In response to the need for Rob’s current clients to get professional support in delivering more effective PowerPoint presentations, m62 represents the perfect solution.
Having consulted with, and developed many businesses in the Canadian market over the years, many of Rob’s clients are now aware of the m62 partnership.

Says Rob Hepburn:  “I’m excited to be joining forces with m62, to introduce even more Canadian businesses to its winning approach. I’ve no doubt that it will prove as successful here in Canada as it has in many other countries throughout the world”.

Says Richard Newman, m62 Channel Partner Director:

“We are delighted about our new partnership with Rob. His skill set complements everything we do and I’m excited about working with Rob and his clients to help them significantly improve the effectiveness of their corporate presentations.”

Open62 is m62’s hard skills training for presenters.  Anyone can enrol, and the training is specifically catered to small groups and individuals.

m62 hard skills courses use psychological research to enable delegates to understand how audiences receive information, and thus the best way to help them retain it.  The course involves practical application of techniques learnt, and a focus on results.

The next dates for Open62 are the 26th and 27th of January, 2010. The training will be conducted in central Liverpool, UK.

Visit the Open62 hard presentation skills page to learn more about the training.

For more details and to book, please call the m62 office on +44 (0)151 259 6262, or request a call back.

An exciting opportunity has arisen within our Project Management department for an energetic and enthusiastic Project Manager to join the m62 team. The role is responsible for the delivery of multiple concurrent projects providing a variety of services to our global Client base.

The right candidate will thrive in a fast paced, high pressure environment and have the ability to retain control of projects in (at times) changing circumstances, ensuring delivery on time, to budget and exceeding Clients expectations.

You will have the following skills and experience:

• Have delivered full lifecycle projects (from initiation to post implementation)
• Have managed and delivered multiple concurrent projects
• Excellent communication skills (written and verbal)
• Experience dealing with internal and external stakeholders
• Have experience in project Risk Management
• Be proficient in the planning and resourcing of all aspects of a project
• Familiarity with Microsoft PowerPoint
• Good understanding of industry standard methodologies and techniques in Project Management (preferably PRINCE 2)

As our Client base is global it is necessary for the candidate to be open to some flexibility in their working patterns.

To apply please send your CV and a covering letter to info@m62.net

Vibe’s suite of presentation skills programmes have been sourced by numerous blue chip companies in Ireland and in response to the need for presenters to get professional support in delivering more effective PowerPoint presentations, m62 represents the perfect solution.
VIBE Marketing and m62 hosted a successful seminar in Dublin’s Hilton Hotel earlier this year, the 60 minute ‘Killer Presentation’ seminar shared some unique m62 secrets to dramatically improve the effectiveness of business presentations and achieve measurable results. It was attended by predominantly sales and marketing personnel and as a result m62 and VIBE have already completed four projects with Dublin based organisations.

Ronan has consulted and trained many players in the Irish marketing communications industry over the years. A leading Irish advertising agency reported success rates in pitching for business that went from 20% of wins originally to 66% of wins using his methodologies. Many of his clients are now aware of the m62 partnership and it is anticipated further new business will follow shortly.

Ronan Kinahan of VIBE Marketing is excited to introduce m62 to Irish businesses:

I’m excited to be joining forces with m62, to introduce Irish businesses to its winning approach. I’ve no doubt that it will prove as successful here as it has in other countries throughout the world.

Speakers at the event include Lord Karan Bilimoria of Chelsea, the founder of Cobra Beer; and Sahar Hashemi, co-founder of Coffee Republic.

Nick’s session is entitled Effective Bid Rehearsal. The seminar is about how to ensure that a bid team perform well on the day – what to do to prepare them, and how to ensure that they deliver a credible performance.

The biggest problem for presenters during rehearsal is the “Friendly Assassin”, the colleague who is trying to help but actually undermining performance. On the day it’s the “Enemy Plant” the client with an agenda.

During this seminar delegates will learn:

• A proven process for bid rehearsal
• An approach to nullifying Friendly Assassins
• Strategies for blocking the Plants

This seminar will better equip those attending to run a bid rehearsal or take part in one in a constructive manner. It won’t guarantee success but it will guarantee peace of mind that you did your best.

More details about the UK APMP Annual Conference 2009, including booking information, is available on the UK APMP website.

m62 is a global leader in presentation effectiveness working with corporate sales & marketing, as well as internal communications, to write and structure presentations, design slides, and train presenters with a focus on presentation effectiveness through the art of visualization. m62 has developed a method of delivering successful visual presentations based on knowledge of how people understand, evaluate, and remember information. m62 then utilizes technology to maximize information retained by an audience.

Imageworks is a communications firm specializing in video-based and Flash® media for communicating both on and off the web. Imageworks helps organizations tap into fresh ideas that enable sales teams, and training groups to become more efficient, reduce sales cycles, and distinguish their products and services through the use of motion media.

Says Edward Curley, owner of Imageworks: “m62 is, unquestionably, in a class by itself. They have taken visual presentation theory to a whole new level, and their system is peerless in its effectiveness, whatever the application. We are very excited to be playing a role in advancing the use of this highly unique service in the US market.”

Says Richard Newman, m62 Channel Partner Director: “We are very pleased about our new relationship with Imageworks. Their focus on motion media is a good complement to our services. More frequently, presentations are incorporating video inserts such as customer testimonials and technology-oriented animations within their PowerPoint designs. We see Imageworks as a strong resource — a value-add to our core services, and a reputable company that will help us increase our penetration of the US corporate community.”

To learn more about these services, contact Edward Curley, Executive Producer, Imageworks Productions, LLC (+1 from outside the USA) 630-305-3400.

These sessions have now taken place – View replays.

Session 1 – Wednesday 5 August, 7pm BST, 2pm US Eastern Time.

Session 2 – Wednesday 12 August, 7pm BST, 2pm US Eastern Time.

These sessions were hosted by Brainshark. The sessions were called Intermediate PowerPoint I and Intermediate PowerPoint II.

To see how m62 could transform your presentation, take a look at what we offer in the PowerPoint Clinic on this site.

New strategic partnership keeps m62 perfectly OnTrack

m62’s recently joined forces with leading learning, development and performance consultancy, OnTrack International, as part of our unique Partner Programme

In the past, m62’s presentation courses have concentrated on ‘hard’ skills: facts, data, research and best practice, including the use of Visual Cognitive Dissonance™ and Passive Mnemonic Processes™. There never seemed to be much room or time for looking at the soft skills side of things. That was until m62 met OnTrack.

In contrast to m62, OnTrack’s strengths lie in successfully delivering integrated HR solutions primarily through soft skills – personal and interpersonal development, teaching methods, leadership and performance management. OnTrack would be the first to admit that they have historically lacked a focus on hard skills. Something m62 could easily help with in the field of presentations and effective communication.

The natural step was to combine the two skill sets.

Rosie Bailey, co-founder of OnTrack, is already optimistic about the partnership:

We see our strategic alliance with m62 as highly important to both companies, adding tools and competencies in helping us to give more tangible added value to the services we already give to our clients. One of our areas of expertise is in presentation & communication skills, the competence from m62 will greatly strengthen our offering. Already we are seeing the benefits from the alliance in helping us to differentiate ourselves from the competition. It will be a mutually beneficial partnership.

m62’s Strategic Partner programme offers a number of benefits to organisations looking to offer something different to their customers or members.

Note: The next Open62 training course will take place on 8-9 September.

m62’s Master Presenter Programme has had a great year. Over 1,000 delegates signed up for our courses in 2008 and we have received some fantastic feedback – especially from those who took part in our two-day course.

Often our clients say, “The course should be longer” and “Do you have courses for smaller numbers?” So we have taken this all on board, and many of you will be pleased to know that more modular courses are under development.

We’re also delighted to announce the launch of our brand new Open62 series – the first of which will take place on 8th and 9th June 2009, in Liverpool.

Broadly based on our highly successful Killer Presentations course – which was originally designed for groups of 6-8 – our Open62 courses specifically cater for individuals and groups of five and less, to accommodate that part of our client base of smaller companies and those who may have missed out on their company’s original training session.

Even if you arrive on your own, you’ll soon be surrounded with other like-minded people, eager to learn invaluable presenting skills. As part of the course, each delegate will present his/her own company’s presentation.

In the 10 years since being founded, m62 visualcommunications has delivered over 6,500 advanced presentations for global companies including Jaguar, Bayer, Imperial Tobacco, Proctor & Gamble, Symantec and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The company is based in Liverpool, with international offices in Singapore and the US.

The Challenge

“Seeing our product in action is absolutely crucial for all prospective customers,” explains Richard Newman, Director of m62 visualcommunications. “We sell our presentations based on their visual impact, so demonstrations are an integral part of the sales cycle – from initial contact through to the completion of each project.”

The sales process begins with an initial visit to prospects to demonstrate m62’s credentials and give examples of the kind of presentation the team can create. If these leads are converted into sales opportunities m62 first creates a storyboard to outline the overall direction and content of the presentation, then upon signoff from the client starts work on the final version, with customer approvals required at several key stages. Timing and collaboration are essential as even small delays can derail the whole project. The demand for close collaboration with its customers was taking its toll on m62’s employees, who faced lengthy periods on the road. With midproject approvals usually done on very short timescales, some employees were spending more time travelling to and from meetings with customers than actually in the meeting itself – hardly a productive use of their time. “As the company grew, we realised that we would need a solution to this problem, especially when selling to a global market,” says Newman. “It became clear that we should take advantage of technology and find a way to present our product online.”

The Solution

Web conferencing, where technology allows people to meet online and share documents and presentations, was identified as the answer. The company needed a service that would not only do justice to its brand of dynamic, highly visual presentations, but would also be accessible and easy to use for all its customers, requiring minimal time and effort on their part. Initially, m62 chose Macromedia Breeze – but the product couldn’t match the company’s high demands. “Breeze was very rich in functionality and easy to use,” continues Newman, “But the one essential component – our presentations – didn’t function at all well and were left extremely limited. Because our PowerPoint slides are far richer in graphics quality and sophistication than the average ‘bullet-point’ slide, animations and graphics didn’t display properly and it just wasn’t a viable solution.”

On investigating other online collaborative solutions m62 decided to try the industry leader WebEx. WebEx offered the accessibility and ease of customer use it needed, plus had no problem delivering the presentations remotely. Its Meeting Center service allows all attendees to view the presentations as they were intended, no matter where they are located geographically. All attendees can also annotate in real-time and share any document or application on their computers. In addition, WebEx could give m62 the ability to create webinars for broadcast to new and existing customers – a valuable marketing tool. Deciding it was the correct option to choose, m62 implemented WebEx in spring 2006.

The Benefits

Since choosing WebEx, m62 has seen several benefits. Using WebEx Meeting Center m62’s employees can fully demonstrate its presentations to customers without leaving the office. The first benefit of this is that sales leads can be pre-qualified before making a face-to-face visit. The difference this has made is significant, as Newman explains: “Before we started using WebEx, prospective customers could only really understand our product after a face-to-face visit – a large time investment considering we often had no idea what their reaction to the service would be. We now use WebEx for all cases where a prospect is interested in learning more after the initial call.” This allows employees to reach far more prospects in far less time, and gauge their interest more intuitively than before. By concentrating on the best leads, m62 has improved the effectiveness of its sales team. “Around 80 per cent of prospects who agree to a five-minute WebEx meeting go on to request a face-to-face appointment,” says Newman.

As the late, great Bill Shankly – legendary manager of Liverpool Football Club during the 1960s – once said: “If you’re first, you’re first. If you’re second, you’re nothing.” Huddled together in Singapore’s Mandarin Hotel on the sunny Saturday morning of January 19th, the Singapore Sports Hub Consortium would certainly have echoed this sentiment, and when they were announced as the preferred bidder for Singapore’s largest PPP project in history, nothing was sweeter than first place.

The SSHC edged out competition from the Singapore Gold and Alpine consortia to take the job of building and running the Singapore Sports Hub for the next 25 years. Bearing the S$1.2bn capital expenditure, the consortium will receive a total of S$1.87bn from the Singapore government to create an integrated sports complex like no other in the world.

m62’s Client Liaison Manager in Singapore, John Bevan, sat patiently refreshing online news pages from ten o’ clock that morning for news of the announcement. m62 had engaged with the consortium only two weeks before the first pitch presentation to the Sports Council in March, working onsite with all the consortium members to pull together the many strands of their offering into a two and a half hour presentation that would blow the panel away. “I think Nick and I got an average of three hours sleep per night over the two weeks!” John recalls, “It was also tough on our studio, as we were refining the slides and multimedia right up until the last few days, but as always it was a great team effort and we are all very proud of the result.”

The consortium, led by construction giants Dragages Singapore, includes DP Architects and Arup Sport on the design front, facilities managers United Premas, HSBC Infrastructure, and Active Rights Management, Global Spectrum and WorldSportGroup Pte Ltd. who share the responsibility for making sure the SportsHub is a dynamo of sporting activity for the Singapore community all year round.

In his announcement speech, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports for Singapore, stated that the Council’s requirement for a programme management strategy that would ensure a high level of participation for the local community was given the most weight in the evaluation process. “In the area of programming and events, SSHC provided a holistic strategy to promote sports participation, leisure, entertainment and lifestyle activities via a focus on community and grassroots sports. This well-conceived an integrated approach will create foot traffic and promote vibrancy at the Sports Hub.”

m62’s contribution to the project was to produce a series of presentations and multimedia that not only demonstrated innovation and excellence in the design, facilities management and financial sustainability of the SSHC’s offering, but also directly addressed the Minister’s wider goals for the community. The section of the presentation delivered by Seamus O’ Brien, CEO & President of WorldSportGroup, explained how their unique programme management strategy would inspire the youth of Singapore to get involved and help develop sporting excellence for the nation at the grass-roots level. ‘Making Singapore Proud’ was the theme for an emotionally-charged piece of multimedia that promised real value for the local community, rather than oneoff showpiece events, to make a huge impact on the national sporting culture. O’ Brien explained “’there’s no point in relying only on bringing big names here because these guys will come and go. The important thing is embedding local events in the community for years to come.”

Ensuring that these issues were identified, and that the presentation was properly weighted to address them, required critical thinking from the very start.

Our CEO Nicholas B. Oulton worked tirelessly with all of the consortium heads to not only formulate a winning value proposition, but also to build consensus around that value proposition. This was essential to ensure that every thread of the overall argument was consistent, and tied into all of the other supporting material and documentation submitted. m62’s visualisation of the SSHC’s approach certainly proved to engage Dr. Balakrishnan during the second round; he took two and a half hours out of his packed schedule to ask further questions after the team had delivered their presentation.

The presentations themselves utilised insight into the government’s current strategic initiatives, a blend of logical and emotional arguments, and m62’s unique presentation style to clearly and memorably communicate the value. The result is a triumph for effective presenting and a massive win, not only for the SSHC but also for Singapore’s youth and sport community.