10 most useful tips for sales presentation from my experience

Every sales manager knows, that arming salespeople with sales inventory, is 50% of the job done. But for most of the businesses, there is one single weapon, that can cut through the disturbing layer in the brain and grab buyers attention. This is the presentation, the single most important component of face to face interaction.

For the last 8 years, I am revising and creating the presentations for different kinds of authorities and these are the 10 advice that I can give to you, so your next presentation can generate the results you crave for.

1. Keep the basics in mind

These are several basic standards for a good sales presentation, that you always must remember. There are plethora articles emphasizing these topics, but I would like to underline some of them.

• You need the sales story – For every sales inventory, you need a sales story. A presentation is no exception. It should be based on your sales story. If you don’t know how to create a sales story, I suggest researching it in depth.

• Research your audience – There are some channels you can use to research your audience but social networks, especially LinkedIn, are the fastest and reliable sources of information. If you pursue your dream client, please refer to more professional services.

• Keep flexibility – You should be able to skip some slides if the buyer asks you. For example, if they tell you they know your company very well, don’t be the guy who says – Still, I want to tell you two words about “Bla-blah” LTD

• Learn your presentation – Don’t be the guy who reads the presentation from the screen or papers. Please don’t.

• Remember that you need to close – Some salespeople forget their major goal and are dragged into an unusual conversation. Remember, you are there because you need to close the sale. This is the endpoint, the peak you strive to.

• Keep it short – Buyers don’t need to know the history of the founder of “Bla-blah” LTD

• Remember the basics of speech delivering – Opening with question, Using different tones, Playing with audience, Etc.

• Illustrate – Communicate your ideas through illustrations and photos. Write sentences in an organized manner with flow charts, timelines, icons and etc. Nobody wants to read an article in your presentation.

2. Keep the interaction

I have attended the sales presentation, where after asking the question, the salesman asked to not interrupt him and question him after a presentation. This is not how you keep my attention. Interaction is one of the strongest weapons to grab buyer’s attention. Also, during the presentation, it is a great way to understand their interests in depth and change the flow to the new direction. Welcome the questions from your audience. If you have the answer to the question in your presentation, tell them – that’s a great question, keep it and I will refer to that topic shortly.

Remember, this is a good way to hold your presentation if your audience does not include more than 15 people. If you conduct your presentation in front of a crowd, you don’t need the questions, it will throw a chaos in the process. This is the advice for the sales presentation, and most of the time your audience will not exceed 10 participants.

3. Do not hate animations

One of the most common mistakes people make is hating on animations. There was a guy in a suit, who once told me that animations are not professional – This is an extremely stupid argument.

Everything can be professional if you use it in a right way. Swivel and boomerang animations can look professional in very rare situations but there are lots of them you must use.

Animations help you to organize information on your slide and keep the flow. Tools like “wipe”, “split”, “fade” are the best ways to express different layers of information and keep the messages organized.

Use this little guide:

• Entrance animations – appear, float in, fade, split. For pie charts use wheel.

• Emphasis and exit animations are used if you are portraying the process and key players. Keep in mind that you always need animations when explaining the process. It is the only way to keep the attention on the specific part of the process. Don’t make a rookie mistake, don’t hate on animations.

These are the starting principles, use them and you will be safe. Time after time you can manage to integrate different ways of portraying information with animations.

4. One slide per idea

This is the superpower that is often overlooked. You need to organize your presentation, so that all the messages that appear on the slide, serve to reinforce only one idea. There is my favorite phrase – the needle stings because all the power is directed to one point – the power point. You don’t need to widen your slides focus, it needs to be as narrow as possible, so your ideas can sting the buyer's brain.

From my experience, some people are so afraid by the number of slides, that they condense all the information on one slide. This is a much bigger problem, don’t worry about a number of slides.

5. A number of slides is not important

OMG, 30 slides? Nobody would listen to such a long presentation.

I will tell you what nobody listens, a 10-slide presentation that goes with your monologue for 30 minutes. You can not use the number of slides as a tool to measure the length of your presentation. Instead, the only indicator that is valid is the time. Measure time instead of a number of slides.

You talk about ideas and concepts, it does not matter how many slides are they spread on, the amount of information you give to your audience is measured by the time you need to deliver your ideas. You may spend 10 seconds on 1 slide, not 5 minutes (ok, it depends on content).

6. Structure and timing are important

different types of organizations and topics need different structures, but the general structure of sales presentation is very linear and straightforward. Don’t mess up with mumbo jumbo things and follow the rule of thumb. You can have a little deviation but keep these topics in mind:

• Introduction – brief information about your company (brief).

• Problem – the presentation is not about you, but about your client and about the problem that he is suffering from. You should already know what kind of problems your product solves, so tailor it to your potential client. They may not be aware of the problem. You need that detective side of yourself.

• Solution – How does your product solve the problem. So generally, this is what you offer to the client. What is the product you are trying to sell? How does it solve the problem?

• Differentiator – You are not the only one who solves this problem. This is why you need the differentiator. Say why are you better than the alternatives, why are the best choice your client can make.

• Social proof – People tend to buy things that are liked. It is safe to buy something, that others have already used and recommend. Get testimonials from your previous clients. Social proof is very important.

I will tell you one secret marketers have - Cognitive Dissonance is a beautiful weapon in marketer’s hands. It occurs after a person has decided to go with a certain type of product and he/she is not sure of the rightness of the decision. This is the trigger for many people to start persuading others, to make the same decision and strengthen their confidence. I would suggest researching this topic.

7. You need colors

I have made hundreds of presentations. Most of the companies have their brand book and very specific color pallet consisted of for example red, black, white. You can craft a very beautiful presentation out of these colors but from my experience, presentations with high color pallet, are much more likely to be attractive and attention grabber. Don’t overdo though, use color pallet generator websites and communicate your brand color. If you still need to stick with very small choice of colors, I would recommend using designers help, it can be challenging.

8. Invest in your presentation

I know that you are the master of powerpoint flow charts, but seriously, the world has gone far from it and you need to keep up with the competition.

High-quality icon sets, illustrations, graphics, and photos need energy and time to create. Thus, they cost money. But let’s be honest here, sales presentation is something, that you use to raise money. You can not compromise quality for some bucks here. You need to be on top of food chain and you need to show that.

You can find royalty free photos in google, but you can not find the specific illustration, communicate very specific idea perfectly. This is what differentiates perfect presentation from others. And you need that competitive edge to impress buyers and close the deal.

Invest in designer works and believe me, you will shine. Try to search some works on Shutterstock, and you will be amazed by how specific you can be in photos and illustrations.

9. Wizardry before presenting

Let me be honest here, the biggest drawback of using presentations is the incompatibility of technology. Sometimes the resolution is poor, projector illumination is not enough, or the aspect ratio is different. You need to adapt and overcome those challenges.

From my experience, I do not recall any event that involved a LED screen and I did not have to tweak presentation exactly for that screen.

Be prepared is my advice, for example, you should have your presentation in multiple formats, all the fonts need to be embedded to the power point, sometimes I even save my presentation in PNG files and once it came pretty handy.

Just ask the hosts that you will need 10 minutes to set up your presentation before the meeting starts.

10. You need to have 2 presentations

As I told you, the presentation needs to be simple and short. It must be based on your expression, with a minimum amount of words written on it. But what happens when hosts ask you to send the presentation after meeting? A presentation that you narrated is not appropriate for sending, nobody can understand it without a narrator.

Thus, it is very useful and extremely professional to have the second one, with little more words and explanations on it. Imagine it as a reading presentation, it has to be self-explanatory, with your credentials at the end.

These are the most important aspects of sales presentation I have mastered through the years and feel that they are overlooked. You probably know how important it is to feel confident during sales meeting and having a champion presentation and being prepared for it is an instant confidence booster.

There is one more advice I can give you, if it is possible, you should ask for the initial meeting, a very short and informative one before the presentation. It helps you to ask some basic questions about their needs and prepare your solution in a much professional manner.