Try the following steps to deliver high-impact presentations:
Listen carefully to your prospect /client. After considering the multitude of benefits and features that you can provide your clients, you know there is hardly enough time to discuss all of them. Therefore, you must decide which issues are most relevant to your audience. Ask yourself: How much time is available? What are my competitive challenges? What motivates this individual? What do I want to accomplish with this presentation? Establish your objective. The last question is probably the most important because too many presentations are given without a sense of purpose. For instance, you may discover that the only purpose of a presentation is to get a second meeting. You may recognize that your presentation needs to isolate only one singular feature that concerns your prospect. You may believe that your prospect needs to sense your company is able to fulfill a challenging delivery schedule. The possible objectives you may have are endless. Listen to your heart. You need to consider how you feel about the issue at hand. If the issue is service, consider how you really feel about your service capabilities. This doesn’t mean you have to oversell. It merely means you need to describe honestly your feelings about the issue at hand. The presentation described earlier in the article illustrates the difference between a salesman considering his knowledge versus his feelings. Deliver the chapter(s) that will educate and motivate your prospect. If you have taken time to prepare a presentation in chapters (like the sections of a well-organized book), your delivery will flow smoothly. You will no longer be thinking. You will deliver a heartfelt presentation at a level of unconscious competence. When you speak honestly about your opinions of a product, you connect with your customers emotionally. As a result, you’ll soon find that you gain more sales in a few minutes of speaking from the heart than from hours of spouting specs.
Rick Davis is president of The Leaders Group, a Chicago-based sales training organization. 773.769.4409. E-mail: rdavis@leaders-group.net.
