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January 18, 2013 at 11:30 PM
Should you kiss your PowerPoints goodbye? Might not be a bad idea. Ninety-five percent or more of the presentations I see actually hurt a salesperson’s chances of success. They’re long. They’re all about your company, your products and your services. Blah…blah…blah.
And, truth be told, if you were in your prospects’ shoes, you’d probably be bored to tears by what you’re presenting, too. In my book SNAP Selling: Speed up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers, I talk about how to determine what to include in your presentations. Here are some tips you might find helpful:
1. Decide on your content. To start with, grab your prospects’ attention by focusing on what’s most important to them: their business issues and concerns and the value they’ll get from making a change. This will help you decide on the “story” you want to tell.
- Aligned: Ensure that all content is ruthlessly relevant to your prospect.
- Priority: Make sure you highlight why it’s important to change now.
- Simple: Eliminate or minimize any complexity, making changing easy.
2. Develop the slides. During the actual presentation, you will tell the story and your slides will support it. As much as possible, find photos and graphics to make your main points. To best imagine what I’m talking about, think of a children’s picture book.
Each slide should be the launching pad for a key point you want to make. The fewer (seven to 10) you have the better. Use handouts for detailed information. This will force you to prepare a conversation, not read a bunch of PowerPoint items. The results? You will connect with your prospects on a whole new level.
