The range of services which are offered by production companies is vast and your choice will probably be dictated by your budget. You can use them to produce well-designed transparencies for the overhead projector and 35mm slides only, or you can hand over the entire organization of your sales conference including guest speakers and participants from around the world. This book doesn’t aim to show you how to run a large- scale conference. However, I am including some suggestions
for using outside assistance which may help you to avoid some of the common pitfalls.
Advance planning Contact the professionals as early as possible. If you are planning a large conference in a major city, contact them even before you have decided the date, they may be able to help with your choice of venue.
Ask questions The professionals may talk in jargon and abbreviations but don’t be put off by that. If you don’t understand what they are talking about, ask.
Allow sufficient time You will naturally want to include the latest sales figures or the most recent data in your presentation, but don’t make this an excuse for not providing the production company with scripts in plenty of time. If necessary you can add the final figures later, but at least you can avoid die expense of having their staff working over weekends and evenings in order to prepare many last-minute visuals.
Late changes cost money Nothing is impossible, but everything costs money. Ensure that everyone, and that includes the chairman, has prepared a script which won’t need eleventh- hour changes. Remember that slides will be prepared to illustrate certain points in the script and if the words are changed, the visual may have to be scrapped.