Make a successful sales presentation Part-1

What is a sales presentation? In a nut shell, a sales presentation is an advertisement delivered in person to the customer. The sole purpose of it is to make the customer buy your product. In consumer world, advertisements are extensively used - either in TV or Radio or Magazines/Paper or Internet. But In business to business world, advertising through conventional media does not work, so companies developed a set of slides - which contain certain messages to the customer. And this is conventionally called as "sales presentation"

Brief History

In early 1900’s, these slides were nothing but some printed sheets of paper accompanied with a live demonstration of the product. Later in 1950’s, few companies began to use a set of film slides which could be projected on a screen, a few companies in US also began to use film projectors to show short video clippings. These clippings were in fact advertisements made by a professional agency. This presentation using slide film projectors were very expensive and often it was out of reach of small firms - even in big companies, the number of presentations were very limited.

With the advent of plastic films from 3M and laser printers, a new form of sales presentation emerged - Computer generated slides which could be projected via a OHP (Over Head Projector). This marked the beginning of low cost computer generated presentations. (On a personal note, I still recall presenting my college project dissertation on a OHP - the slides were generated on a 386 PC - using MS Word & printed on 3M Film on a HP laser printer)

Today, with the advent of MS PowerPoint, many people (mistakenly) consider a sales presentation is simply a set of PowerPoint slides. But remember that a sales presentation is an advertisement for the company - and the main purpose of it is to entice the customer to buy.

Basics of sales presentation

Unlike a TV/Radio/Paper advertisement, a sales presentation has a longer format - and is delivered in person by a salesman. Thus adding a human element to this "advertisement". A good sales presentation is therefore the one which entices the potential customer to make the buying decision.

A successful sales presentation has two parts. Part one is Presentation Planning and Part two is the actual presentation and demonstration.

NOTE: Part -1 is described in this article. Part-2 will be described in the next article

Presentation Planning

First step in developing a sales presentation is to write out your presentation plan. Preparing a written plan requires one to think of the major selling points of your product or service. One must also think of the possible questions customer may ask. Consider the best case, worst case and most probable case, try to anticipate as much as possible. This requires lots of thinking - on what are the customer’s needs, what will be the major selling point to those needs, how would the customer possibly react, what would be the questions & objections, and how you can effectively show that your product or service can meet your customer’s needs.

The best preparation in developing a sales presentation plan is to know a lot about the potential customer themselves: Who they are, what market segments do they serve, who their competition is, what are the major challenges facing them etc.

Another important thing that must be taken into consideration while developing the sales presentation is the objective of the sales presentation. If the sales presentation is being delivered on the very first meeting, then the sales presentation must do the following:

1. Establish rapport
   
2. Discover needs
   
3. Match your product features & benefits with customer needs
   
4. Get commitment for the next action step.

In most business-to-business sales, the first meeting will not result in closing the deal or winning the order. So the objective for the very first presentation must be set accordingly.
In a multi-meeting presentations, the objective will be to:

1. Reinforce the rapport established in the earlier meeting/presentation
   
2. Build a relationship with the customer (based on inputs from the earlier meetings
   
3. Jointly discover customer needs
   
4. Set the stage for the next meeting
   
5. Address any objections, concerns the customer may have
   
6. Present the value of your product/service to the customer
   
7. Close i.e., Get the order

Objective of the sales presentation drives the content of that presentation. In a complex sale, objective of various presentations are different, one has to prepare multiple presentations.

Closing thoughts

Planning a sales presentation is not something that can be done on a fly. Often in a complex sale, you would require inputs from various departments within your own company - to capture the value your product/service can provide, to answer the objections/concers of the customer, and to establish credibility to your sales presentation.

The primary purpose of the planning your sales presentation is to have a thorough preparation for the presentation. The thoroughness of your preparation will establish a strong rapport between buyer and seller (which is an essential ingredient for consultative selling).