Your Salespeople Are Hiding Their Mistakes

by Kelly Riggs

Somewhere in the past twenty years or so, weak-kneed sales managers gave up and gave in.

How so? Well, they decided that they didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, or embarrass anyone by…well, you know…uh…asking them to…sort of, you know, practice their sales presentation publicly. Although they would never do it exactly that way in front of a customer – oh, no, of course not – they struggle to show that they are…like…you know…capable of adequately presenting the…uh…product.

That’s right, the dreaded “role-play” was relegated to the scrap heap because people just aren’t comfortable [insert appropriate sarcastic tone here] with people watching them stumble through a BAD sales presentation.

But in front of the customer? ZA-ZING! They are awesome!! They are magic in front of the customer!

Uh huh.

By the way, if you’re one of the very few sales management professionals that still requires your people to practice sales presentations, good for you! They probably hate you. But they are probably ten times better than they would be if they didn’t practice.

Here’s the thing: the odds are really good that many of your salespeople are ineffective in presenting a product or service solution to your customers. Salespeople don’t have the same leeway they did back in the day anymore. Many businesses are employing amazon marketing services and other digital marketing today to sell their products, which means the general populace has become smarter. Most people today are aware of a lot of the tricks and shortcuts salespeople tend to use to woo potential customers. This is bad because you may have put a lot of effort into grabbing the attention of your customers with the help of technology. Perhaps, you have spent a good amount of money on action-based trigger emails and personalized coupons (those interested can more learn about these by going through the blogsfit article), which might have interested your customers to get in touch with your firm. But when they might have contacted you, your salesperson may have failed to represent your products and services adequately. And to hide their failure, they keep telling you it’s the customer or the marketplace or your prices are too high, or the leads suck or some such nonsense. But the reality is they simply aren’t very good.

In fact, ineffective sales presentations come in a variety of flavors, but here’s a quick rundown on the three most common:

1. My personal favorite form of ineffective: “I just wing it.” Sure you do – and it’s obvious to just about everyone. Prospects wonder if you know anything about their business. It seems you have an answer for everything, but no real depth. You’re lacking insight because you didn’t do any homework. You’re the guy that thinks he has the “gift of gab.” [That isn’t what your prospect calls it, by the way.] Your sales presentation isn’t personalized; it doesn’t address the prospect’s specific needs. It’s a dog-and-pony show that tells the prospect how awesome your company is and gives a generic overview of the product solution.

Does your prospect really care? Nope. They care about solving a problem or creating an opportunity or saving money – anything except watching you recite the company brochure.

2. Most common is the ‘feature dump’ presentation. This presentation is an endurance contest. The customer has to sit and listen to a lengthy recitation of every known feature of your product or service. It is designed to address every possible set of circumstances a prospect may encounter. No questions. No interruptions. Just sit down, buckle up, and hang on while I tell you ALL about this fantastic product that is the best in the industry…blah, blah, blah.

The challenge is that customers don’t buy products or services – they buy results. They buy what those products or services do for them. Describing a bunch of features is a far cry from describing a real solution to a real problem.

3. Do your salespeople use a slide deck? If so, there is the possibility that they produce an exceptionally awful version of sales presentation: dull, boring, self-absorbed, and in many cases, taking the abuse of PowerPoint to an all-new low. PowerPoint is a ‘one-sided, sit-and-take-notes, no-comments-allowed, listen-while-I-read-my-slides’ tool. Your sales presentation, on the other hand, should be a ‘two-sided, ask-questions-and-listen, create-a-productive-dialogue’ prospect engagement dialogue. CRM hubspot services or similar solutions can be utilized to improve sales productivity. Try such techniques, and you might see the difference.

Can PowerPoint be used effectively in a sales presentation? Sure. But, no one – NO ONE – likes to have slides read to them. Are you kidding?

Bring Your Salespeople Out of the Shadows

Your average (or worse) salespeople are hiding in plain sight, and it would take about twenty minutes and a handful of 1-on-1 Meetings™ to figure out exactly what the problems are. Here are three steps to getting a firm grasp on where each of your salespeople stand:

1. Let your team know that you intend to meet with each one of them individually in order to assess their presentation skills. They will be expected to present one of your primary products in a live role-play. Choose someone else to be the customer – and make sure they are well prepared and understand the objective, which is not to embarrass someone or be difficult. Observe and take notes. This is a LIVE call, not just a rote product presentation.
2. Assess each salesperson in four simple areas: questions asked (did they get to a problem or issue to be addressed?), ability to create a dialogue with the customer, presentation of benefits and/or addressing a real problem, and resolving questions or issues presented by the customer.
3. Schedule a debrief meeting to review results and coach for improvement.

[Note: For information on how to implement and conduct spectacularly effective 1-on-1 Meetings™ with your sales team, contact me.]

You can reasonably expect to experience several different things in this process. First, some people will immediately complain (take note; there is generally a correlation between complaining and performance). Second, some people will try to avoid at all costs; suddenly they will be buried with things to do – and always at exactly the time you’ve scheduled for them. And, third, you will find out who your strong players are – those that are already good in front of customers AND those that truly want to be.

Oh, and expect lots of excuses from your average players.

Look, sales leadership is more than reviewing budgets and setting quotas. You are tasked with making your team more effective. How exactly do you intend to do that if you don’t have a strong strategy on how effective your salespeople are in front of customers? To achieve that, you may need to analyze the problems that are preventing a healthy customer-client relationship. Suppose, for example, your customer care department uses an outdated communication system, which is unable to provide seamless and noise-free contact with customers. In such cases, providing a positive customer experience can be very difficult. In order to deal with the situation, you might have to create a web-based communication platform with the help of your developers (you may find voice api for developers useful). Additionally, you may need to consider other factors in order to develop an effective sales strategy.

By the way, if you chicken out on the role-play thing, or just want some additional help, here are some excellent resources you should add to your reading list. These are great guides to helping your salespeople dramatically improve their sales presentations:

• Jack Malcolm – Strategic Sales Presentations
• Oren Klaff – Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal
• Kevin Daum – Roar! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle