Sales is all about communication.
When you communicate the value your product offers and the buyer agrees that this value outweighs the costs, then they will buy from you.
That makes sense, right?
So why is it that Sam sells the same product as Walt but Walt is always closing deals and Sam constantly falls flat on his face when presenting to buyers?
Walt has more success with his sales presentations because communicating value to a buyer has more to it than just mentioning a few features or benefits and then asking for the sale.
So do you want to know the 5-step process to putting together a sales presentation that buyers applaud and buy from?
Then stay tuned.
Whether you’re selling in person in the boardroom or over the phone, all salespeople have to present their product to the buyer at some point in the sales process.
Our job as sales professionals is to effectively communicate the value that our product delivers to the buyer which then makes their buying decision a really simple one.
Makes sense, right?
So how then do we create an effective sales presentation?
I’ll give you a simple structure to use. To create an effective sales presentation you can build your presentation with these 5 segments.
- Relatable statement
- Context
- Story
- Fact statements
- Next steps
Let me explain the point of each part of the presentation structure and I’ll also give you a quick example too.
#1 RELATABLE STATEMENT
The first element of your sales presentation should be a statement that everyone that you’re communicating with can agree on.
The point of the relatable statement is to position the buyer and yourself as being on the same team rather than being adversaries.
If you don’t start your presentation this way the buyer will be constantly looking for ways to object to what you’re saying rather than looking for ways to agree with you.
Example – “Fighting in the street is never a clever idea”
#2 CONTEXT
The second part of your sales presentation moves from the relatable statement that everyone agrees on, into the specific area of topic you want to talk about in your presentation.
We make the start of the presentation broad and agreeable and then narrow down our topic here so that the buyer doesn’t get lost at the beginning of the presentation and start ignoring us.
Imagine that we’re out hiking with the buyer and we’re guiding them down a gradually narrowing path that has a steep drop either side of it. If we were to dump the buyer on the narrowest part of the path to begin the hike, they’d get scared and wouldn’t continue down it.
But when we start at a nice, wide, comfortable part of the path and gently guide them to the scarier narrow bits, they’re more likely to stick with us.
Example – “Learning a little self-defence can get you out of stick situations”
#3 STORY
So now that we have agreement from the buyer that we’re on the same team and we’ve slowly built some context so that we don’t scare them away, it’s time to start presenting the benefits of our product through a story.
We present our product through either a fictional or real customer story because it allows the buyer to add their own layer of emotion to the presentation.
Example – “Sam was attacked on his way home from work. But he knew a little self-defence from a couple of years of training Brazilian Ju Jitsu. He managed to throw the attacker on his head, defend himself and then make a quick getaway.
#4 FACT STATEMENTS
At this point the buyer is hooked and it’s only now that we can mention specific features, benefits or the pricing of our product.
Now we’re going to focus on the “how” rather than the “why” of our product.
Example – “You’d think the confidence of being able to defend himself would be priceless… But no it costs $50 a month at a Brazilian Ju Jitsu gym.”
#5 NEXT STEPS
Finally, after getting agreement, building context, letting the buyer add emotion through picturing themselves in the story and explaining the facts, we’re going to now share the next steps to working with us
If this is a sales presentation at the end of the sales process, we might ask for the business here too.
Example – “Brazilian Ju Jitsu changed Sam’s life. Does it make sense to sign up to the gym today and to change yours?”
So there are the 5-steps to creating a sales presentation that your buyers will pay attention to and buy from.
