Your brand will outlive your products.
Let me say that again.
Your brand will outlive your products.
Brand communicates the promise of your company. It signifies uniform experience and quality. Your very credibility is wrapped up in your brand.
You know this. That’s why you’ve spent so much time, effort and money creating your brand. It’s why you’ve set brand standards for everything from products to customer service to sales presentations.
So doesn’t it absolutely break your heart when your brand isn’t represented by the people you’ve hired to share it with your customers?
That was SKYCITY’s experience when they discovered that their sales managers were cobbling together their own PowerPoint presentations.
The sales team felt constricted by the brand-standard decks. You can’t really blame them for wanting to have more natural sales conversations … but still …
“We were concerned that [these] PowerPoint presentations weren’t aligned with our overall brand,” recalls Gillian Officer, Director Sales - Conventions. “When you invest in your brand, you want it presented in a particular manner. Without a tool that helps the presenter to follow those particulars, we had no control over how our brand was being presented.”
SKYCITY is an international operator of casino facilities, restaurants, bars, hotels and convention centers. By the very nature of their business, they engage with a wide variety of clients. The company’s brand was the thread that tied everything together … and it was beginning to fray.
Looking for a Simple Alternative to PowerPoint
Officer knew that the delivery method of these sales presentations was a core problem. PowerPoint was linear, whereas sales conversations were not. She wanted to give her sales managers a way to answer customer questions quickly and seamlessly, without forcing them to flick through slide decks.
She approached the IT team to help her come up with a solution. What they found, though, “were solutions to bigger problems,” said Officer. “They were a lot more complex than what we needed.”
Her sales managers needed something that would help them be totally customer-centric. Something easy to use on the fly. Something that enabled them to do what they do best: help their customers.
“We were looking for a best practice. We wanted to be more cutting edge than PowerPoint,” said Officer.
When she saw a demonstration of Showcase, she knew she’d found what she was looking for.
The App Was the Foundation – but the Content Was King
For SKYCITY, the app was just the starting point. Organising the sales enablement assets in a way that worked for the sales team was priority #1 once Officer decided to transition from PowerPoint to Showcase.
“When we built it, we included all facilities: hotels, convention spaces, outcatering, restaurants and gaming,” said Officer. “Now, these ‘streams’ run parallel in one presentation. It’s brilliant. With Showcase, we’re sure that everything is up to date, from product changes to promotions. That’s really critical for us.”
Today Officer and her team at SKYCITY manage the content of the showcase and push updates out to the sales managers’ accounts. This gives Officer total control over how the company’s brand is represented, while freeing the sales team to focus on helping prospects and clients.
“It’s been a really easy transition. We’ve got good buy-in from all parties,” she said. “Now we’re comfortable tackling the question, ‘how can we make it better?’”
Brand Isn’t a Logo – It’s an Experience
SKYCITY understands that their value isn’t their name or their logo – it is their brand. It is the experience that brand represents. Their sales team understood that, too, but were hobbled by PowerPoint presentations that didn’t work in real-world sales conversations.
Officer and her team found a solution that worked to support the company’s brand while empowering the sales team – and it didn’t require a huge IT undertaking.
The solution was simple: the right software and a smart content plan.
