One Final Hurdle – Steps for a Winning Sales Presentation
You and your sales team have been working a major deal for months, made it to the final round, and need to nail your high stakes sales presentation. Your audience will consist of high-level decision makers who will not be easy to win over. And you know from your primary customer contact that they expect compelling facts and figures and will not be tolerate a “generic or cheesy sales pitch.” What can you do to make this a winning sales presentation?
Common Sales Presentation Mistakes to Avoid
We know from sales presentation skills training participants that the most common mistakes evolve around talking about you and your company instead of the buyer, talking too much, not listening and adjusting as you go, having dense slides, using too much jargon, reading slides, not knowing the buyers well enough, trying to sell instead of adding value, and not interacting authentically enough with your audience.
5 Steps to a Winning Sales Presentation
We know from sales leader simulation assessment data and sales management training feedback that there are five main steps to a winning sales presentation:
- Be Audience-Centric
Before any business presentation, you should have a clear understanding of what your audience cares most about with regard to your topic. This takes planning and preparation. Do not start to design your winning sales presentation until you know how your audience feels about you and your topic, how much they already know, and the key goals, challenges, and needs that they have related to your discussion.
Then invest the time to understand audience demographics and the environment that you will be presenting in. Demographics include knowing how your audience’s age, race, religion, culture, education, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality may impact what you say or how you say it. The environment includes knowing how you deliver the presentation (e.g., face-to-face, virtual, phone, large/small group, seated, standing, on a stage, etc.) so that you can plan accordingly.
Remember, it is about your customer and your customer’s customer, not about you and your stuff. Plan only a brief introduction about you and your company and focus the vast majority of your time on how you can help them to succeed. By far and away, conducting a thorough audience analysis is the first step to creating a winning sales presentation. - Be Clear on the Desired Outcomes
Once you know what matters most to your audience, your next step is to prepare to meet and exceed their expectations by answering four key questions:
– What topic will you speak about?
– What do you want the audience to do, think, and feel as a result of your presentation?
– What are the 2 to 3 most important messages that you want to get across?
– How will you use visuals, analogies, stories, and interactions to make your presentation more memorable and compelling? - Plan to Present Compelling and Client-focused Value
You cannot “wing it” if you want to deliver a wining sales presentation. You need to correctly set the context, have a powerful opening that gets people’s attention, share your key points of view, and end with a compelling close that articulates your recommendation, next steps, and client-oriented benefits to moving forward together.
This takes careful planning. We know from solution selling training data that if you have done a good job during the sales process, your client contact should help you ensure that the presentation format is on the mark. - Practice, Practice, and Practice
Practice will set you and your team apart. Why? Because most sales teams do not practice. They may think about what they are going to say, but they do not practice out loud with their team or with technology. This is a mistake.
For perspective, one of the top TED talks was given by Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor. She practiced her presentation 200 times. While we think that is overkill, you should practice your entire sales presentation at least five times from start to finish with your team and an audience.
After each practice round, adjust the plan and improve what you say and how you say it. - Be Authentic
No amount of practice can overcome a self-serving or inauthentic presentation. Authentic presenters gain trust and increase audience receptivity to their message. Practicing until you have the confidence to lead a winning sales presentation frees you up to be yourself and focus on your audience.
Buyers tell us that authentic speakers are relaxed, engaging, and that their words and body language are aligned. Is your presentation team ready to be genuine, open, and passionate enough to truly connect with your audience?
The Bottom Line
High stakes sales presentations are a challenge, but you can do it. The most important aspect of your presentation is helping your buyers get to where they want to be in a way that makes sense to THEM. Focus on how you can help, supply the compelling messages data they need to make a sound decision, and practice until you are confident that your unique value proposition will shine.
To learn more about how to nail a winning sales presentation, download 4 Key Elements to a Successful Team Sales Presentation