Henry sells insurance for a well known, solid company that’s been around for years. He’s been with the company for about a year, and has recently been focusing on improving his business presentations.
He sat in my office and ran through his presentation. He covered all kinds of things, the myriad of products his company offered, the company history, his experience and education. Awards his company has won. The differentiation factors. His sales presentations weren’t much different than those of most professionals in his field, in fact, he was already improving upon the things his company wants him to cover. I love Henry, but I have to admit, I was getting antsy as he was speaking. He lost me in the first couple of minutes, and in fact, he was losing his prospects too.
If Henry’s story sounds familiar, here are some things to avoid when doing business presentations:
- Don’t bore them with a laundry list of all of the services or products your company provides. Instead, find out what what their biggest problems are and talk about the ONE product or service that you have that will help them solve that problem.
- Don’t focus on your company’s history, your experience or awards you’ve won. Instead, talk about the benefits and results your clients have received from working with you. Tell stories, illustrate with testimonials.
- Don’t try to be all things to all people or try to sell them things they don’t need. I know your company may want you to sell “everything”, but it really does work better if you carve out a niche. So instead of trying to convince people to buy things they don’t need, focus on developing a reputation as someone who sells one specific solution. Once you win a client, and gain their trust, it will be much easier to sell them the additional products or services as well.
To give really effective presentations, you need to focus more on them, and less on yourself or your company. Make it personal, key it into the problems, pain or issues they’re facing. That makes it real, and gets them interested in doing business with you.
Susan Martin, Sales Coaching
