Your Sales Presentation is not a TED Talk
When we are presenting our solution, we can often get tied up in making a ‘great’ presentation. So what does make a good sales presentation?
The purpose of your B2B sales presentation
One of the key things we want to remember when we are preparing for a sales presentation, is that our primary purpose is to show the customer how we can solve their challenges. We are not trying to be a world class presenter. We just need to give them what they need to know to make a decision.
It’s about them not you
Remember that your sales presentation, or demonstration of your product, should occur after you have done some good discovery. You should know your customers challenges and requirements well, and have tailored your presentation to answer those challenges. You should have done your best to get the key decision maker in the room and the right people around the table.
Often, a lot of work goes into getting things lined up for the presentation – rather than the presentation itself.
One of the simplest, I think the most effective, formats for a sales presentation is:
Summarise their challenges
Share your approach to solving them
Share why you are the best suited to solving their challenges
Summarise how this solves their challenges
Summarising their Challenges
One of the mistakes I see people make when they present is that they make their presentation all about themselves, rather than the customer.
I suggest starting with a simple one-slide summary of the customer’s challenges. You should have already had conversations with them to know what these are.
Before moving into the main part of your presentation, ask them to confirm that you have their challenges and requirements captured correctly. If there are any new people in the room, this is a good opportunity to check if they have additional requirements you haven’t yet captured.
Your Approach
Now you get into the fun part about how you solve their challenges. That is – describe what you will actually do, or what your product will actually do. If you are selling a product that you can demo, this is your demonstration.
You want to customise this part of your presentation to only share those parts of your service or product that are relevant to your customer and their challenges. Don’t overwhelm them with lots of irrelevant detail. Remember – you want to give them what they need to make a decision.
Show Don’t Tell
Using case studies from existing customers is a great way to share your approach, that also showcases your expertise and experience. Ideally, your case studies should match the challenges you are solving for the prospect you are presenting to.
You can also include testimonials, and share details of why they should choose you over the competition.
Summarise – answering their challenges
A one-slide summary, that shows directly how you have answered the requirements you outlined at the beginning, is a really clear way to showcase what you are delivering. Remember, what you are delivering is not your product – it is the outcomes for the customer.
Allow Plenty of Time for Questions
The key reason you are presenting is to get feedback and ideally a ‘yes’ to move forward from your prospect.
One tip is to practice beforehand and time yourself delivering the presentation, to get the timing right. Once you’ve done a few, you’ll be able to know how much to include for the time you have.
A long meeting is not necessarily a good meeting. If you keep people in a meeting long over the agreed time – this does not reflect well on you. Aim to keep to the meeting time.
Make sure you allow at least 15 minutes for questions at the end of the presentation. If you take questions through the presentation, ensure you keep your eye on the time. In a sales presentation, the most important part of the whole meeting is the conversation at the end when you get their feedback. So don’t cut this short. Ensure you have some good questions to ask them at the end to trigger conversation and capture any lingering objections.
Is it a Pitch Deck?
I don’t love the term ‘Pitch Deck’ myself. It feels to me like we are pitching at people rather than engaging in a conversation. Also, if you have a Pitch Deck for investors this is a very different deck to what you should be using in a sales presentation to a customer. Remember, your presentation should be customised for every audience. What an investor wants to know is very different from what a customer will want to know.
You can, of course, have a sales deck template that has your core outline and information, that you then customise for each presentation. This is actually a really good idea – and will make it easier to customise each time if you know which pieces you change or adapt each time.
A good B2B sales presentation clearly communicates that you understand the customer’s challenges, that you are the best solution for them, and makes it easy way for the customer to say ‘yes’.
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