Make sure you’ve done your homework on the company, the people you’re meeting with and as much as you can find out about their problems in advance. Customizing and practicing as much of the specific presentation you’ll give to them before you walk in the door is one of many sales presentation skills you must master.

Connect with your audience, make friends with them before you begin your presentation. If they don’t warm up to you or they aren’t friendly…leave. You’re not going to make the sale anyway so why waste your time?

If you have a fear of speaking or are nervous in a sales presentation, the prospects will spot that and loose confidence in you. Get over your fear of speaking. It’s not ok to be nervous. You need to come across as being extremely confident. An important sales presentation skill of top sales people is public speaking. Take a public speaking course, join Toastmasters, do what ever is necessary to feel comfortable and confident speaking to one or a hundred people.

A sales presentation should be perfect evey time. So how do you make it perfect? Practice, Practice, Practice. When I started in real estate I carried a cassette recorder with me and when I gave a listing presentation I would ask the couple or person if they would mind if I recorded it. I told them it was for my benefit and would help me become better at what I do.

Then I listened to the recording and learned how I sounded, what I said, how I said it, how persuasive I was and in the end how successful I was. It helped me understand what I did right, what I did wrong and what I would do different the next time.

Develop the right attitude. Become so confident in your product or service and the benefits it provides that your shocked when someone doesn’t want to buy it. You need to have the attitude that someone would have to crazy not to buy your product.

Also, go in with the attitude that you don’t need the sale. If it’s the end of the month, it’s a big sale or you need the money, it’s likely your prospect will sense you urgency.

You spent the time finding the lead and making the appointment, don’t waste the sales opportunity by not mastering the sales presentation skills to give a great sales presentation.

Jim Klein provides salepeople with effective strategies that attract new clients, build customer relationships, and increase sales, GUARANTEED.
Get free sales training by subscribing to our free newsletter “The Sales Advisor”.

Sales Presentation Tip #1 – Practice and Customize Your Presentation

Take time to practice your presentation many times before using it in a real live sales situation. You should know your presentation backwards and forwards, word for word. Never take notes to a sales presentation and referr to or read from them. That is so unprofessional.

Customize your presentation for each individual prospect. One of the worst things you can do is give a presentation that appears to the prospect has been given to every other person you sell to.

Sales Presentation Tip #2 – Build Rapport and Qualify

Make sure you build rapport, and qualified the prospect thoroughly before you dive in to your presentation. People buy from people they like and trust, so spend adequate time on rapport building.

The same goes for qualifying. Make sure you’re clear as to what the prospects problem is before presenting your product or service as the solution. The problems you uncover will determine how you customize your presentation and how your product or service solves their problems.

Sales Presentation Tip #3 – Be Friendly, Enthusiastic and Professional Looking

Remember, people are more likely to buy from a friend than a salesperson. So spend lots of time becoming their friend. Don’t rush into your presentation. Step back and develop a relationship with them. It will pay huge benefits.

One way to show your enthusiasm is to truly believe your product or service is the best thing to solve their problem. So having an understanding of how your product has helped others is critical.

Being professional looking includes many different areas. Your clothes for one. Make sure your wardrobe is up to date and doesn’t include suits you bought in the nineties. Polish your shoes, cut your nails, shave, get an up to date hair style. There are many ways you can look the part of a successful person. People want to buy from winners, so look like a winner.

Also make sure your presentation visuals are up to date and professional looking. Don’t use articles or testimonials that were written years ago. Get some new ones. Use the lastest technology to show prospects you’re on the cutting edge. I guarantee you most of your competitors aren’t.

Sales Presentation Tip #4 – Use Visual Aids

Your company may all ready have visual aids for you to use. Some things to include are media articles about you and your company. Testimonials you’ve received from satisfied clients. Tell stories about how you’ve helped another customer, especially ones that are similar to the current prospect.

Sales Presentation Tip #5 – Get the Prospect Involved

Using handouts is a great way to get a prospect following along with your presentation. You could play a game during the presentation or have them take a test. Ask them opened ended questions such as:

Do you see how easy this is to use?

What are the features you like the best?

How do you think this will benefit you/your company?

Get creative and come up with ways to get the prospect involved. It sets you apart from the competition.

Sales Presentation Tip #6 – Emphasize Customer Service and Long Term Relationships.

The prospect needs to be sure you won’t sell them and then disappear, never to be heard from again. Talk to them about your involvement in the delivery, training and service after the sale. Also let them know you’re their for the long term. That you’ll be there to help with problems and service. After all, you are the one building the relationship. So assure them you will oversee everything.

A winning sales presentation should answer all your prospects questions, get them excited and lead them to the conclusion that your product or service is the only solution to their problems.

Jim Klein provides salespeople with effective strategies to increase their business while working less, GUARANTEED. Get free sales training by subscribing to our free newsletter “The Sales Advisor”.

While reading the newspaper this morning I noticed a funny cartoon, Real Life Adventures, by Wise and Aldrich. Two businessmen are talking to each other and the one says, “It’s a presentation karaoke machine. You can play an earlier successful presentation and lip-sync to it. And since most meetings are about the same old thing every time, nobody even knows the difference.”

It got me thinking about how many pathetic presentations I’ve attended that did sound like they were coming from a presentation karaoke machine. The presenter didn’t care whether the audience was “getting it” or not, he just rambled on with his agenda. It was a waste of time for both the presenter and the audience.

Make Presentations Two-Way Communication

Presentations can be described as a one-way communication activity. The participants sit and listen while the expert “presents.” However, it’s this type of thinking that creates a karaoke presentation.

I prefer to think of presentations as an opportunity to engage my audience in my topic. Presentations can be a two-way communication activity if you take the time to make each presentation unique for the group you are presenting to. No matter what your topic, it can be tweaked to meet the needs of a specific audience.

For instance, if I am giving a talk on effective business writing techniques to a group of realtors, I would make sure the examples I use refer specifically to the writing of realtors. I would find out ahead of time what realtors consider their main problems when putting together a business message. From there I would incorporate solutions to these specific issues in my presentation.

A presentation isn’t effective unless the audience can relate to what you are saying. They have to bring the information into their world before it will make sense to them. That’s why it’s so effective to use examples common to them.

Adults Learn By Doing

Remember, adults learn by doing. Try to include some small, fun activity, in your presentation to involve your audience. Rather than telling them, let them experience the excitement of discovery. Arrange one of your main points to become an exercise for the audience.

The activity doesn’t have to be complicated or take a long time. I often use a handout where participants fill in the blanks. I encourage participants to work with the person sitting next to them to try to get the right answer. Everyone laughs when I read off the answers and we all have a good time.

Doing this accomplishes two things: you give the audience a break from your lecturing and you give yourself a break from lecturing. Now you can put yourself in the role of a facilitator and get some one-on-one interaction with audience members. It will also cause your evaluations to skyrocket. Adults get such few opportunities to have fun at work that these activities are greatly appreciated.

Michelle Howe, MBA, is an expert
in online copywriting. Visit her Web site at InternetWordMagicdotcom
for a FREE audio download of “Pay-Per-Click Success:
Attract More Customers in 30 Days or Less” and FREE
report, “The Five-Step Plan to Article Success.”