Delivering a presentation can be a thing of joy or a thing of dread depending on your comfort zone. Unavoidably, they are a key component of many Sales cycles, especially in a B2B sales environment.
However, with some good planning and a little creativity, presenting can be really enjoyable for you and your prospective customer. Here are some Humble Sale tips to help you nail your next presentation!
Presentation Tip 1: One Thing, Not Everything
A great starting point for your presentation is to consider this question: What is the one thing you want them to remember when you have finished? Start with this and put it front and centre of the whole thing. You don’t have to cover all aspects of your proposal in a presentation (otherwise it would be called a proposal). Instead, it is your chance to focus the prospect in on the key message that really counts and differentiates you from your competition.
Don’t leave your One Thing to the end of the presentation either. Put it at the start, middle and end. Your prospect’s team will never be more alert than at the start so hit them with your key, best, sexiest, most amazing message first! Say, “If you take nothing else away from today, we want you to remember this!” If you wait for a big reveal like some second-rate magician, they’ll have missed it or switched off as their alert levels drop, don’t put your key points at the end.
Presentation Tip 2: Present Their Story, Not Yours
This is going to be hard to hear, but I am going to say it anyway. Your prospect does not care about your company, your history, your product, your turnover, how many customer logos you have collected, none of it. They do care about their goals, outcomes, ambitions, hopes, desires and dreams. Therefore make your presentation about their hero story, not yours.
Unless they have specifically requested corporate data about your company, make the whole presentation about their problem, their goal and how you can either solve it or help get them there. Have them imagine themselves going through some kind of transformation. Maybe present a day in the life of one of their own customers or employees, maybe a before and after of their experience. If they are heavily focussed on a certain value or stance (such as the environment or operating within a certain market) then marry your presentation to this stance. Help them see how they become the star and achieve real, tangible outcomes.
Presentation Tip 3: Less Words, More Pictures
There is nothing worse than text heavy presentation slides. They encourage the audience to start reading and stop listening, meaning they’ll take in less information and bore easily. Plus, they encourage presenters to read them rather than talking from the heart. Your goal is to convey a message, not read at people like they are children and it is bed-time. Try using single words instead of sentences to reinforce what you are saying. Include more pictures, graphics or videos. If you’re feeling really confident, use no words at all. If you want to share detail, provide a hand-out for your audience to takeaway and read afterwards (but give it out at the end so they don’t sit there reading it).
Presentation Tip 4: Use the Best Presenter
Planning who delivers the presentation is as important as the presentation itself. The salesperson running the deal is a normal choice but they may be so introverted or nervous that it hinders rather than helps. There are two ways of managing this. The first is for them to be vulnerable in front of the customer, stating their nervousness but also how much it means to them to deliver it. This will win over the room of course. If this is too much for them, the second choice is to use someone else. Talk about this back at base and plan accordingly.
It also doesn’t follow that a subject matter expert is a logical person to convey a message. How many product people do you know who are great on product detail but not on positioning benefits commercially? Over the years I’ve found the best format is to have one main presenter to cover everything who also acts as a chairperson and fields questions to appropriate team members if they can’t accurately answer. This also avoids presenter-switching throughout, which often has the effect of slowing momentum and breaking audience attention.
Presentation Tip 5: Stick to the Brief
This one is especially important in presentations linked to scored tender scenarios, but also applies well as a general rule. If the prospect has shared with you key points they wish the presentation to cover, or a mini-agenda, stick to it! Sounds simple right? You’d be amazed… I’ve had customers declare to me that they eliminated our competition from their buying process just because they didn’t cover what they asked. If your customer wants five things covered, cover only those five things. If they issue agenda headings, organise your presentation to follow those headings. It isn’t rocket science but it will help you win!
Presentation Tip 6: Watch the Clock
A cardinal sin of presenting is over-running on your allocated time. I’ve seen umpteen presentations where people spend too long on the early slides and then end up rushing their content. If they haven’t put the message front and centre and have saved key points to the end they dilute their impact significantly. Don’t put in so much content that sticking to time becomes impossible.
Better still, plan a presentation that only uses half the allocated presentation time. If you have an hour in the room, build a 30 minute presentation. This leaves a good half hour for quality questions and addressing any matters arising. You can check your message was well understood, check you have met expectations and re-visit any points that need clarity. Much better!
Presentation Tip 7: Be Conversational
A good way to settle nerves and also make the presentation more engaging (and humble) is to think of it like any other business conversation. Just one where you happen to be standing up! If you can keep your voice tone relaxed, as if you were just sitting across from someone over a coffee, you will put yourself and the room at ease. Also, your message will seem less practiced or “salesy” and be heard better. Another thing that comes naturally in 1-1 conversation is eye contact. Be aware of this when presenting. Regularly make eye contact with members of the audience to bring them in, help them feel at ease and take in what you are saying.
Presentation Tip 8: Ditch the Screen?
Remember the aim is to be memorable as well as helpful. One way of standing out is not to use a screen! May seem controversial given expected behaviours around presenting but worth pondering. If you were to storyboard your presentation in such a way that you could sketch it out on a whiteboard or flipchart it would have many benefits.
First, you’d appear more expert. There is a wonderful thing that happens when salespeople start scribbling at whiteboards. Those watching go into pupil mode and start learning, viewing you differently. Their brain seems to shift from buyer to student and the conversation opens up. Second, you control the pace. They only see and hear what you choose giving you a flexible dynamic. Third, it is easier to change direction as your content isn’t pre-loaded on a slide deck. If a question arises that could make some of your prepared content contentious or unhelpful, you don’t have to show it.
Presentation Tip 9: Cover The Basics
Alongside being creative and presentation refinement, be sure to cover the basics as part of your planning. Ask the prospect questions to uncover useful detail that could hinder you on the day if not known. What is the dress code? Will there be a screen? What connection method does it use? Is a whiteboard available? These are all potential pitfalls if unknown and you want to avoid a clunky start to the presentation while everyone scrabbles to get the tech working!
How many attendees from their side? You also want to avoid going mob heavy if there are only two of them. Similarly if you know they have a mix of commercial, legal, technical people present you can match your team to them to have all angles covered.
Presentation Tip 10: Rehearse
It may be a cliché but practice really does make perfect. To have the best chance of appearing confident and slick ensure that you complete several run-throughs of the presentation before-hand, ideally with an audience of peers so that you can get feedback and refine where needed. Remember, one of our goals is not to read the screen which means you need to “know your lines” and make your words count. This takes practice. Set yourself a deadline to complete the presentation a few days in advance and schedule rehearsal time. It really will pay off and help with any jitters on the day. Helpfully, it’ll also enable you to practice sticking to the running time.
Summary of our 10 Sales Presentation Tips:
You may want to print these sales tips out for quick reference when embarking on your plan:
- One Thing, Not Everything
- Present Their Story, Not Yours
- Less Words, More Pictures
- Use The Best Presenter
- Stick to the Brief
- Watch the Clock
- Be Conversational
- Ditch the Screen?
- Cover the Basics
- Rehearse
If you found this list of 10 Presentation Tips Helpful, here are some other handy lists of 10:
For Sales Practitioners: 10 Sales Tips To Help Your Results Flourish
Sales Leaders: 10 Reasons Why Having a Sales Process Really Matters
Everyone: 10 Ways To Add Value and Drive Customer Retention
Finally, the best tip of all is to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with latest content from The Humble Sale.
