FEATURE | PRESENTATIONS
SWEAT THE RIGHT STUFF
M
ost people have a terrible dread of presentations. And of selling. But I’m going go to go out on a limb here and work on the assumption that if you’re reading Winning Edge you’re probably not too freaked out by the prospect of either. So... why write articles about presentations for people who aren’t anxious about them? Precisely because you aren’t freaked out. Stay with me for a minute… Pretty obviously, if you’re anxious about your presentations, you try to minimise the time you spend in the spotlight, and that brings with it all kinds of problems. But for salespeople, who are generally confident and outgoing types who relish the chance to speak in front of an audience, there are risks that aren’t quite so obvious. Sadly, however, marketing and sales superheroes and heroines aren’t immune to mistakes, so here’s a scamper through some of the classic issues many sales professionals have when they’re over-comfortable about making a presentation to a client or prospect. To be honest, the rules that marketing lives by, such as getting emotional buy-in before you try providing too much technical information, are also spot on for sales presentations. But all too often that kind of rational thinking goes out of the window when it comes to presenting.
SIMON RAYBOULD explains how good presenters can get even better
SWEAT THE RIGHT STUFF The traditional sales presentation starts with an attempt to establish credibility. Great, as far as it goes, but if your idea of establishing credibility is talking about your company, you’ve already lost me. Even things you might think are pure credibility builders, such as “We’ve got offices in 15 different countries and work with over half “Concentrate your presentation the Fortune 500”, won’t purely on the problem and, even make anyone care. Sorry. more so, on your solution” Think of it this way – if I put a pair of handcuffs on you, you’ve got a problem, right? I’m fairly certain that you wouldn’t really care who solves your problem – you just want the problem to be solved. You want the key to those handcuffs, no matter who gives it to you. 54 WINNING EDGE
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