Presentation

Before you get up in front of a team of executives or even one manager of a department, you must toughly understand their company, its industry and as much as possible, the individual to whom you’re talking with/to. This is a situation assessment – the information you will have gathered when you scrutinized your prospect. Simply put, know your prospect. This is that all-important homework we are always talking about.

Here Are A Few Questions To Get You Started:

• From the buyer’s perspective, how does your offering help them achieve their business plan?
  
  
• What’s the minimum financial return the buyer requires on products or services like yours?
  
  
• What is the buyer’s usual relationship with suppliers? What does the buyer expect from its suppliers?
  
  
• What has been the company’s experience with products or services like yours? Has it been positive or negative? How does your approach differ?

Where will you find all this information? Talking with lower level management and assistants. However, beware, because assistants are loyal to their bosses, not you. Don’t try to butter them up, just ask for the information.

We’ll talk more about obtaining this information later in the book.

Once you have completed a situation assessment of the meeting, think carefully about its objective. Rather, in terms of two objectives, yours and your prospect’s. How will you put together a presentation that encompasses both?

If the prospect has asked for the meeting or presentation, its objective should be clear. Whatever the objective is, you should confirm it when the meeting begins.

What about your objective? If the presentation happens early in the process, your objective will include gaining or expanding your access to the executive team, or perhaps simply ensuring that you understand how the prospect will evaluate and decide on a decision. Later in the game, you may want validation that you understand the decision and approval process. How? By repeating or asking.

There is one objective above all that you want your presentation to achieve, differentiation from your completion. What makes you better, more flexible, better priced, friendlier, and genuine? What about your honesty and integrity? What you are presenting is not only your company, but also you as a sales professional.

Rehearse your presentation at least twice. The rule of thumb is to spend approximately ten hours of preparation for each hour of presentation. Everyday, run-of-the-mill salespersons smile and think, “I don’t have that kind of time to waste.”. But the winners, those who consistently sell big money over and over again for their company smile because they know their secret’s out. Practice, practice, and more practice will help you in the end.

Communicate like an executive. You may have the best message, services, product or proposal, but if you don’t look like, act like or sound like and executive, your battle will be uphill all the way.

Executive style extends all the way from showing well-designed, perfectly spelled slides on faultless equipment – check it out before beginning – to wearing high quality clothing, driving your prospect to lunch in a high quality vehicle – rent one if you need to – and feeling completely comfortable around power. You have to feel like a million bucks to be comfortable asking for a million dollar order, or to earn a million dollar commission.

One more thing and I can’t stress this enough; don’t start your presentation off with the worn out phrase: “I’m here to meet your needs.”. Blah! Try simply stating, “My job is to help you get what you want.” You’ll be amazed at the better, more attentive response you’ll get, even though what they want and what they need are different, you haven’t told them what they need yet.

Professional Sales Advice  <-- Super Smart Sales Tricks!

“In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.”
                                                                                                          - David M Ogilvy