So you’ve got the coveted meeting with the all important prospect you have been waiting for all along. Congratulations! But now, you are faced with preparing for the actual meeting. This is probably the most important step of your sales cycle. Any misses here, and all the work you have put until now, will have gone to waste.
This is where the rubber meets the road, where you will have to position your company and your solution. Here are the six things that’ll help you get through it.
First things first,
1. Do not share basic observations in your introduction.
We’ve all been taught about sales pitches, wherein you are supposed to rattle out all the details in one go. But obviously this is usually the first thing a lot of sales people begin the meeting with. BUT really… You do not want to start your meeting by sharing information that the customer can gain by reading a website, magazine, newspaper or annual report. Else this will just let the prospect believe that you are wasting their time; do not have anything of worth to add and will quickly lose interest in your presentation before you even get to the meat of the matter. As I mentioned previously, if you have really listened in your discovery meeting, then you would have already done some good research into things they are looking for and are armed with knowledge and market insight which is superior to theirs. And this leads us to the next point.
2. Opening Strong
People make sweeping judgements early on, starting with the title slide even! The first phrase or the slide is what your prospect will be giving the most attention to. Hence this opportunity should not be squandered by naming names or serenading the history behind your company logo. Your starting phrase most ideally should be information that cannot be gleaned over by them by quickly visiting your webpage on their cell phone, but something uniquely helpful to your client which is not a general statistic. This establishes your credibility early on.
Have you ever watched debates on prime television and wondered, why do people digress and take forever to speak about a topic they have been invited to discuss? Employ that in your sales meeting! Take the bull by the horns and speak about topics that truly matter to the people in the room right from the start. Timing is quite critical in sales so make the most of it by starting strong.
3. Most Intriguing open
Open with a hard hitting question, or on a simpler note, rephrase your title into a fancy question. Questions are powerful, they get people thinking. Thus, engage your prospect early on by questioning about their world or their goals. Asking the right question is irresistible because it pulls people in.
Now that you have engaged and intrigued the prospect, we get to the next point – the title of your slides. An example of this is:
‘Objectives and Goals’ vs ‘Ways to double production’
Do you find the second one more compelling?
Getting right to the point is a fresher approach than beating about the bush. This will get you straight into making key arguments about why you are the leading edge in business.
4. Tell them where they are heading
An agenda slide. Something that tells them what to expect. Giving them a brief idea of what you will and won’t cover, your goals for the meeting and the duration of your presentation. All of this will open ways for more dialog by giving your customers a brief understanding of how you intend to go about things. Another bonus will be a gentle reminder that you will always be open to questions or concerns at any point, so prospects know early on that this is a two way conversation and not an overwhelming one-person show. This not only makes your presentation easy to follow along, it shows that you have authority over the subject and are not here to wing it. Content slides can also be printed out and distributed at the beginning of the session, so everyone has a physical reference they can go back to whenever needed.
5. Readable and understandable presentations from the get go
If there is anything we learnt this decade, it is to declutter. Declutter your home, your apps, and most importantly your slides. Keep only important information on your slides and do not fill it up with information which is not the most important to achieving your immediate goals. The moment you start your presentation, the font, colors and diagrams should look professional. Humor always breaks the ice and makes you look more approachable when used correctly, however, memes or funny gifs will make the clients think that you are not taking them seriously and will always be a danger to your reputation if received in a way which was not intended. Same goes for excessive animation and tone deaf stock photos. Look into websites that offer innovative ways of presentation, such as Prezi does, with flow charts, in case your client is more trendy or unconventional.
6. Do not cram information
This may sound counterintuitive to all that you may know but bullet points are not your best friend. No, they aren’t obsolete, but they certainly are unproductive. They cram too much information in one slide that your customer will not be able to retain. Going by the sales mantra of knowing more than showing, keep the headers simple and speak in easy comprehensible language that will create lasting impact, rather than showing all the miniscule facts to boast about your knowledge. If there is any information which may be of any importance, it definitely requires its own slide. Same consideration goes into using excessively fancy words. You should be mindful that you are not there to impress your audience with your oratory skills, while at the same time, you are well versed with key words and technical terms as per your industry needs.
Incorporate some of the above and watch an uptick in your sales cycle.
