If you or your company desire to make a big sale, you must speak to the prospect, look them the eyes and explain the value proposition of your product or service. This is the aim of a sales presentation. The biggest and best clients and customers come through good sales presentations. It involves one real person talking to many real people. Here you will find the complete guide to making an excellent sales presentation every time, tailoring it according to the product’s specific requirements and the prospect’s needs.
Define the Goals of your sales presentation
Think about what your actual goal for giving this sales presentation is. It sounds simple and obvious but thinking seriously about it will clarify your objectives. You must think about this before you start preparing the sales presentation. It is necessary because people often dive into the stacks of slides the corporate sends them or dust off the business plan. Is your goal to get an order today, get a contract after one hurdle, or build a relationship with the customers for years so that they buy from you over an extended period? Define the exact goal of your presentation. Write it down in a sentence because if you do not have a clear goal in mind, you will not achieve it.
Isolate five motivating messages
Once you have determined your goal, list the top five reasons you think will motivate the audience members or members to do what you want. It may be signing a contract today, recommending your firm for consideration in the future, or simply establishing a relationship so that they become your customers over the long-term. Your goals may vary, but you must know exactly which messages will drive the customer to it. Your message can not be something like, “Here is a list of 80 features of the product.” This is not something a typical prospect will keep in his mind when making a purchase. Brainstorm all the possible things that can motivate your prospect into becoming a client or customer doing what you want.
Talk to existing customers.
If you are unsure which messages you should keep on the priority list, ask your existing customers why they decided to go with you. What did they like when you gave the sales presentation, or your colleague gave a sales presentation last month, last six months, or even five years ago? This will be your best source of information. It is not your gut feeling or corporate marketing department but the actual customers that can provide you with the content or messages. Ask them why they decided to go with your company and add it to your sales presentation.
Do limitless brainstorming
You can create 50 or more messages, look at the PowerPoint deck and the corporate content provided, and look at 10,000 ideas. Still, when giving your sales presentation, you need clarity on the priority messages. Five messages are enough, with ten words or so but not more. It should not be five gigantic themes with 30 sub-points but rather five big ideas. They must be clear enough that you can believe that if the person listening to you will not remember anything you said, he will remember these five messages and take the actions you want.
Types of sales presentations
There are different types of sales presentations. It may be the first time to stop by and say hello or chat for five minutes one-on-one. On a larger scale, it could be a presentation after a nationwide search. Your company has been selected among a few advertising agencies to give their sales presentation for a huge budget. These presentations are significantly different from each other. There is a so-called formal, informal, standing, one-on-one, 80 prospects, a conference with three people sitting at a table, etc.
Don’t be too formal
Regardless of the audience, style, situation, or type of sales presentation, the point to focus on is whether you are being enjoyable, helpful, and informative to the people listening. Many people are effective at one-on-one sales presentations. They become informal, saying, “Let’s put away the PowerPoint and talk directly.” But when they are talking to a group of people, they are standing in front of people rather than sitting alone with a person; they think they need to be more formal and change the style of their sales presentation. Unfortunately, most change it for the worse because they think they must be more formal. What a prospect is thinking and inclined to listen is the same whether one or ten persons are sitting in the room. Nobody in the audience will think, “I wish this speaker could be more formal with his speech.” The only thing the listeners will think is, “The speaker is exciting and I will listen to him” or “He’s boring and I better check my email or messages on my mobile.” The may even pretend to pay attention.
Focus on your audience
Great sales presenters realize the importance of focusing on the audience; their full attention is on the audience. They are constantly looking at them, not reading their PowerPoint or scripts. People don’t buy from people who don’t look them in the eyes. Focus on your audience, whether one, tens, hundreds, or thousands, as they are your potential customers. This is the mindset with which you should make your sales presentation—thinking that you will make a PowerPoint, or a technical presentation is wrong as there is no such thing as them.
Conclusion
Making a sales presentation is talking to your potential customers to motivate them to act in the way you want them to. Define the exact goal of your sales presentation. Brainstorm to get ideas and messages but isolate the top five to deliver that will drive the listeners to your desired actions. You can talk to existing customers to get motivating messages. Focus on your audience during the presentation rather than the presentation and slides. Do not be too formal and establish a direct and close connection with the listeners by being interesting, informative and relevant.