Presentation

So, today, again I was very lucky to get to talk to a new startup in the media world. 

So much passion, and a lot of great ideas. All whilst producing some very original content. But their question was how to make a move towards gaining some serious sponsorship for their proposition. 

And the answer was - stop - think about what you need to do before you think about going for sponsorship/funding - you only get one chance.

Now, we live in a shallow world - which is depressing, but very true. You can have an amazing idea, a great company, the best content, but without the very best presentation.. No one will find it.

Everyone is increasingly busy, too little time, too little money and so on. Even if we're not busy, because we are programmed to only spend a short amount of time/energy on investigating something, thats all we'll do. We're lazy.

So, you, as a company, or individual, have to make sure that in those precious few seconds that someone finds your site/company you get their attention.

The risk is that you go for a huge, in your face, DFS style "SALE NOW ON!" which will put people off right away.

In the words of Joyce Grenfell - Don't do that..

However, it's been proven, that just like people make a judgement about someone they meet within 15 seconds, the same will apply to your website, and therefore in todays world - your company.

Everything about it will send signals to a potential client. The fonts, the colours, the layout, is it clear, simple and easy to find the information you need? 

None of this means that you have to be flashy - so many sites mistake an over the top intro for telling people about their brand - ask yourself, how often have you NOT clicked the Skip Intro button?

So, the point of all this is, if you spend a few days working on your site doing all of the above, and therefore, how your content is presented, you'll find that many more people stick around to view it.

Which means your metrics go up, which means that when you go and hunt for your sponsors, it might take you a month instead of two. Which in exchange for a day's work isn't a bad reward.

Think of it this way. Why was Tony Blair so successful at getting his information (his content) across? 

(In a classroom style drone) because his presentation was excellent.

And he spent his "day" on hiring Alastair Campbell. The merits of which are debatable, but certainly reaped its rewards.

So, who's going to help me learn Wordpress so that this Blog actually practices what it preaches?

David