Think of me as a presentation “whisperer”! If your sales presentations are not getting the impact you want, I can guide you through a new and improved process to create a Blockbuster presentation. If your internal teams are falling asleep or tweaking their weekly fantasy sports team roster when you are presenting, I will help you “wake up” your “same ol’ same ol’” presentation and make your peers sit up and listen!
I have been building and delivering professional presentations for more than 30 years, using every presentation tool ever invented! Kodak 35 mm slide carousels…. overhead projector… (I once closed a $150,000 software deal using only overhead transparency sheets!), flip charts, white boards and laptops with PowerPoint. I promise you, I have broken every presentation rule and best practice with PowerPoint there is to make. Therefore, I am determined to make up for my presentation sins in the past by helping professionals and sales teams deliver high quality, engaging and innovative presentations. My goal: to have every person delivering a presentation to hear the following when they are finished….” WOW, what a presentation!”
Marty’s Metrics
Top Skills
Speaking:
My mother says I came out of the womb talking! While that might be an exaggeration, my entire professional career has been focused on the art and science of public speaking, sales presentations, using the spoken word (and images) to move groups of people to common agreement and decisions, and ultimately, action. I am an active member of the National Speakers Association and have achieved the CSP Certified Speaking Professional designation, the highest earned designation awarded by NSA. Less than 1% of professional speakers have earned the CSP designation. I am also an active Toastmaster having achieved the level of Advanced Communicator Gold.
Presentation skills training:
What I have built combines my speaking and presentation skills, along with my sales training skills to create an easy to use, repeatable, and consistent 8 Step Process to create powerful, engaging and innovative presentations. This process can be applied to customer focused presentations or to presentations to internal company team meetings. Plato said, “People who tell the stories rule the world”. If you work with me, I’ll help make your presentations Pop so “you can rule your own world!”
Sales Training/Facilitation:
After 25 years in various sales leadership positions in the software and technology arena, I started (nudged by a corporate downsizing!) my own business focused on helping sales people and leaders improve their sales leadership skills, sales strategy, tactics and skills. In the last ten years, I have worked with over 8,000 sales people (yes, I kept a tally!) and leaders covering over $4 Billion (yes, Billion with a B!) worth of sales opportunities. I know, that’s a lot! Yes, I am way beyond the 10,000 hours it takes to become an expert!
My Story:
My story of selling and crafting presentations with stories starts in high school, selling newspaper subscriptions door to door (paid for my class ring with that money!). A few years later I sold books door to door in Cumberland, Maryland. You want to get good at crafting and delivering a great story and presentation, try knocking on doors without knowing who will answer! 11 weeks of knocking on doors paid for graduate school at Georgia Tech (Sting ‘em Jackets!). After Tech I worked for a healthcare consulting company which began to dabble in the software business as a distributor for a small start-up. One day the “original” Motorola “brick” cell phone arrived at my office from the software partner. The inside note said, “Thanks for selling $1 Million dollars of our software, enjoy this new thing they call a “cell phone”! That was the moment I realized I was not a consultant, but a salesperson! (I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes!)
That moment of realization led me to a long and successful career in various sales leadership positions with several different software firms. The teams I led closed over 500 deals and over $150 Million dollars. In 2007 I was given my “freedom” from my current employer who was “reorganizing to gain market efficiencies”! That was another moment of realization, so I took my skills, knowledge and expertise and started my own sales training and facilitation business. In the last ten years, I have worked with over 8,000 sales people and leaders covering over $4 Billion worth of sales opportunities. I know, big numbers, but I covered that earlier!
My sole business focus now is helping sales teams and other professionals build, create and deliver killer presentations. If you or your team’s presentations have grown stagnant, dull and non-competitive, give me a call or text or email…. because My Goal is: to have every person delivering a presentation to hear the following when they are finished….” WOW, what a presentation!”
When I am not in front of sales teams, you might find me on my new Fuji all carbon road bike! or you may find me at the Buckhead Sanders YMCA teaching an indoor spin cycling class…. or, if it’s the first Saturday in December you can find me marching down Peachtree Street in midtown Atlanta leading The Briefcase Brigade in the annual Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Christmas parade….and rooting for better or worse for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. My wife Karen and I have three spectacular (much better than the children in Lake Woebegone) grown children who are “off the payroll”. And to show how well rounded I am, every morning, I feed my youngest child’s cat, Ivy, which I never wanted, but somehow has become mine!