When making sales presentations – are you a robot?

Sales presentations can become the most under planned, habitual, robotic aspects of a seller’s job. Sellers do the same ole’ things in presentations over and over again, with no real thought as to why they are doing them that way.

A sales presentation is one of the most exciting and perfect opportunities to shine and to differentiate yourself from all those other sellers! It’s an opportunity to win. It can be an opportunity to securely anchor your relationship with a buyer and put up an impenetrable barrier against the competition, or it can be an opportunity to swoop in and take a deal away from an embedded competitor. This does not happen by accident! It does not happen by slapping together a few PowerPoint slides and reading them to your audience. It doesn’t happen by sharing the same positioning document and overview of your company over and over again.

It happens, thoughtfully. It happens with purpose. It happens with planning. Effective presentation development starts with a plan.

Every aspect of each presentation should be approached with thoughtful actions….meaning you need to understand why you do the things you do every step of the way. Test yourself by asking, why am I doing this? What value does it bring? What purpose does it serve? If you can’t come up with a good answer, chances are you shouldn’t do it. We all get caught up doing things without processing what the real value (if any) there is to the client or how it helps us accomplish our goals.

Approach every aspect of your next presentation by testing the things you are doing with this assessment:

• Will this capture my buyer’s attention and stimulate their interest?
• Will this differentiate me and set me apart from the competition?
• Will this allow me to demonstrate my capability knowledge and build credibility?
• Will this help compel the buyer make a buying decision?

Break out of that old rut and start owning your sales presentations. Give purpose-driven presentations that help the buyer see how you can help them solve their unique problems. Know exactly why you are giving the sales presentation the way you are…and in doing so, you will differentiate yourself by the way you sell!