Have you ever had a prospect that was on track
and then after the presentation,
they just seemed to get squirrelly.
Maybe you never even heard back from them again,
regardless of all that followup that you did.
This is an too common problem for salespeople,
and a lot of the time, it's caused by a sales presentation
that simply missed the mark.
In fact, the data suggests that over 75%
of sales presentations lead prospects to feel
that the salesperson just didn't get it.
Yet this is a problem that is so easily avoided
by making a few small tweaks to your selling approach.
In this video I'm going to show you nine quick
sales presentation tips, all salespeople must know.
Check it out.
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Number one, it must come after a thorough discovery.
I cannot tell you how frustrating I find it,
when a sales manager or a salesperson says something like,
"Oh we really need to work on our pitch."
I always come back to this idea of the fact that
we don't need to be worrying about our pitch,
because a pitch implies that we're actually presenting
before we've done a very thorough discovery,
before we've asked a lot of questions
to find out really what's going on in the eyes
and in the world of this prospect.
Pitching is as this old-school idea
where we think to ourselves, you know what,
I am going to convince this person
with a really compelling presentation
that they need to do business with me.
And the reality is,
is that we don't need to be persuasive
or convincing at all.
What we need to do is be really good
at that discovery phase of the sale,
where we're asking a lot of questions
to find out exactly whether this particular prospect
is A, a good fit, B, has some challenges
and concerns that you could really solve,
and lastly that they're the right person,
that they have the budget.
All of those things that we need to know upfront
before we're getting into a presentation.
Because the reality is, is that most prospects,
complain that salespeople's presentation
are missing the mark.
And the reason for that is because the salesperson,
obviously didn't do a good enough job upfront
to find out what the prospect really need,
what the really cared about
and what they were really concerned about.
So make sure that your sales presentations
come after a thorough discovery.
Number two, only present the solutions to their challenges.
This one to me, when I say it out loud,
I think, geez are people gonna think
that this is so obvious.
And maybe you're listening and you're saying,
that is so obvious.
But I promise you we've all in the past couple of months,
been at least one time when we were in
a presentation situation, where we wanted to present
more than the prospect really cared about.
And what does the prospect care most about?
Solving their challenges.
So when you're presenting features or some benefits,
or some ideas that go outside of the challenges
that the prospect is facing,
what we're really doing is shooting ourselves in the foot!
Because prospects don't care about that stuff.
I mean, think of the last time you bought a car,
and you had some cheesy, you know, car sales guy
who was saying, "Oh, you know, well we've got
"this amazing Sirius XM radio."
And you're thinking to yourself,
what are you talkin' about?
I'm gonna use my iPod, or my iPhone the whole time
when I'm using this car.
I'm not gonna use the Sirius XM radio.
That's an example of someone presenting a solution
that has nothing to do with what the prospect cares about.
So only present solutions to your prospect's challenges.
Number three, don't present one last thing.
This is, again, it fits in alignment with what we just
talked about, but it's so important.
One of my rules for many years has always been,
keep your presentation as short as possible.
And this idea of presenting one last thing,
is really devastating to salespeople.
Take for example, let's say you are in a selling situation.
And you've probably been in this situation before,
where you basically have them.
Oh it's right there, ready to go,
and they're all excited and you can tell
they're really engaged with the conversation,
and then you say, "Oh, but let me show you one last thing
"that we can do."
And after doing that, they're suddenly like,
"Hmmm, you know, we really don't need that.
"That's actually outside of what we're really focused on."
And then at that point you can tell,
you just lost them a little bit.
So, you're probably nodding your head
and your saying, "Yeah, I've done that before."
Don't ever let that happen again.
What caused that was this idea that have to present
that one last thing.
We as salespeople get all excited
about all of the features
and all of the benefits of what we do.
But the reality is you prospects
only care about the stuff that you do,
that relates directly to them,
that solves their challenges.
So don't ever get caught up in presenting
that one last thing.
Use case studies.
The case study presentation is really one of my favorite
contributions that I feel like I've made
to the sales community.
A couple of pieces that drove this concept.
First, is that most presentations are pretty dry.
And so they're not holding prospect's attention,
because they're very focused on specific features
or specific benefits.
And so, they're not really telling a story.
So on the one hand they're a little on the boring side,
and then on the other hand,
we're missing out on this whole opportunity
to show user examples of how we've helped other people
in the past, other past clients.
And so what I challenge you to think about,
is how can you be presenting in a way,
that is showing the prospect how you've solved
another similar type of prospect's problems?
By using a case study.
And a case study is really simple, right.
A case study is basically just an example
of how you've helped another prospect do
what this particular prospect is looking to do.
And when you do that, you're going to combine
a really powerful idea of both showing that example,
showing those results, engaging them in something
that's really powerful and meaningful,
and at the same time, also showing them that
hey, you know, this has worked on other people.
What you'll find is that these case study presentations
are so much more engaging than just the typical
run of the mill presentation.
Number five, the 60 Second Rule.
Now you're probably thinking, what the heck
is the 60 Second Rule?
The 60 Second Rule is simply this.
You should never be presenting to the point where
you're speaking without interruption
for more than 60 seconds.
Some really powerful data has recently come out
from one of my favorite companies, Gondor IO,
where what they discovered is that top salespeople's
conversations versus average and bottom performing
salespeople's conversations were quiet different.
And one of the biggest differences
is that top performing salespeople
have a lot more back and forth during that presentation,
than a bottom or even average performing salesperson,
who's typically just pitching and talking the whole time.
So what we want to do is make sure
that we're never going for more then about 60 seconds
in a presentation without engaging the prospect
back into the conversation, making sure that
they're onboard.
Making sure that you're answering their questions,
making sure that they're really engaged
and never going for more than 60 seconds.
In fact, they found that basically no sales,
or no presentations that turned into closed sales,
ever had situations where the salesperson was talking
for more than about a minute and a half.
Pretty powerful stuff.
Keep your presentations to the point
where every 60 seconds, at least you're engaging
the prospect back into the conversation.
Number six, feedback loops.
Now you're thinking to yourself,
what's a feedback loop?
Well a feedback loop is basically
the answer, the solution to the 60 Second Rule.
It's the way that you can always keep prospects
engaged in your presentation.
So that way throughout the whole conversation,
they're just nodding they're head,
and they're like, yeah.
Or if you go off track, they're like,
"Hmm, that doesn't really make sense to me."
So a feedback loop is really simple.
It's just a simple question that you're going
to ask during the presentation,
that's gonna bring them back in.
Questions like, "Does that make sense?",
or, "Is that cool?", or "Are we really on the same page
"at this point?"
Little simple questions that are gonna prompt
the prospect to be like, "Yeah, that does make sense."
And if you do it in the right way,
you can really do this very frequently.
When I'm presenting to a prospect,
I am constantly using feedback loops
to suck people back in, and using these little
simple questions that they don't even hear.
They don't even notice, but it prompts them
to say, "Yeah, that does make sense."
The other really powerful benefit to using the feedback loop
is that when you go offtrack you're gonna know right away,
'cause they're going to typically push back and say,
"Actually, I'm not sure if that does make total sense."
And now your getting really valuable information
that you can then use to go back on track.
Does that make sense?
Number seven, if you lose them, stop!
There it is one of those places where
really competitive people can get ourselves into trouble.
You're probably in sales because in some way,
you're highly competitive.
And what I find is that really competitive
salespeople can sometimes, when they feel like
they're losing the sale or they're losing an opportunity,
what they start to do is push more,
and they try to get more persuasive.
They step on the gas even more
to try to suck that prospect back in.
But what's happening is that they're actually losing
the sale just that much more, because they're applying
more pressure and the prospect as a result,
is actually likely to push back.
So if you start to lose a prospect,
in a presentation situation, just stop.
Just stop, and it's really simple.
You're gut is going to tell you if your losing him.
So I'm not going to explain how you know
if your losing him, but you're typically
gonna notice you're losing eye contact.
Maybe not engaged as much.
They're not nodding their head.
They're not responding to you feedback loops as well.
Whatever it is.
But if you start to feel like you're losing them,
what I recommend you say is something like this,
"You know what George, I'm starting to get the sense
"that maybe we're off track here.
"Have I missed something?"
And one of two things is gonna happen.
Either they're gonna say, "Yes, I do feel like
"maybe we are offtrack, and here's how we're offtrack."
The other is they're gonna say,
"No, no, no, no, no.
"I'm sorry, I was distracted.
"I just get an email from someone about something else."
And now you can just play that out,
and pull it back on track.
But the second you start to lose them, stop.
Hit the brakes, and take a deep breath,
and ask them if we are off track?
What you're going to find is that it either is offtrack,
or it's not, and either way,
you really, really, really want to know.
Number eight, keep it has short as possible.
Now, I already mentioned this before,
but I can't say it enough times.
Keeping the presentation as short as possible
is only ever going to serve you.
What often happens is that we as salespeople
get really excited about what we're talking about.
And the problem is that very rarely is the prospect
ever as excited about why we're talking about as we are.
So we tend to go on for longer in the presentation phase
than we need to.
Keeping that presentation as short
and as concise as possible, is only going to serve us.
Once it starts to get long and meandering
and going offtrack, we're going to lose far more sales.
Because that means that we're starting to
not just present to the challenges that they have,
but we're also throwing in those other benefits,
those other features or that one last thing.
And those little,
those little one last things are almost like little
landmines that we're sitting for ourself
and we're likely to fall offtrack and lose the sales.
So keep the presentation as short as possible.
Number nine, clear and scheduled next steps.
You know I feel like I talk about clear and scheduled
next steps a lot, and that's for a reason.
Because you literally can't focus on
clear and scheduled next steps enough.
If your presentations are ending
with anything other than a very,
very clear and scheduled next step, you're in trouble.
You know the idea of the one-call close
is kind of an old-school idea.
I mean typically, salespeople are selling far more
complex and high-end products or services,
that are going to require multiple steps.
And as a result of those multiple steps sales
are getting lost, because there isn't that clear
and scheduled next step.
So after your presentation, assuming you're really
on the same page, chances are there's going to
be some kind of a next step before you're ultimately
really closing it.
You know, in some cases you are going to be closing
that sale, and you're gonna be getting them
to sign on the dotted line.
That's great!
But in a lot of cases, that's not going to happen,
and in those cases, we need to make sure that
we have those scheduled next steps.
That means that a calendar invite is going out
to the prospect, and we're saying something like,
"You know what George, do you have your calendar out?
"Let's schedule the next step
"where we can discuss after you've had a chance
"to talk this over with your team,
"and we can talk about what next steps might look like,
"if that even makes sense."
And they're almost always gonna say,
"Sure, lets get on the calendar."
And now you're on their calendar
and you're moving the process along.
What you always wanna avoid, of course is,
"Hey George, how about I call you on Wednesday
"of next week, to followup on this?"
They're always gonna say, "Yes.",
but they're not often going to pick up the phone,
and it's not because they're hiding from you,
it's because they're really busy,
and now the sale is starting to slide offtrack.
So there are nine quick sales presentation tips,
all salespeople must know.
I wanna hear from you.
Which of these ideas did you find most useful?
Be sure to share below in the comment section
to get involved in the conversation.
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