While most of us in the speaking and training profession wouldn't think of using anything but PowerPointŪ in the classroom, we don't often consider the great many uses this program has for the sales agent.

However, there's no reason that a reasonable competent sales agent cannot use PowerPoint in their every day business as well for Listing Appointments, Open Houses, Buyer Presentations, Electronic Highlight Sheets, Neighborhood Tours, and Homebuyer Seminars to name just a few.

Let's look at using PowerPoint in a listing presentation and we will cover the other topics in future articles.

While most other multimedia presentations force you to adapt to their content, PowerPoint offers unparalleled flexibility in creating custom presentations that allow you to guide the conversation in a manner most effective and appropriate to your style.

Imagine a presentation that runs on your laptop (plugged into the client's TV if you like) that contains:

• Your photo and company logo throughout
• Animated graphs demonstrating average sales prices, days on market and other pertinent market data
• Photographs of comparable sales
• Imported maps showing where previous sales occurred
• Your marketing action plan
• A video clip about your company (or anything from your board of REALTORS® whatever you've got handy)
• Copies of your marketing materials
• A few more graphs demonstrating your personal marketing results
• Actual copies of past client testimonial letters
• Voice-overs of these testimonials, read by the client, or anyone else!

How could a client be anything other than impressed?!

Now consider that creating a multimedia presentation with PowerPoint is actually faster, cheaper and easier to do than putting together a printed presentation and you've got what I like to call: "The Competitive Edge!" (TM)

In order to really get excited about this concept, let me share a few important facts:

1) Most of the above can be reused for your next presentation! You really only need to change the comparables and maps; so future listing appointments can be prepared in a snap.

2) PowerPoint can easily import all of the photographs, map graphics, charts, video clips and voice recording files that you created in other programs. In fact, the voice-overs can be recorded directly into PowerPoint!

3) The presentation can be face to face, or distributed on disk (with a free "viewer" that can be downloaded from Microsoft's web site) so the client can replay it at their convenience.

You're probably going to need a scanner, and/or digital camera to make all of this come to life. And, while I'll admit that the learning curve can be intimidating, once you've got the skills, the payoff is immense.

You can now go paperless in your presentations, modify them at will, and create an unrivaled impact on your clients!

Not a bad deal for a program that many already own - it's often "bundled" with Word, Excel and Outlook.