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by Kelly Riggs
What exactly makes your sales presentation “effective?” Using a projector can provide an excellent visual aid. You can find a number of rental options at https://hartfordrents.com/projector-rental.
In a lot of cases, I get the impression that an “effective” presentation means the presentation was well-delivered. The presenter was smooth, even charming. The slide deck was perfect.
Yes, these things are obviously important to some degree, but, on the other hand, it misses the point entirely. Consider this excerpt from an article entitled “How to Give an Effective Sales Presentation:”
“Fortunately, or unfortunately, people judge products and services by the way a sales rep presents them before a buying audience. People’s perceptions about the company are formed based on the sales presentations they attend…
An effective sales presentation can enhance the reputation of the company, help form a high opinion about the products, and can lead to sales of the products. A sales presentation therefore is an integral part of the sales process and proper preparation and emphasis should be placed on it.”
Well, you certainly get no argument from me regarding the importance of the sales presentation and the need to prepare.
And do people actually judge a company’s products/services by the way a salesperson presents them? You bet, although I suspect that a flashy presentation that you might have gotten through powerpoint design services even though they provide a fantastic service I hear, won’t help your cause nearly as much as a horrible presentation will hurt it.
Regardless of those things, the key question here is what exactly is a good presentation supposed to accomplish? What results should it create?
For me, a sales presentation creates only one result that is the ultimate judge of it’s effectiveness, and that is a sale. The truth is, I get very little satisfaction out of someone telling me about my “great” presentation if I don’t get an order!
And that is where I run aground reading the article cited above. The balance of the article details how a salesperson should go about making an effective presentation. Here are the author’s key points:
1. Ignore the butterflies
2. Add enthusiasm to your voice
3. Keep presentations short
4. Love your job
Really?
That is the kind of drivel that ultimately causes customers to despise salespeople.
• Add enthusiasm to your voice? What are you, a radio DJ? Are you genuinely enthusiastic about your solution or are you’re faking it by “adding enthusiasm” to your voice?
• Keep your presentations short? Well, clearly a boring, long-winded, off-target presentation will end in disaster, but what does it mean to keep your presentations short? How short is short? And when will you know the right time length? And do people make buying decisions based on how short your presentation was??
• Love your job? Yes, indeed, if you “love your job” your presentation will automatically be better. Somehow. I’m not sure how, but it must be true.
On top of all of this mess is a simple truth: you could do all of those things and your presentation could still easily go down in flames, and you could lose the sale!
While presentation skills are important, I can tell you that I have witnessed quite a few “average” presenters make powerful presentations because they know the secrets of truly effective sales presentations.
The first key to a great presentation is great content.
Great content means that it is relevant to customers and compels their attention; not because you added enthusiasm to your voice, but because it addresses a critical need and provides value to the customer.
In other words, a superior presenter can easily create a grossly ineffective presentation, despite excellent presentation skills, if the content doesn’t meet the customer’s needs, address the customer’s motive(s) for buying, and provide a value greater than the price. Trust me, you will create far more credibility with your customers if you consistently discover the content that is most important to them and deliver it in a way that directly addresses their critical needs.
The second key to a great presentation is to include relevant and engaging questions inside the presentation.
This is such a generic statement, you might be tempted to cruise right by its importance, but I suggest you stay with me. Great presenters know what questions need to be asked during a sales presentation because they spend a great deal of time preparing for the presentation. They know that the path to discovering key buying attitudes is through powerful questions and they work on those questions in advance.
They also know that simply presenting data, graphs, charts, and bullet points rarely creates a sale. Buyers have to be engaged, and engagement is created by well-crafted questions. (No. 5 on the Top 10 Mistakes Committed by Average Salespeople? They talk too much.)
The third key to a great presentation is to develop a narrative or series of narratives to engage the buyer.
Skillful presenters take great content, combine it with great questions, and design a narrative – a story – that is compelling to the customer. The customer wants to listen because the presenter is telling an interesting story! Yes, you may “love your job,” but, it is far more important to have a genuine passion for your product or service and what it will do for the customer.
The great presenter will weave stories of previously successful implementations into the presentation, enticing the customer to experience the same success. This simple process is designed to allow the customer to visualize – in detail – how the solution you are offering has created value for other customers.
So, there you have it. If you actually want to give an effective sales presentation, worry more about the content of the presentation and the questions you intend to ask than to your “butterflies.”
And remember that, ultimately, the only thing that determines whether the presentation was any good is if you get the deal!
It’s like a great magazine or TV ad – it might win an industry award, but if it doesn’t make people buy the product, what good is it?
Kelly Riggs is a business performance coach and founder of the Business LockerRoom. A former national Salesperson of the Year and serial entrepreneur, Kelly is a recognized thought leader in the areas of sales, management leadership, and strategic planning. He serves clients ranging from small, privately held companies to Fortune 500 firms. Kelly has written two books: “1-on-1 Management™: What Every Great Manager Knows That You Don’t” and “Quit Whining and Start SELLING! A Step-by-Step Guide to a Hall of Fame Career in Sales.”