Can a Great Sales Presentation
Turn the Tide of a Sale?
Do you make a sales presentation each week, each month?
Presentations are a killer for most small businesses. Often we even measure the number of attempts to the number of
presentations we make. We end up putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to make a good, or even great presentation.
The quality of your work is important. However, if you are thinking, "If I make great presentations, my prospects
will buy from me", you may be falling into the trap of "unpaid consulting." The largest and best client we have
today was sold without a presentation.
How did it happen? We spoke to the "real" decision maker and made sure that we had addressed the "real"
issue. After that it was all down hill.
If you spend lots of time and money on presentations and are not getting the return you want, try stopping the
presentations and focusing more on what the decision maker is really looking to gain by adding your product or service.
A great presentation may cause a "fence sitter" to get off the fence. However, if you rely on your presentation to
convince, persuade, entice, or motivate a prospect to buy your product or service, you put too much pressure on yourself
and your prospect.
Conceptually, prospects should be "sold" before you make your sales presentation. They must develop a view of your
product or service as the best fit for their problem, need, or challenge during the development process.
By asking the appropriate questions, you can help your prospects define their problems, their challenges to be met,
and their needs, wants, or desires to be satisfied, from the perspective of how your product or service would do so.
Your questions help them paint a picture of what they want - a picture that looks a lot like your product or service.
That way your prospects approach your presentation predisposed to buying. You do not have to convince them, you only have
to demonstrate how your product or service will fill their needs.
© 2004 Sandler Systems, Inc.
For more information on Sandler Sales Institute, click here.