Tuesday
15Jul2008
How to Improve Your Sales Presentation
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 02:37AM
If your sales presentations aren’t getting you a lot of return phone calls, you should read the following tips for ensuring your sales presentation is the best it can be.
1. Time it. Your audience has a limited attention span, no matter what their age! CEOs get bored just as quickly as teenagers. If you drone on for too long, you’ll lose any interest gained in the first part of the presentation. Keep it short and to the point.
Follow the 60% rule: however much time is set aside for your meeting or presentation, use 60% of that total time. If you have a half-hour scheduled, use about 18 minutes for your presentation. If you have an hour scheduled, your presentation should last about 40 minutes. This allows your prospect to think it over and ask questions without being rushed.
2. Match your prospects’ tone while speaking. If your prospects (or main prospect, the highest-ranking person in the meeting) talk fast, you should talk fast. If your prospects talk slow, and take time to pause before the next phrase, you should try to do the same. The way they speak is the way they best understand speech back to them.
3. Watch your body language. The way you hold yourself can contradict the words coming out of your mouth. If you’re slouched over and have your arms crossed, it’s going to be hard for the prospects to get excited about anything you have to say. Stand up straight, use eye contact with everyone in the room (not all at once – although that would be an interesting trick!) and be careful of how much you use your hands. Use your hands to point to posters or other visuals to emphasize a point, but try not to let your hands get distracting by flailing about.
4. Use visual aids. Visuals aids should be just that – things that help you make your points – they shouldn’t be your point. Don’t rely on your visual aids to tell the whole story for you. Visual aids can reinforce your message and they increase retention, so definitely use them, just don’t abuse them! And definitely don’t read straight from them like a boring college professor – paraphrase the words on the visual or add information to them with your speech.
5. Keep your prospects involved. Do this by asking questions or use your presentation as a stage for a demonstration. Let the prospects use your product as they or their customers would in a real situation. Use their reactions and questions to gauge their interest.
6. Avoid clichés and overused phrases. People will start to ignore you when you say “We’re the best, forget the rest” or “I’ll be honest with you.” If you use phrases that are old-hat, you’ll lose attention and interest. Take time to rehearse your presentation and if you find you’re using clichés when you don’t mean to, write down some alternative wordings and practice with those.
7. Practice, practice, practice. You can also find phrases or parts of your presentation that don’t work and you’ll have time to fix them before the real deal. This is the best piece of advice because the more you practice, the better you’ll become and the more comfortable you’ll become with your presentation.
1. Time it. Your audience has a limited attention span, no matter what their age! CEOs get bored just as quickly as teenagers. If you drone on for too long, you’ll lose any interest gained in the first part of the presentation. Keep it short and to the point.
Follow the 60% rule: however much time is set aside for your meeting or presentation, use 60% of that total time. If you have a half-hour scheduled, use about 18 minutes for your presentation. If you have an hour scheduled, your presentation should last about 40 minutes. This allows your prospect to think it over and ask questions without being rushed.
2. Match your prospects’ tone while speaking. If your prospects (or main prospect, the highest-ranking person in the meeting) talk fast, you should talk fast. If your prospects talk slow, and take time to pause before the next phrase, you should try to do the same. The way they speak is the way they best understand speech back to them.
3. Watch your body language. The way you hold yourself can contradict the words coming out of your mouth. If you’re slouched over and have your arms crossed, it’s going to be hard for the prospects to get excited about anything you have to say. Stand up straight, use eye contact with everyone in the room (not all at once – although that would be an interesting trick!) and be careful of how much you use your hands. Use your hands to point to posters or other visuals to emphasize a point, but try not to let your hands get distracting by flailing about.
4. Use visual aids. Visuals aids should be just that – things that help you make your points – they shouldn’t be your point. Don’t rely on your visual aids to tell the whole story for you. Visual aids can reinforce your message and they increase retention, so definitely use them, just don’t abuse them! And definitely don’t read straight from them like a boring college professor – paraphrase the words on the visual or add information to them with your speech.
5. Keep your prospects involved. Do this by asking questions or use your presentation as a stage for a demonstration. Let the prospects use your product as they or their customers would in a real situation. Use their reactions and questions to gauge their interest.
6. Avoid clichés and overused phrases. People will start to ignore you when you say “We’re the best, forget the rest” or “I’ll be honest with you.” If you use phrases that are old-hat, you’ll lose attention and interest. Take time to rehearse your presentation and if you find you’re using clichés when you don’t mean to, write down some alternative wordings and practice with those.
7. Practice, practice, practice. You can also find phrases or parts of your presentation that don’t work and you’ll have time to fix them before the real deal. This is the best piece of advice because the more you practice, the better you’ll become and the more comfortable you’ll become with your presentation.
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