How to Give A Killer Sales Presentation

Judging by feedback from many business leaders, a surprising amount of salespeople have no idea how to deliver an engaging presentation. But without this essential ability, your sales team is headed for failure. Follow the tips below to make your presentations entertaining and effective.

1. Prep your Prospects

Before your presentation, you want to familiarize the prospect with your value proposition so that they are warmed up to your product. The more you can entice them through emails or sales calls and arouse their curiosity, the better. Your presentation will be an uphill battle if the prospects are ‘cold’ and unprepared.

2. Focus on Pain-points

Cater your presentation to the issues the prospect’s company is currently facing. Make sure to demonstrate you are up to date with recent events in the company and that you understand their issues. You should do this as soon as possible to get their attention and let this focus guide the rest of your presentation. When you are outlining the structure of your talk, you can try to connect each point to the problems the prospect is facing. Every point you make should be relevant to their concerns. Remember to talk about the prospect twice as much as you talk about yourself.

3. Create Trust

If your prospect doesn’t trust you, no amount of presentation abilities will help. Being genuine and direct is the best way to overcome the barrier most people put up around salespeople. Be honest about yourself and the product, don’t adopt an overly “salesy” demeanor, and make sure your prospect you are trying to help them achieve their goals.

4. Brevity

Make sure your presentation is as concise as possible. It doesn’t matter how informative your talk is, if it is too long the prospect will tune you out, stop listening and probably get irritated.

5. Demonstrate Whenever Possible

Demonstrations are a great way to break up the monotony of a long presentation, as well as to establish credibility for your product. They will not be possible in all circumstances, but if they are they can be tremendously helpful. If you can demonstrate the product in a way that gets the prospect to participate, even better! 

6. Focus on Value

If there is one idea you should keep in mind from beginning to end of your presentation, it is providing value. While you’re planning your talk, ask yourself, ‘how does any of what I’m talking about provide value to the customer?’ If you can’t come up with an answer, time to reevaluate the point in question.

7. Enthusiasm

Surprisingly often, prospects admit to finding most sales presentations incredibly boring. This is the kiss of death for a salesperson, and it doesn’t matter how knowledgeable you are about the product or how well you address objections- if you can’t keep the prospect engaged, you are dead in the water. The key to entertaining your audience, aside from brevity, is building a sense of enthusiasm and fun. If you seem like you are bored by your subject, so will your audience be. If you are engaged and enthusiastic, they will be too. 

8. Creativity

Your prospect probably speaks to a lot of salespeople and sits through far too many presentations, so you should do anything you can to stand out or be memorable.

9. Structure

Having a clear structure for your presentation can prevent you from rambling or losing your footing. More importantly, it gives you confidence and clarity, because you always know what your next point is and where your arguments are leading. Focus on taking the prospect on a journey, and make sure each section of your presentation accomplishes something and helps demonstrate value.

10. Faith in the product

Nothing will make your presentation easier or more effective than having complete conviction in the product you are selling. If you truly believe in the product and its ability to solve your prospect’s problems, the rest will fall into place. This is why you should always sell products you believe in, and focus on the aspect of the product you feel is most beneficial.

11. Be informed

The more you know about your product and your prospect’s needs, the more confident and genuine you will sound. You should be prepared for any question the most informed of customers could ask. You can practice this beforehand by creating lists of questions about the product and sketching out answers for each.

12. Body Language

We’ve all heard the cliché that 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. Whether or not that’s strictly true, the way you present and express yourself physically can have a huge impact on both how engaged and receptive the prospect is, and how much they trust you. Be sure to make eye contact, have a confident and relaxed demeanor, and use your hands to communicate and keep your audience engaged.

13. Testimonials

Credibility is key to success in sales, and testimonials can be enormously helpful in a presentation. A few thorough glowing reviews can do a lot to sway a prospect’s mind and get rid of some of their hesitancy to try your product. You want to reassure them that they are not going out on a limb, that many people have tried the product and been satisfied with it before. 

14. Listen

One of the most important parts of a presentation happens when it is already over. This is answering the prospect’s questions and listening to their comments or concerns. You can give the best, most polished presentation imaginable, but if you can’t come up with satisfactory answers to their questions, you probably won’t make the sales. Sales is all about learning what the prospect wants, so you could even view the whole presentation as a way to learn more about their needs and objections. Listen closely and prospects will often tell you what you need to do to close the deal.

With these tips in mind, you should be able to create a killer sales presentation that will leave your audience feeling informed and ready to buy. Don’t forget the importance of being enthusiastic about what you are selling, as this is often contagious! Good luck with your next pitch or presentation. We hope this post has been helpful for you. If you’d like to take your sales training to the next level, accelerate your junior reps, and save managerial time, check out Attention here!