The cycle of creative destruction wrought by the invention of the Internet has claimed a few professions as victims, from helpful travel agents to knowledgeable record and bookstore clerks. Salespeople in general feared a customer’s ability to instantly compare price and quality variables across worldwide geographies would cause deep cuts and massive hemorrhaging in the business of moving product. While sales job losses have taken place – although perhaps not as many as once feared – Robert Hayes of CynoCast believes sales people have largely misunderstood the positive impact the internet can have on their business model: “Bringing together a salesperson’s responsiveness with the interactive capabilities of the Internet can dramatically improve the opportunity to close both simple sign-ups and also complex sales. ” And it just so happens that CynoCast’s interactive presentation technology can precisely do both.
CynoCast is a low-bandwidth dynamic content delivery platform where the salesperson – or perhaps a podcaster -connects with an audience via a web browser, either live or in a previously recorded message. The presenter has the ability to transmit their voice and/or live video to thousands of viewers simultaneously, all at a very low (and thus inexpensive) bandwidth. While speaking, the presenter uses the CynoCast dashboard to push live web pages, documents, and PowerPoint slides to the audience’s browser. Other features include the ability to turn off all the hyperlinks that appear on any web page so the audience cannot steer away from what the presenter wants them to see, and two-way communication (both voice and chat) during any live session.
The viewing audience reaps the benefit of being walked through a presentation but maintaining individual privacy, a key point of differentiation from screen-sharing or co-browsing products. Comments Hayes, “Each member of the audience is delivered their own copy of a web page, giving them the opportunity to fill-out their own form individually, without worrying about anyone intercepting the information, and allowing them to submit it back securely.”
What this means is a salesperson can be giving a web demonstration of a new Jaguar sedan for an audience of 150 international potential purchasers and with a single click direct every eyeball to a credit application; all can be assured that while each viewer is seeing the same screen, any information an individual submits cannot be intercepted by anyone on the presentation, including the salesperson. The dynamic communication of live presentations also allows for complex sales questions, making CynoCast a highly flexible sales tool. In the Jaguar example, an audience member may ask about the environmental benchmarks of the new sedan. With their ‘Environment PDF’ already pre-loaded on the dashboard, the salesperson can immediately push that information to the entire audience with just a single click. At which point the salesperson can speak toward the key data points, eliminating the need to email any attachments at the end, and avoiding what Hayes calls ‘presentation disconnect.’
Hayes also believes that CynoCast is an ideal product for broadcast media and the podcasting market. People who subscribe to media covering complex subject matters via the Internet – such as a technologist’s podcast – could view a pre-recorded presentation through a browser window which launches both pertinent reference material and sponsor offers if the broadcaster used CynoCast. Sports broadcasters could include pages with player and team stats, while financial news could display the Yahoo! Finance page when discussing a typical corporation. Says Hayes, “We’re out to save the shorts of broadcast media. CynoCast allows broadcasters to elevate sponsor relationships to new levels by making their broadcasts interactive. They can launch coupons, or even maps and pictures of the business itself right when the ad spot starts on the show.”
CynoCast has been on the market for a few months and run up against a sales culture slow to embrace change. Yet the CEO believes the product, priced between $39-99 a month depending on the feature set, is poised for explosive growth: “CynoCast is the bridge between the in-person sales call of yesterday and the interactive online marketing techniques of tomorrow.”
