Sales Training Exercise – Using Analogies in your Visual Presentation
Here’s a training exercise we do in our Persuasive Presentation Skills program that can help you assemble visual information for your prospect. During the session where we help participants discover ways to convey complex information, we teach them how to use analogies. They take a physical characteristic of an object in the room or something that the audience can visualize, and relate that characteristic to the idea or concept that they are trying to convey.
For example, while explaining just how important the opening of a presentation is, the trainer heard a plane flying overhead and ran with this analogy:
As take-offs and landings are critical to a pilot flying a plane, so are the openings and closings when you are delivering your presentation.
So here’s your exercise this week. Get with a member of your team or your sales manager. Then, identify the product or service that you want to promote. When you’re ready, have your teammate identify an object in the room.
Once you have the object, take an aspect, quality, or characteristic of that object and relate it to an aspect, quality, or characteristic of your product or service, making it easier to understand, much like the owner of the moving company in this post did when he used a balloon to highlight the ride quality of his trucks.
Remember, telling is not selling. Show your prospects what your product or service can do. Relate it to something that they already know and remove the friction that’s keeping your sale from moving forward.
