Sales Presentations For Dummies. Julie M. Hansen

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СКАЧАТЬ and their goals. Tailoring your presentation to fit your prospect’s unique needs and establishing a customized value proposition is the price of entry in today’s competitive market.

      It requires discovering how the problem is impacting your prospect’s business and how he’s currently addressing that problem. Tailoring for today’s well-informed prospect often means delivering insights by recognizing areas of improvement or identifying gaps that can shed new light on your prospect’s business and tie back to your solution. Tailoring forms the basis of a customer-focused presentation that allows you to show your prospect how you can meet his needs better than your competition. With the commoditization of many products and services, this kind of laser-sharp focus is what will separate you from the competition and turn you into a preferred solution.

      

Today’s presentations must be structured around value, and answer one or both of the following two questions that are in every prospect’s mind:

      ✔ Why buy? Many prospects are hesitant or afraid to change. Selling against the status quo is a much different strategy than the next question.

      ✔ Why buy from you? Making a case for you over your competition in your presentation requires clear and concise differentiation – not always easy when differences are slight.

      In Chapter 2, you discover how to gain insights through a discovery process, and in Chapter 3 you find out how to apply those to tailor your presentation.

Gaining attention

      Your prospect invites you to give your hard-fought presentation. You have all the decision makers together in one room at the same time. Quick reality check: Do you have their attention? Don’t bet on it. Like you, prospects have other things on their minds. Perhaps they just got off a call with an unhappy customer or they’re worrying about how to handle an unresolved issue.

      

Your first goal is to pull your listeners into the present and break through the mental clutter and physical distractions that plague today’s business audiences. Understanding what drives attention and applying that knowledge to your presentation can give you a huge advantage over your competition:

      ✔ Attention spans fall: It’s not just your imagination. Studies show that people’s attention spans are falling faster than the Russian ruble – dropping an incredible 50 percent in the last decade – wait, is that a new LinkedIn request?

      ✔ Attention bottoms out. Attention isn’t something you get once in a presentation and then you’re done. Attention starts off high at the beginning of your presentation and drops to its lowest point in ten minutes, just when you were getting to your good stuff.

      ✔ Multitasking is a myth. Finally the truth is out. People can really only focus on one thing at a time. That has loads of implications for your presentation. For example, talking about one thing while an unrelated text-heavy slide is on the screen? Waste of your breath.

      Knowing how to make adjustments in your presentation for these changes in behavior is critical. Read how in Chapter 4.

      Planning a Killer Presentation

      Hordes of data sandwiched between a company overview and an awkward “any questions?” closing neither engages nor persuades today’s prospects. Although Ted Talks – short innovative speeches available at www.ted.com – have shed insight into what engages audiences today, you want your prospect to do more than feel good when you’re done. You need a persuasive structure that leads to action, which I discuss in the following sections.

Hook them with the opening

      Fair or not, during those critical first few seconds during your opening, your prospect is evaluating you, making decisions about how and whether they are going to listen to you. In fact, research has found that the majority of jurors decides on the verdict – and sticks with it – during the opening arguments. Although you’re not on trial, you need to know what you need to accomplish with your opening:

      ✔ Capture attention. Use a relevant opening hook – something that makes your prospect put down his smartphone and pay attention, like a story, a quote, or an insight – to get off to a strong start.

      ✔ Define the situation. Quickly comparing how your prospect is dealing with the problem to what your prospect’s situation looks like after the problem is resolved gives your prospect a reminder of why you’re there and a vision of where you’re headed.

      ✔ Establish value. Busy prospects hate to have their time wasted. Giving them a sense of value initially is critical to gain early buy-in.

      ✔ Sell the next minute. Like many movie previews, too many salespeople reveal the whole plot in their opening. Keep interest and attention high by holding something back to keep your prospect tuned.

      Seem like a tall order for the top of your presentation? You bet it is. Don’t leave your opening to chance. The sale could be riding on it. Find out more about creating a powerful opening in Chapter 5.

Create tension in the body

      The body of most sales presentations is made up almost entirely of a long list of features that leave your prospect longing for a fire drill. In a persuasive presentation, use the body to build tension by exploring the gap between your prospect’s current situation and where they want to be. Here’s why:

      ✔ Establish priority: Prospects often have competing priorities. You need to make a case for why yours should take precedence.

      ✔ Avoid pain: Research proves that people are much more willing to take a risk to avoid pain than to embrace an opportunity.

      ✔ Fight the status quo: Getting prospects to move off an “If it ain’t too broke, don’t fix it” mentality requires cranking up the heat well before you get to the closing.

      You can read more about ratcheting up the tension in Chapter 6.

Resolve with a solution

      Every presentation ends, but very few close. A good closing resolves the tension and makes it easy for your prospect to take the next step. Afraid of being repetitive or sensing real or imagined impatience, salespeople often rush to wrap up things and skip or mumble through vague next steps.

      

As the final impression you make on your prospect, closings must shine as brightly as your opening, provide value, and give a clear and measurable call to action. Chapter 7 gives you more information about closings.

      Devoting the Necessary Preparation

      Too many great concepts fail to execute because of a lack of preparation. As a salesperson, you have to wear a lot of different hats – that of researcher, strategist, designer, and performer – which can cause you to feel stretched for time. But by applying some of these simple preparation strategies you can streamline your process and improve the impact and outcome of your presentation.

Creating dynamic presentation material

      You СКАЧАТЬ