Today, let's talk about presenting one-on-one, either over the phone or in person. There are four things to consider:
1. Let’s begin with the goal.
When I ask salespeople about their goal, in almost any context, I often get vague answers. “Well, my goal is this, but my boss’s goal is that, but my ideal goal is this, but I would be willing to accept that.” For the purposes of making a great presentation, we want to be very specific about what our goal is, and in order to get there, there are two kinds of questions that we want to explore before the meeting. The first is:
How many sales conversations is this sale worth?
In other words, if the sale is potentially worth less than your average order size, you may want to consider the fact that the entire sales effort is not worth more than one or two conversations, maybe with an email. It’s certainly not worth 15 conversations. On the other hand, if it’s potentially worth more than your average order size, it could be worth three, four, five, ten or more visits and conversations. In this case, you may have to adjust your goal for this particular meeting. The second question you want to explore is, “In your view, what is the very next thing needed to eventually close the sale? So when you look at those two things together, you want to be more specific about your goal. Are you aiming to get a decision in this meeting? Or is your goal simply to get the prospect to say, “You know what, this is potentially worth exploring. Let’s talk again” or “Let’s talk again and bring somebody else to the meeting.” Get specific as you can with that goal, and have a plan A and a plan B in place as you always do.
2. Second, positioning.
Now, some of these you can’t do until the moment of the meeting. You’re sitting down, and you’re talking to somebody, and you’re immediately putting him or her in a bucket. Or at least you should be. And that bucket is one of maybe five or six buckets that are common to your business. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, when I’m talking to somebody, it’s likely that he or she is sitting in one of these buckets. Those sitting inside a bucket include a financial buyer, a commercial buyer, a technical buyer, the owner, the President, or the person that runs that company. He is a person of influence and can make decisions. Does he know more than you about what you’re selling? Does he technically know what you’re selling but have no financial influence at all? Adjust your presentation so that it speaks to the one that you’re presenting to in the same language that he’s already accustomed to speaking in.
Stay tuned for part 2!
About the Author:
Steve Bookbinder is Co-founder and CEO of Digital Media Training, a training partner to some of the most successful sales organizations around the world. DMT delivers training which treats sales as a competitive sport and changes behavior needed to help sellers consistently win. DMT is a leader in M-learning training reinforcement with a proven track record of improving sales through training. Steve has delivered more than 500 keynote speeches at national sales meetings, conducted more than 3,000 training workshops and trained, coached and managed more than 35,000 sellers and managers from leading companies around the world for more than 20 years.
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