Have a true conversation rather than giving a sales presentation: create flashcards for conversation!
At my last Chicago-area client, I began by reminding them about their own vision (that's the artist's rendering that you see in the photo), and then I told stories about how our concepts could support their vision, while I laid my flashcards around the vision, one by one.
(Credit to Rick Valicenti for the initial inspiration and term, "flashcards for conversation" that I repurposed from a slightly different context.)
A story should always be a conversation (thanks, Scott Whitehair!) -- the flashcard pictures are general enough and without words -- that I was able to react to my client in real time to shape each concept story into something more relevant to them. That's the highest level of conversation: together we created something that neither of us initially envisioned.
In contrast to a static PowerPoint presentation, my client felt free to add onto the concepts and then enthusiastically re-arranged them on the table in terms of theme and feasibility. Then she asked if she could keep the flashcards for her meeting with the mayor. Yes, please!
Engagement, relevance, collaboration, ownership, stickiness, and TRUE conversation. Yeah!
