I have read many posts about the scourge of PowerPoint and how it derails presentations. Being a PowerPoint fan, I have resisted these barbs. That is, until this morning.

I sat through a presentation in which the speaker used PowerPoint during his 60 minute talk. Here’s what I experienced in the audience:

-His laptop was turned perpendicular to the screen so he spoke mainly to his laptop with his shoulder facing the room. I was on the “backside” so I spent the majority of the time looking at his back.

-He used animated bullets that would fly in, sweep in, float in, etc. On one slide, a bullet point slowly floated up from the bottom to the top and off the screen. It never stopped – just disappeared. Everyone got a laugh out of it, but I am certain that was not his goal.

-There were, on average, 6-7 small font bullet points on each slide which led the speaker to read many of them (at 90 degrees to the audience). You could hear the multiple sighs in the audience as they attempted to crunch the voluminous data on each slide.

I was sitting there aghast as I observed this presentation. I’ve personally used PowerPoint for many of my talks and I now find myself those talks in my mind.

PowerPoint is an effective tool as long as it is used properly – maybe more like a prompt and less like a book. If you use PowerPoint in your sales presentation, make sure you do not allow it to suck the spontaneity out of you.

And double check all of your animated bullets.

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Earlier this week, myself and the President of one of our customers interviewed a sales candidate. We purposely put the candidate through an extensive interview to observe his ability to handle a lengthy discussion (similar to our customer’s typical call).

After putting him through the paces, we gave him the chance to ask questions of us. This time is most valuable in an interview in that it gives you insight into the candidate’s thought process during the qualifying stage in a sales process. He did quite well in his questions – he learned who the competition is, what markets he would call on, the company’s value proposition and culture (including training & support).

But one of his questions of the President I especially liked:

In all my past sales positions I have surprised my managers and ramped up much quicker than they expected. In a relatively short time, I have been able to not only reach but exceed my quotas. If I came in a repeated what I have done in all my previous positions, what would you expect that to look like?

What a great question. The candidate came across as confident in his ability to be successful in this role, but he was also able to discover how the President defined success in this role.

As you are interviewing sales candidates, don’t race to answer their questions without noting their questions. Remember, a strong salesperson always has a remarkable ability –ASKING QUESTIONS. Many times I watch clients ask question after question and then never really allow the candidate to ask their questions. They then want to judge the sales candidate solely on how well they answered the questions. This approach is risky since you may end up hiring the best interviewer, not necessarily the best salesperson.

The candidate’s answers to your questions are obviously important, but make sure you properly value their questioning (i.e. qualifying) ability.

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