Sales Presentations Are So Last Century

My advice to anyone asking about a sales presentation would be, don't do it!  What purpose do you think it will achieve?

Why would you ever need to make a sales presentation?  If you don't yet understand inside-out and upside-down the prospect's fundamental problems and the circumstances in which they exist, how can you possibly know what to present?

And if you do understand, it's not a sales presentation, is it!  You will be presenting your suggestions, your proposal, won't you?

Yet many thousands of words continue to be written on the subject of sales presentations, by well respected people in their books and in well respected publications.  Just looking recently at a small number of articles on this subject revealed some amazing things.

I find it frightening that this stuff is being broadcast to sales teams as state of the art, immutable fact, under the banner of professional bodies who claim to represent these teams' interests.  Within the 'sales advice' community there seems to be this continued fixation with:

1. Giving sales presentations - Generally involving PowerPoint or something similar
2. Having a 'one size fits all' sales presentation, yet one that is flexible
3. Letting specialist outside companies produce your sales presentations

Authors identify the five situations where they feel you ought to want to give a sales presentation:

1. In meetings with buyers
2. In corporate account presentations
3. When helping your 'customer champion' to convince their colleagues
4. At events where 'customers' gather
5. As a response to a request for information!

The advice seems to be grouped into four categories:

1. General Advice
2. Detailed Advice
3. Presentation Design
4. Detailed Design Steps

My own reactions to all the points raised can be summarised as one of:

• Hear, hear! - because I agree
• Why? - because I don't believe they've justified their assertion
• Amazing! - said with huge irony
• Well, yes! - said with almost as much irony
• Expletive deleted! - said in genuine amazement that anyone could still think that way

Let me give you the detail on the first two.

General Advice

• Your presentation must be flexible - Repeated ad nauseam - Amazing.  So why try to have a one size fits all?
• Cover your scope and capability - Why?  Surely it should be about what the customer will get out, not what you can put in!
• Use a specialist presentation design company - Why?  Apart maybe from graphic design and PowerPoint coding, shouldn't your sales and marketing team be well enough skilled and well enough trained to write the copy themselves?

Detailed Advice

• Keep it to 15 slides so you don't bore the audience - #ED!  And 15 won't?
• Think from the buyer's point of view - Amazing!  Is there any other way?
• Don't just blow your own trumpet - #ED!  Words fail me!
• Start your presentation by describing the state of your marketplace - Why?  What interest does the audience have in that, that they aren't aware of already?
• Get an early agreement on something, anything - Hear, hear!
• Use your smartness to create a pleasant surprise - #ED!  And being a smart-arse is the way to build lasting, win-win relationships?
• Convince the audience by showing what you can deliver - Well, yes!  But if, and only if, what you deliver is being described in 'value to the customer' terms - which is quite a different thing from benefits - and is pertinent.
• There is often too much focus on what the salesman wants to say rather than on what the buyer wants to hear - Amazing!  And yet you're still trying to push the idea of a sales presentation!
• The salesman is trying to promote change and all change is risky - Hear, hear!
• Few sales presentations actually address the senior decision makers - Amazing!  You could never guess they would be involved in the decision making, could you!
• You don't need to be the biggest or the best to win - #ED! You don't say.
• Linking content to customer outcomes gives you the ability to quote higher prices - Why?  Linking content to outcomes allows the buyer to see the value, and thus see the return on their investment!
• Your audience is under time pressure and is inwardly focussed - Well, yes!  So cut the crap and get them to admit the value outcomes to themselves!
• Only present when you've established a potential need - Amazing!  Unless there is a full-bore want, why waste time on a presentation?
• Your presentation should turn 'need' into 'desire' - Amazing!  And there was me thinking your 'conversation' should allow the 'prospect' to do this for themselves!
• Research your audience and their business requirements - Hear, hear!  But do use the best source for that information - Your audience!
• Address the concerns of each member of your audience individually - Well, yes!
• Hone your abilities at handling supplementary questions in the Q&A session at the end - Well, yes!
• Spread enthusiasm and take your time - Well, yes!

There is another way, a better way.  If you recognise yourself or your organisation in any of these, please allow me the chance to talk to you and start to explain that there are other ways.

There's lots more advice like this in my regular bulletin.  Get your FREE copy!