When putting together a sales presentation, there are certain guidelines you'll need if you're creating a first class performance. And make no mistake. You aren’t just educating your prospect, you're performing for them. Your presentation has to have style, panache, and showmanship.
So when putting together your presentation, it’s best to start at the beginning.
Sales Presentation Tip 1: Know Your Audience
You’re going to have to do some research here. In many ways, the public speaker and the salesperson are alike. When you're in front of your group, what you present has to be what they are ready to hear.
I once sat in on a technical conference dealing with CRMs. One of the speakers delivered a very technical presentation, complete with a whole lot of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). His presentation came across as dull and boring. In hindsight, there were many reasons his presentation failed to engage the audience. But the speaker's biggest challenge was that he created his presentation for the implementers. And his audience was a group of engineering managers. The ideas may have been important, but they didn't address the managers' needs.
The next speaker, Joshua, didn’t make the same mistake. He was engaging and bantered with his audience. But most importantly, Joshua talked about the technology in terms of what the managers wanted and needed. He did not talk about what he wanted them to hear.
When you speak to a group, especially if you are making a sales presentation, gather extensive intelligence about your audience. Then, like Joshua in the previous example, tailor your presentation to your audience.
Know Your Audience and Talk About Their Interests
Knowing your audience is an excellent place to start in your presentation. To get your audience's attention, you have to talk about the things that interests them. Then, you must deliver that material the way they want to hear it. But before you can reach that point, you have to know your audience.
The material you present to a group of end-users won't be the same material you present to a group who manages them.
If you are speaking to entertain, you don't want to stand in front of a group that is expecting an educational session. When speaking to a group of manufacturing workers, you don't want to talk about management issues.
If you want to get the attention of your audience and keep it, you have to talk about what’s interesting to them. Do your research. Determine what type of audience you will be speaking to and tailor your presentation accordingly.
Remember, you open a presentation the same way you open a sales call. Use the following sales affinity rule:
Get your prospect’s attention by talking briefly about things in which they are interested.
You’ll find other ideas for creating your sales presentation in our playbook, Persuasive Sales Presentations, available for download here.
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