8. Surprise Freebie

Hiya friends! Hope you had a great time learning Selenium IDE through this blog series. Before stepping into our next tool, Selenium WebDriver, I thought of giving you a freebie.

Now that you have witnessed the power of Selenium tools to an extent, you might want to introduce this tool suite to your project for automation. The most difficult hurdle to overcome here is to convince your clients. Most of the clients don’t really look deep into the technicality of the tool you are introducing, but the cost and returns involved.

So if you can focus and highlight the positive side of Selenium Tool Suite on these aspects, you are sure to taste success. And this exactly is where I am going to surprise you.

Everyone likes listening to stories as they are relatable. Agreed? So, instead of using traditional boring power point presentations, let us thrill our clients by explaining the awesomeness of Selenium in the form of a story. This will keep them engaging and persuasive until the very end. I highly recommend that you use prezi for creating such business presentations as it exceeds all the above mentioned expectations. Please note that this is my personal recommendation based on my professional experience using it.

I have made a simple presentation using prezi addressing this same scenario to serve as a sample. And here is the vimeo link showing a video of me navigating through the slides.

You must be thinking how I came up with such a great idea. As once minions said, of course I talk to myself! Sometimes I need expert advice. (okay I get it, don’t look at me like that!) Moving on…

Brief explanation of the presentation:

The video first shows you an overall picture of how the presentation is going to be. Our brain prefers visuals to words. So it is always a good practice to talk your ideas out and have related images on the slides rather than hundreds of words.

• Slide 1: ‘WOW’. Open your presentation with a bang! Start with an attention getting ‘hook’ of your style. It can be a real life incident, an imaginary scenario, thought provoking quote or a question

• Slide 2: Challenges faced. Give a brief background of the challenges/issues we are facing without automation. Allow the clients to ponder over this. This should also serve as an introduction to the presentation. For example, a graph showing a simple scenario. With every release the test case count increases (regression suite + release cases) thereby increasing the overall development costs. This eventually reduces the time to market the product which might cause a big blow to the total revenue/sales.

• Slide 3: Now is the time to plant the idea in their minds. Bring in SELENIUM!

• Slide 4: Highlight 2 to 3 key points. “FREE” is the word of the day as clients are concerned about money and numbers. You might even see a smile on their faces now.

• Slide 5: Give a very brief overview of the Selenium Suite covering each tool for a minute or so. Remember not to sound too technical and avoid jargon as much as possible.

• Slide 6: Talk about the advantages. These should cover the challenges highlighted in slide 2. Keep the content as engaging as possible.

• Slide 7: Thank You. This is the time to summarize “take-aways” if any and finishing the presentation with a closing “hook”. You can use handouts, anecdotes, demos, audio/video effects, mnemonics, slogans Best if you can link this to the opening bang!
• Slide 8: Questions. Take time to clarify doubts or concerns that might arise among your clients and make sure that they leave the room with a happy face.

Tips:

• Present with a smile.
• Appropriate dress – comfortable, clean and tidy clothes are a must.
• Body language – avoid placing hands inside pockets or holding on to fixtures, express your feelings with slight body movements or hand gestures as you talk.
• Pleasing voice – use proper modulation, repeat wherever necessary, try to minimize using fillers such as uh, um, actually, you know etc.
• Speed at which the information is conveyed also plays a major role.
• Eye contact – to create an impression that you are giving personalized attention, use an eye movement sweeping across the audience.
• Most Important: Don’t come in front of the projection blocking the view as you speak.

If you follow most of what I have mentioned in this post, you are sure to leave your mark behind.

Doesn’t all this look cool? If yes, then what are you waiting for? Be the Harry Potter! Add your magic and creativity, customize and make it all the more expressive and impressive!

Like the presentation I created and looking to make a copy of it and edit according to your requirements? Here is my prezi link. I have kept it ‘public and reusable’. Please click the like button before you make a copy of it 🙂 Hope you enjoy this freebie.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences in the comments section. See you soon in our upcoming, most awaited WebDriver series!