Sure-Fire Way #3:  Ineffective Presentation Delivery

We have seen how too much data can ruin a sales presentation; we have also looked at how lack of structure can cause buyers to miss your message. Now let’s look at the third way we can blow a sales presentation; ineffective delivery. YOU are the most important part of the presentation. In fact YOU are the presentation. People buy from people NOT documents or slide presentations. If they did buy from those things, sales organizations could save a lot of money by firing all their sellers and hiring a few presentation writers and then they could email all the presentations and save a ton on travel!

Wait, before you get all excited and actually try to do what I just suggested, let’s look at a better way.

Buyers like to be diagnosed by professionals. They enjoy buying, just not being sold to. They like knowing there are professional sellers out there who can be valuable resources for them; thought leaders, experts, specialists, who can make their job easier and allow them to look like heroes within their own organization. We can demonstrate these abilities on our very first call with a buyer, during our questioning dialogues and certainly during our sales presentations.

Buyers tell us they want two things from sellers:

• Situational Knowledge… they want to know that you understand their challenges, within their industry and within their specific organization…that you can see the world from their viewpoint
• Capability Knowledge…they need to know that you understand how your capabilities can uniquely empower them to solve their problems, not just knowledge of your products and features

One of the best ways to demonstrate our Situational and Capability Knowledge is to give sales presentations that accomplish these two things throughout the entire presentation. Sellers that deliver presentations with compelling content that addresses these two important buyer needs are great, but you are only half way there. You also have to demonstrate your credibility by HOW you deliver the content.

Best Practice on Presentation Delivery:

• Capture your audience’s attention right away in an unpredictable way that draws them into the moment
• Demonstrate situational knowledge by delivering a custom presentation that shows an understanding of their unique challenges
• Don’t kill them with PowerPoint. Break up your presentation by utilizing  white boarding, flip chart use, video clips or storytelling… every audience likes to be entertained
• Most important, NEVER ever read from PowerPoint. It sends the message that you don’t know your stuff. Use bullets and expand on the information, or better yet demonstrate it on a flip
• Remember people buy from people NOT slides. YOU are the presentation. Hone your craft, improve your presentation skills… your buyers will love you for it!