Sales and Presentation

Salespeople who use this approach are warm and friendly and try to connect to the customer at an emotional level. They ask questions to the customers trying to understand them and their needs better. They are an instant hit with most of the customers they interact with.

The sales people who use this approach use more logic than emotions. They try to get the customer to buy by displaying a great knowledge of the product category and why and how his product better than that of a competitor.

Example of selling a phone: The sales approach of “The Guru” of a sales person that explains the logical features of phone to convince the customer by comparing to similar phones and competitors.

Salesperson who uses this approach tries to combine both the buddy ad the guru approaches. The salesperson presents himself as an expert who has the customer’s best interest in mind.

Such a salesperson will create a large web of friends, of coworkers, of salespeople of competitors, customers and anyone else he meets. He banks on this network to generate leads for him and eventually sales.

The salesmen using the hard selling approach often scare the customer into buying a product.

Your prospect may not yet be convinced that your product or service is the answer to his problem. For example, he may be experiencing a drop in sales revenue and while your CRM platform is one consideration, so is hiring more salespeople, and ramping up marketing efforts. Or, the challenge may be even more basic: your prospect has not identified a compelling need for a solution or feel like the problem warrants solving – in other words, the status quo is acceptable.

A “Why buy?” scenario is like any good recovery program – you must first get your prospect to admit he has a problem. Parading out all your pretty features and benefits won’t matter unless you have that base level buy in. Waste no time in painting a vivid picture of the contrast between the prospect’s status quo and a new and improved future with your solution. Using an analogy or customer success story early in your presentation is an effective way to begin to shift a buyer’s perspective.

In this situation your prospect is in agreement that the type of service or product you provide could solve his problem or address his needs, but he is not convinced that your particular product or service is the best choice.In this type of presentation you are at risk of falling into a feature vs. feature smackdown if you are not deliberate about establishing value early on. Know your competition well and position a competitive advantage upfront in your presentation. If you have the opportunity to deliver your presentation before your competition (recommended) be sure to disarm any potential landmines your competition might be planning on setting by addressing them upfront.

Like “why should I buy from you?” this prospect has identified a need, but like “why should I buy this product?” this prospect is content to live with the problem for the foreseeable future. While he may concede that you are the preferred vendor, until he has made the decision to buy a priority and not just a theory, hold off on the victory dance. Your presentation’s focus should be around creating urgency by highlighting the risk of inaction or the cost of delay. As you go through the body of your presentation explore each challenge your prospect is facing and the impact of not resolving the problem now.

You might assume that sending a buyer a deck (Presentation Slides) before a call is like revealing all the money making secrets unnecessarily.

If your Presentation Slides is compelling, prospects will want to get into it with you, even if they know the main point. Together, you can dive in, dissect the good bits, and talk through questions. It’s going to be a juicy conversation, and they know it.

Then, you can begin the conversation during your presentation with a statement like, “Based on the information in the Presentation Slides I sent, where should we start?”

It’s tempting to stick to a positive linear story during your sales presentation. That usually invokes talking about benefits, outcomes, and desired results. But, that approach isn’t always the best. Before discussing solutions and results, you must understand your prospect's problem. More importantly, you have to be sure your prospects understand the problem.

Self-discovery is the ticket that gets you there. Instead of telling the buyer what the problem is and how you’ll address it, get your buyer to connect with the problem on their own.

Buyers are experts on their circumstances, but they want insights into their situation from you. You’re most likely to impress a buyer by telling them something new about themselves, as your offering is a unique insight into their problems and opportunities.

You learned how to get more distance from your golf swing (an insight into what you’re doing). Then you learned how that’s supported by the product’s particular strength.

Insight comes first. It changes how your buyers think about the problem your product solves. Only then benefits can land effectively.

Focusing on features or pricing over value is not impactful. Prospects, especially decision-makers, want value propositions about how you’ll help them solve their problems rather than an overview of the features they’ll get. Talking about certain topics can actually affect whether you win or lose a deal. Features and Pricing can be great examples of this principle. The top salespeople wait to talk about features and pricing. They know it’s important to demonstrate their product’s value first.

Set an agenda at the start of your call so your buyer knows when to expect a pricing discussion. They’ll be less likely to raise it early, and if they do, you can refer back to the agenda. Open with something like, "I’d like to talk about A, B, and C on our call today. Then we can go over pricing at the end and -- if it makes sense for you -- talk about next steps. Does that work for you?"

You’re all set.

A two-way dialogue is going to make your pitch feel more natural. To do this, you need to get buyers to ask questions by giving them just enough info to inspire them to ask more questions and keep the conversation going. In fact, top performers ask fewer questions because they don’t bombard prospects with too much information but instead give buyers just enough information to have them ask questions.

Long monologues won’t help you have real conversations with your buyers. Instead, aim for a great two-way conversation.

This tip is crisp and clear: Don’t present for too long with a potential or probably a existing client.

It is safe that presentations for lost deals last on average longer than they need to. Why do they go so poorly? Because it’s hard to retain attention and the presentation is filled with unnecessary content that can insinuate that you don’t know your target audience.

If you seriously and completely are sure that you have no choice, use something that re-captures attention and keeps people engaged. Change channels by doing something like switching up who’s speaking in real life or on video. This can reset your clock back to zero, and you’ve got 5 more minutes for the next portion of the show.

Social proof: Best friend or worst nightmare? It can be either one, so use it carefully. For example, generic social proof (i.e., naming impressive clients for brand power alone) is a disaster. Buyers might not identify with them. Sure, they’re dazzled, but they may not see how they relate to your current client.

An effective strategy is to reference clients similar to your buyer, with the same pain points, challenges and needs that they can relate to. You can tell an accompanying story about the client and their pain points, helping the buyer see themselves in the story you’re telling.