5 Steps To Giving A Winning Sales Presentation
As a sales person, it is important that you have strong communication skills and learn how to get up in front of a live audience (or virtual) and deliver your sales presentation. Learning how to speak in public is essential if you want to succeed as a sales executive because your ability to demonstrate confidence will determine whether the customer buys from you or not.
Effective selling of a product or service by a company’s sales representatives may hinge on nothing more singular than a simple reduction of their presentation times. The sales manager who realizes the importance of time management and devotes the effort necessary to assist staff members develop concise sales talks will grow a more efficient team.
1. Planned Presentation
While the extemporaneous or ad-lib approach to sales presentations has considerable merit for those individuals blessed with an aptitude for impromptu conversations, the unplanned sales talk often delves into subject matters not specifically related to the product or service being offered.
As such, the ad-lib presentation consumes more of the customer’s and the sales person’s valuable time. The planned or prepared presentation, on the other hand, condenses the sales talk to its essentials as related to the product or service: quantity, quality, customer benefit, delivery times, price and so on.
2. Strong Leads
The first 75 words often determine the overall success of a presentation. Condense a vivid description of the product or service that includes two or three one-line summaries of its more important benefits in the opening sentences of the presentation. The short benefit list will comprise strong leads the sales person can reiterate or enlarge upon further into the sales talk as he or she deems necessary, perhaps to reinforce their impact on the potential customer.
3. Truthfulness
“When giving a sales presentation, stress the importance of avoiding exaggerated or unverifiable claims” suggests Dan Smith of Keynote Speakers. A sales person who depends on exaggeration over simple truths invites skepticism on the part of well-informed customers. A potential customer may begin to suspect the product or service falls far short of the excellence a presentation that avoids questionable statements would reveal. Sticking to the facts, and by avoiding grandiose statements and exaggerated claims, engenders trust and, additionally, shortens the presentation time.
4. Learning To Listen
The sales talk invariably must revolve around a verbal presentation It nevertheless behooves the sales person to remain alert for questions the potential customer may raise. The sales person should strive to avoid an appearance of dominating the “conversation.” The customer may have legitimate concerns about certain aspects of the product or service.
“Although listening to and taking the time to answer a customer’s questions will not seem to reduce presentation time, it will show the sales person feels the questioner’s words are important enough to attend and respond to” says John Rogan of Motivational Speaker. This definitely will put the customer in a positive frame of mind and help ensure a profitable close to the presentation.
The sales person who realizes the importance of reducing their presentation time will incur two important benefits:
1. The carefully pared presentation places a concentrated focus on the sales person’s offering, a definite benefit in today’s busy world.
2. Condensed sales talks by their very nature will go far toward increasing the sales person’s customer encounters.
In short, condensed, forceful presentations win out every time over long, rambling sales talks.
5. Dress Appropriately
We have all heard the phrase, “dress for success.“ When giving a sales presentation, this is a necessity. During the first few moments that people lay their eyes on you, they begin to make judgments about you and your character based on how you look. Astonishingly enough, studies have shown that within the first 10 seconds someone’s eyes are introduced to your image, that person has already formulated 11 or more judgments about you based solely on what they see.
In order to dress properly to feel confident for your sales meeting, you must know the audience to which you will be speaking. For example, if you are a male politician and you are coming to a small farming community to deliver a speech, the audience may be more receptive to what you have to say if you wear jeans, a nice shirt, boots, and a cap due to the fact that most people in the audience will be dressed in the same manner. The audience will be able to relate to you better.
However, if you choose to wear an Armani suit, the farming community may see you as an outsider and express less interest in what you have to say. The most important aspect of personal appearance that you must realize to become a successful public speaker is that your audience patterns what you wear to a public speaking event so that connections can be made between what you are saying and the people listening.
Conclusion
If you want to be successful in sales, you must invest the time to learn how to speak in public and give flawless presentations so that the companies you are pitching trust you enough to buy what you are selling.
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