How to mess up your sales pitch
5 No Go's for your next sales presentation
"The only reason to give a speech is to change the world." - John F. Kennedy
You will not change the world with every one of your sales presentations. But you should at least try it! If you enter "how do I make a customer presentation" in Google, the search will return about 33,000 results. A lot of reading material if you want to be optimally prepared. In sales, time is always precious and short. Especially when the quarterly target is far away and the next customer presentation is very close.
The reasons for a successful customer presentation are manifold. In this blog post we would like to take a different approach and show you what things you should avoid at all costs.
Let's go!
#1 No Go: Technical Set Up
Most sales employees, especially those of the younger generation, swear by their beloved MacBook. Hardware and software all great. There is only one problem:
CONNECTIONS!
The best presentation on your MacBook will not help you if you are not able to show it for technical reasons. There are still some companies that only use VGA. Be prepared and always have an adapter for all eventualities with you.
The exact preparation for your next customer presentation is absolutely essential. However, even experienced and well prepared salespeople will sooner or later:
There comes the ONE question to which one does not know the answer. Absolutely no problem!
Our customers want a trusted advisor who has the size to note down a question for later rather than giving a wrong answer.
#3 No Go: Me, me, me, me... We, we, we...
In this blog post we will deal with five things you should avoid. It is still not about you as a salesman. It is about your CUSTOMER. We talk very often about the features, advantages and possibilities the customer has with our product or service. But the customer is only interested in one thing:
What problems can we solve for him.
Change the perspective and do not talk about your products or services, but about solutions to concrete problems of your customers.
#4 No Go: Excessive Namedropping
Mercedes-Benz, Adidas & Coca-Cola. Have you been able to win globally active and successful corporations for your company? Marketing has given you great case studies of customers? You feel great? But then ...
Your counterpart at the sales presentation shakes his head and says: "But we are not like biggest logo you ever finished."
There are good reasons why you should avoid excessive name dropping, especially for your first sales presentations. Your customer does not want to be inspired by big names, but wants relevant case studies that can solve HIS problems. Case studies of successful customers of yours are great - but only if they are absolutely relevant. Use them wisely!
#5 No Go: Breaking the time frame
You have made a great start to your sales presentation. You immediately established rapport with your counterpart. You are convinced that you have found the optimal answer to every question for your future customer. Everything is going great! Euphoria comes up and you forget to look at your watch. The meeting ends abruptly and without next steps.
"Last impressions - last!"
"Last impressions - last! Most of the people you are talking to will not pay full attention to you if they should already be in the follow-up meeting.
Have fun with your next customer presentation and a successful and profitable year 2020!
Your Jonathan
To the author:
Jonathan Spitzer, MSc