The trouble with sales presentations is…No, let me rephrase that. Here are just a few of the troubles you face as a sales presenter:
• Fatigue: You are in a line-up of competitive presenters and your audience is already tired of being pitched.
• Time: There is too little time to fully describe the complexity of your product/service.
• Differentiation: The audience is jaded because they have already heard what you have to say. Your message is not new, nor is it unique. Everyone makes the same promises.
So, how do you break out of the crowd of boring, repetitive presentations and get the attention you want? Whatever your goal for the presentation, you need to capture your audience quickly.
Sales presentation training experts have come to the rescue. They set up a simple, yet compelling, few steps to grab the audience in the very first minute or two. If you have a presentation that deserves notice, follow these tips to overcome the “troubles” with sales presentations.
1. Use a few compelling and relevant statistics and pose them in question form. “Did you know that…?” For instance, if you are discussing strategic clarity and performance:
Did you know that that less than 10% of well formulated strategies are effectively executed?
Did you know that 49% of executives recently surveyed said their companies had no strategic priorities?
Did you know that the vast majority of employees we survey perceive that the strategy is 50% less clear than leadership?
2. Once you have opened their “mental door” to your subject and they are listening, hit them with a comment that invites them to imagine the solution. In the example above, it would be something like:
Imagine a science-backed approach to ensure that your strategy is equal to the challenge of your objectives.
3. Now that your audience agrees that such an approach would indeed solve the problem, you give the punch line:
This approach exists. Our clients that face the following strategy execution warning signs have been able to double their performance.
With their eyes now on you and their ears ready to listen, you can continue with evidence that you have the answer, testimonials from experts, or, perhaps, a case study that the audience can relate to.
