing tons of data. You’re racing against the clock to give “X” number of virtual events per week.

This is not a precise recipe for success.

Instead of giving sales-oriented virtual presentations, shift your focus. Focus on adding value for your customers. Put your customers first and you’ll skyrocket results – for pennies.

Consider this: to be highly effective, grow your virtual sales presentation skills in four ways.

1. Be a Thought Leader
Position yourself as a leader in your market. This can be achieved by developing free solutions for troubling problems. For instance, when a client had a big presentation coming up, I helped them brainstorm their story, whiteboard sketches and interaction.

The client gave the presentation and it was blew her audience away.

This naturally led to more work together. By providing help to position my client as a thought leader, I added value and provided thought leadership for her.

A little free leadership goes a long way!

2. Fix A Problem
You know the bug-a-boos your clients struggle with the most. Look there.

For instance, if you are in marketing – offer a tip that helps your clients resolve a troubling issue. This is a core method you can use in any industry and any market.

What’s the real big problem your clients want to fix? Help them fix it with checklists, tip-sheets and special reports. The effort you put into creating these items will pay back for years to come.

3. Go The Extra Mile
Take the fix to the next level. Host a free webinar. Explain how to leverage the fix to help your client get more benefit.

Wondering if this will result in business? Absolutely! When you are a thought leader in your field, fixing problems and going out of your way to help people – what do you think happens?

People remember it!

When they need a trusted advisor, a partner, or a strategic vendor, they’ll call you. This is a lot more rewarding than pounding the pavement or working the phones.

4. Present To Shine
Present your information, fixes and implementation ideas in new and different ways. Help your client shine when they need to sell this to decision makers in their organization.

This is one of the best creative practices you can take. Help your clients give effective presentations. The fastest way to do this is to give your client easy tools that make them look great.

Consider the profound impact of this. When you make it easy to sell their boss, they look great – and so do you.

In one fell swoop you’re building an ally, and guaranteeing that your solutions is marketed effectively to decision makers. Still think this isn’t worth your time?

Now, here’s how to do this – even on a tiny budget.

Send a one-page map to show how to use your solution in different situations. Send a visual guide that shows the 1-2-3 steps to trouble shoot problems. By helping your clients and prospects present ideas, you are positioning yourself as a valuable colleague.

What do you notice about these tips? They aren’t really product or sales-focused. They are customer focused. When you put your customer’s needs first, they will remember and they will want to do more business with you.

That’s a perfect transformation from pushy sales person to attractive advisor. These low-cost presentation tips work in a troubled economy – but are equally valuable when the economy picks up.

It might not seem like such a big deal–staying present when things are going well. I mean, easy, right? Maybe and maybe not.

“The tension was mounting on the teebox at the par-5 eighth hole at Conway Farms,” PGATour.com reported on Sept. 14, just before Jim Furyk became the sixth player in PGA Tour history to break 60. [The 8th was his 17th hole that day].

As a budding golfer married to one who’s been playing his entire life, I often see glimpses of exceptional play, but the magnitude of Mr. Furyk’s score of 59 for 18 holes was very rare and earned him membership in an exclusive club formed in 1977, when Al Geiberger became the first to shoot 59 on the PGA Tour.

Staying Present

The technical ability necessary to achieve such a score is high, but what struck me most was the focus and presence of mind required to manage the pressure Mr. Furyk must have felt as he made his way toward one of golf’s most elusive goals.

If you know my work in the world, you know I help people regain power under pressure. Usually, we’re looking at situations where things are going badly: conflict, stress, and relationship struggles with employees, partners, and family members. But what about when things are going well–I mean really well? Might it be even more challenging to stay in the moment when we are courting the possibility of perfection?

As a rank beginner, I’m just trying to keep the ball in the air. But experienced golfers often speak of how hard it is to keep it going when they’re playing at their best. The better the round goes, the more the prospect of “the choke” threatens. Suddenly you’re not thinking about the shot you’re playing but of what could go wrong. The better things get, the harder it is to stay focused.

Other sports have similar elusive goals and clutch moments. In baseball everyone, including the fans, feels the tension mounting, inning by inning and out by out, as their pitcher strives for the no-hitter or–even more rare–the perfect game.

When Life Is Good

What about when life is going well? Do you have difficulty enjoying the flow state, knowing that, inevitably, things will change? Are there moments when you find yourself waiting for what might go wrong? I’ve written about the challenges of being “publicly happy.” Maybe one reason is that we fear we might choke and ruin it all by talking about it.

Mr. Furyk said that to stay present that day “was a mental battle and a mental grind.” To take the pressure off, he talked with fellow golfer Gary Woodland, who joked about football. Laughter and the easy banter lightened the moment, and Furyk was able to stay loose and remain focused.

Can we apply the same technique to life–not take things so seriously, but rather be aware and grateful for what’s happening now? When conflict and problems arise, and they will, they invite us to appreciate even more the days when energy flows freely.

Don’t think about the next shot. Stay present to this one. Live, laugh, and let yourself be here now, in this ki moment. It’s the only one you really have.

New products are being developed on a constant basis for the self defense products industry. The distributors see the new designs cross their desks, and stock the new products on store shelves. Many have websites that require updating on a regular basis with new products.

Self defense products have to keep evolving to do a better job with less effort. If an attacker targets a victim, the victim must be able to deploy the device with minimal effort and use the device effectively. Design translates into easier initial deployment and fewer errors in the act of self defense.

Although there are some genuinely novel self defense devices, most innovations are improvements on current designs. Largely, this is true of most industries. Take an already successful product and make it better. Some general observations about product innovations are valuable.

Collecting data on a successful product will typically reveal that some customers would prefer the product be made with other features. That data may indicate enough design issues to cause a radical redesign of the product. A transition of this sort may significantly add to market share.

Totally new inventions may be difficult to get off the ground financially for a successful business. This route is notoriously difficult, and perhaps only for the entrepreneurs with the most dedication and a knack for vision. Be ready to deal with patent attorneys and have many lean years of difficulty.

Many innovations may only be centered on small changes, or even just aesthetic design alterations. Making straight-forward aesthetic changes is common in self defense products. Some degree of technical innovation is often combined with aesthetic improvements to make an old product style look refreshingly new.

Some products could do better to be made with multiple color and style options. This is true for many hand-held electronics designs. Plastics manufacturers may be able to accommodate the design requirements for a successful new product launch without costing your business a fortune.

A “eureka moment” will often have to be followed by dozens if not hundreds of test trials to bring a product to a final stage. However the journey may be rewarding. Consider the possibility that you may learn many things along the way that were previously unknown, and this knowledge may become a source of new innovations.

Innovation may be a hard challenging process, but there are rewards of personal satisfaction as well as potential wealth building. Much wealth these days is built by consumers buying new products that make the old product largely obsolete. All products wear out, so new and improved designs are likely to be tried in place of old designs in any consumer market segment. Embrace your innovative capacity.