The sales job never gets easier. Be it making cold calls and talking to the prospects or presentation to the S suite executives. Since we have already talked about cold calling in our previous article we will focus on the different sales presentation tips that every salesperson should have.
You can sell your product in different ways and as per a report by Hubspot, 40% of prospects respond better to the visual format of information than when it’s written. That is the reason the sales presentation is considered a better option when it comes to selling.
As a salesperson, the sales pitch that you use during your cold calling just won’t work in the sales presentation. Everything should be personalized and tailored for the prospects. So without further ado, let’s talk about the 10 best-proven sales presentation tips that every salesperson should know.
1. Be Thorough With Your Discovery
An effective sales presentation starts long before the actual presentation. The first step is to learn who your prospect is and the challenges they face and then you can use those insights to show how you can help them succeed.
Discover and research the company. Read about the past present and the future of the organization. Your presentation should focus on using insights from your research to show a deep understanding of the company and why your product or service can help it grow.
2. Talk About The Pain Points
Your product features should align with the problems that the customer has. Otherwise, the customer will not care about the star features of your product and then it will be just you shooting in the dark.
Consider this as an example of the time you spent while buying a new car.
The salesperson talked about the new cool music system that has features that you are not even going to use. Instead, you will just connect with your Spotify and go.
This is a common example of a salesperson presenting solutions that have nothing to do with what the prospect cares about. Only present solutions to your prospect’s challenges.
3. Use Case Studies As Examples
Case studies are salespeople’s favorite soup. Since most of the presentations are boring and technical, they look dry and many times they do not attract the prospect’s attention.
Most of the time the presentations are pretty dull and so they fail to keep prospects’ attention. It looks like the discussion is going nowhere. At such times, you need to talk about real-time case studies. Not the ones that you find by typing on google. A case study is basically an example just of how you helped another prospect do what this particular prospect is looking to do.
So when you use the case studies as a part of the presentation, you engage with the prospects and it makes them believe in your story. Since the characters in your case study are real people and real issues, it makes it even better. In short make, case studies your new standard.
4. Throw Real Numbers
Any sales presentation is incomplete without the salesperson talking about numbers. These numbers can be used to represent graphs or any other analytics. When you show numbers, you start comparing sales figures.
On the other hand, conveying the sales data in a visual image is more concise and effective. By presenting clients with visual data, it helps them in boosting conversions in the process.
Also, when you talk about numbers and graphs in a confident way, there is no room for the prospects to not believe you. And when the prospect starts believing in you, it means you just need to hit the ball in the right direction, and its a green signal.
5. Use The 60 Seconds Rule
The 60-second rule is a complete win-win game if you do it right. The rule is simple and interesting. When you are giving a sales presentation, make sure to never speak without interruption for more than 60 seconds during the entire presentation. It is also considered as the most effective quick sales presentation tips out there.
If you look at the sales conversation of your top-performing sales rep using a conversation intelligence platform, you will notice that there is a lot of back and forth engagement with the prospect when they discuss the presentation.
So for an effective and better sales presentation make sure you never talk for more than 60 seconds without engaging the prospect back into the conversation. Make sure the prospect is still on board, make sure you’re answering any questions that arise and make sure the prospect is engaged.
6. Follow A Pattern And Ask For Feedback
Feedback is an essential part after you use the 60 seconds rule.
When you ask for the feedback, that keeps the conversation open and makes the prospect engaged. You can ask questions like –
- “Does that make sense?”
- “Are we on the same page at this point?”
- “Have you tried this before?”
- “What are your views on this?”
Asking these simple questions will prompt the prospects to prompt and say, “Yes, it makes sense,” or “No, could you show that again?” The other really powerful benefit to user feedback is that when you go off track, you’re going to know right away because the prospect will finally ask you to repeat that again.
7. Keep It Short And Crisp
Presentations are boring and we all know that. There is no specific time duration but it has been observed that an engaging and effective sales presentation should be completed in 9 minutes.
The deals that do not get closed have an average presentation time of around 11 minutes. But why does this happen? Why do deals beyond 11 minutes not close? Well, it reports showing that humans do not think for that long and the brain calls for a timeout after every 9 minutes.
But if you think that your conversation is going beyond 9 minutes, make sure you pause and stop the current discussion. Move smoothly to a new slide or change the presenter.
8. Use Social Proof
Social proof can be your best friend or might become a foe. It depends on how you play it.
If you give the generic social proof, be ready to see a drastic fall in your close rates.
The reason is simple but important. When you give social proof of a couple of big clients, there are very high chances that regular buyers do not identify them. They can’t relate to these big names and then ultimately they fail to understand the social proof.
They might be impressed and show that they are interested but there are minimal chances that they will buy this. For eg: When you talk about salesforce being your client, do you think the medium-size company is going to buy and relate? It makes them think that your product isn’t designed for them.
A better approach here is to use tribal social proof. Talk about the clients that fall in the same tribe that of your prospects. Now it becomes easier for them to relate to the pain points and challenges. So use social proof but it totally has to be situational.
9. Talk About Pricing After You Provide Value
The best time to talk about the pricing is soon after you have provided the value to the prospect. So when you have already covered the problems that you are solving, the issues that your product will reduce, and the challenges your prospect has faced, it will make it easier to understand the pricing structure that you have shared. This definitely increases the chances of making the purchase.
On the other hand, consider a situation when you have already talked about the pricing structure to them and then talked about the solution you will provide, do you think they will buy your pricing? No, there are very less chances for it. So to wrap this point, pricing should be talked only when you have provided value.
Conclusion
Consistent practice and preparation are two important keys to a successful sales presentation. But at the same time, there are many things that make a presentation great. Presentation is not only a bunch of slides that you want to complete as soon as possible. It is beyond that. The presentation can be considered as a visual way of communication and engagement between the salespeople and the prospects.
When you focus on helping, rather than pitching, your sales presentation is more likely to be a hit. That’s a win-win for you and your customer.
Results first, payment later.
