“Any questions?” That’s how most of the meetings are usually closed. And then it goes either of the two ways:
- There will be a whirlwind of questions, especially if you haven’t given the group a chance to ask any during the presentation. Good or bad, you have no control thereafter.
- No questions. People at this point essentially are just waiting to leave. So you say “Thank you” and that’s the end of the meeting.
All your corporate life, you have seen people do it this way, so you think maybe that’s the way you got to do it. But let’s analyze how they play out in real life.
In both the scenarios, you are at the mercy of your audience, and the final take away from the meeting for your prospect is either the chaos that ensued or just a timid thank you with nothing particular to be reminded about. In all probability this also means that the opportunity has closed along with your meeting.
So what do you do?
There are a few things that you can do. These aren’t very different from what you have learnt growing up. This is especially true for the folks who have been a part of toastmasters, debate or extempore competitions. For all those who haven’t been through them, read on:
1. End with a quote
This is a go-to method for a lot of debaters or speech writers. Ending with a quote can be a powerful way to seal a one way speech delivery, which is what a presentation is. Contemporary or famous quotes which can give your solution or product the edge is the key you should go for.
2. Tell a short story
This story should be related to the presentation. Ideally, it should be about a customer similar to the prospect you are presenting to. Talk about how this customer was in a similar situation when they started using the solution you just spoke about. End the story with the current state of the customer. This will enable you to leave your prospects with a positive vibe about the meeting they just went through with it. Based on the mood of the room, you can even ask for the sale.
3. Call them to action
Calling your prospects to action is something that a sales professional should be well versed in. While it might seem uncomfortable at first, but when you realize that you are selling a solution that is going to benefit the prospect, the call to action becomes easier. Instead of ending your presentation with a thank you, use the opportunity to ask for the sale. When you do this, if there are some objections, they’ll come out to the fore. You then have an opportunity to address it and move it closer to the sale, or just use this as a cue for your next meeting wherein you can come prepared to address it, via a demo or a reference you can bring on the call etc.
The next action is used in deals that have a long sales cycle. Large IT deals which have a high dollar amount typically run for more than a few meetings, customer visits, references etc. So if you are in such a deal construct, this is a good opportunity for you to call your prospects to visit your facility or if applicable visit your other customer (ensure they are not competitors) where your solutions have been implemented. This is not just a call to action but also a part of the micro-actions that a sales professional should incorporate as part of their deal construct.
4. Ask for questions beforehand
This is a technique that some sales people incorporate during their presentations which you can benefit from. The idea is to put a slide marking ‘Questions?’ 2-3 slides before you actually complete your presentation. That way you are getting the questions out of the way, before you deliver your final few slides. Since we are not talking about an idealistic scenario, this is how it could playout:
a. No questions: In which case you are free to continue. But as the old wisdom suggests, if there are no questions, either they are just waiting for you to finish to buy from you, or are just waiting for you to finish so that they can get back to what they were doing (or perhaps are already doing it on their phones while you speak). In this scenario it is a good idea to put forth a question yourself, invoking an answer or get the conversation going.
b. Tough questions: You can answer them right there, but tough questions mean longer explanations or conversations. This means that you will probably run out of time before you get to the end. In this case you can politely ask for the question to be dealt with offline (without the rest of the group) or just convey that since you are on a schedule and have a few important points to wrap up with, it’ll be in the interest to move on. Remember, you aren’t seeking anyone’s permission here, so you quickly move on to the final parts of the presentation.
What this technique enables you to do is to have enough time for you to collect your thoughts and also leave you with the impactful ending that you would have otherwise missed because of questions hijacking your meeting. This also enables you to pick up questions or observations from the meeting participants, that you can now choose to put in context while continuing to end the meeting in a way you had originally designed.
CONCLUSION
Have an Impactful ending: This is what we have been preparing for throughout, so it goes without saying that you should prepare well for this segment. As mentioned earlier, this can be just a slide or two which has salient points of your presentation, or a customer journey with facts and figures of before and after using your solution. Remember “All’s well that ends well”
