The Problem with Sales Presentations

May 17th, 2010

How many presentations do you make 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 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.

© Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Mike Protogere has been a Lushin client for over 5 years and credits Lushin for dramatic increases in the growth of his business.

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