How to drop a presentation bomb
One of things I often struggle at when coming into a new position/client/company is how to go about presenting to the target demographic. I’ll give you a for instance. I was interviewing with a company the first 2 interviews had gone great, but for the third they didn’t just want to take my word for it that I could sell, they wanted to see me in action. So I thought ok well give me an example company of what your looking for. They told me that they wanted me to present a for a retail company, that they wanted to see my thought process behind what I presented, and if I thought this said company was a good fit and why. So I went about doing my research. I read articles, made phone calls, shot out some emails, and finally checked linkd in. I found out everything I could from who the CEO was all the way down to the directors of each department, how many departments they had, what they sold, how they sold it, who they sold it to, and how much of it they sold. Yes I thought the hard part is over! Wrong. I had just begun. So I knew my next step was to hammer out a solid presentation, but where to start? Well ok I can do this so step 1. Introduction: generally speaking introductions are all the same and all different. They all have a lot of confidence in them, they all have the same hand shake and hello, they all have the same smile. They are all different in that this is the fun part where I get to decide on the fly if I want to make a cheesy joke or stick with something safe like the weather on my trip out to see the company. However another I always make sure to do is introduce myself again even if I have met them before and the company I am with, I don’t want to make anyone feel stupid nor do I want to feel stupid that they don’t remember me and I thought they would. So on to the second step. OK well this is where I need to identify the problems and needs of the company. If your presentation is strategic then all you need to do is execute a series of questions based off of info you dug up in your research, a lot of times you can find the problems while you have your nose in the books. So then all you have to do is bring these problems to the surface. If your sale is not strategic instead sometimes you have to roll with the punches. But first thing is to figure out or point out where they are currently going or not going at all for your specific product, then you have to find out more specifically what is encompassed in what they are doing now, lastly ask them what they like and dislike about their current situation. Now you have your ammo for your presentation. So step 3 present. I like to go a little more in depth about my company and throw in some analogies in there that relate to the person and also to the problem. Email me if you want me to go a little deeper. Then once I am done with my analogies I hit them with a couple of bullets to solve their problem, notice how I say a couple not all. Step 4 close. Less is more in the close. I will literally ask them can you give me a yes or no on this or do we need to involve anyone else. If you get a yes sweet! now shutup and finalize the details. I was super guilty of verbal vomit when I was new in sales. I would get a yes from a client and I went from battling to sunshine and rainbows, dropping everything I could about why they would like what they were getting from me. Here is the good news you already said enough to get them to say yes, don’t do it twice, I lost many sales doing that. So in a nutshell that is how I present and close my customers I am very to the point I like to put my personality into hence the story with the analogy, but I also like to be very systematic in my approach to sales. What I find is sales is like a science experiment if you don’t try the same things multiple times you will be hard pressed to get consistent results. I hope this helps and email me if you have questions…. I still haven’t found a car!
Lloyd
