I was talking to an "experience marketer" today (someone who designs flashy customer-experience centers for large companies, such as AT&T, Cisco, etc.) and he mentioned something about how strongly the environment influences a customer or prospect to buy. As a marketer myself, this is a phenomenon I'm well familiar with. The reason is simple: We don't just buy products or services. We buy the way they make us feel. 

I spend a lot of my time at Prysm talking to existing customers about our products and services, especially when it’s time to renew their contracts. Invariably, the most enthusiastic customers are those who take advantage of our full solution — using Prysm Application Suite in concert with a Prysm touchscreen display.

It's the hallmark of rookie sales reps — the rote PowerPoint presentation, delivered to every new customer and prospect with little to no variation in content and no time for discovery or feedback. The one-size-fits-all presentation is unlikely to come across as personalized or inspired and rarely leads to a sale. When you're trying to impress a prospect with your understanding of their business and commitment to their success, this is simply a poor strategy.

We live in a fast-paced society, fueled by on-demand information and instant gratification. The Internet is “open” 24 hours a day, always ready with a deluge of everything you ever wanted to know about anything. Social media offers you commentary at a click of a button. You can get breaking news around the clock.

So it’s no surprise that if you want to facilitate quick decision making, you need to be able to present your big idea, drill down to the smallest proof points, then zoom back out again…all in the blink of an eye.