Julie Hansen - Sales Presentations For Dummies

Sales Presentations For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .

Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY : WHILE THE PUBLISHER AND AUTHOR HAVE USED THEIR BEST EFFORTS IN PREPARING THIS BOOK, THEY MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES REPRESENTATIVES OR WRITTEN SALES MATERIALS. THE ADVISE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUR SITUATION. YOU SHOULD CONSULT WITH A PROFESSIONAL WHERE APPROPRIATE. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM.

For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport .

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com . For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015946683

ISBN: 978-1-119-10402-5

ISBN 978-1-119-10402-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-10415-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-10414-8 (ebk);

1. Table of Contents

A sales presentation isnt a motivational speech. You want your prospect to do more than feel good after your presentation. You want him to take action. Building and delivering a persuasive presentation requires a different strategy and approach than other types of presentations. You need more helpful advice than Make good eye contact and dont read from your slides.

A sales presentation isnt a dull data dump either. Todays buyers are more informed than ever. Engaging todays busy decision makers and keeping them engaged is mission critical. Attention spans are low and distractions are high. Buying cycles have increased in length and complexity. Competition is fierce. Cookie-cutter presentations and long corporate overviews have gone the way of the fax machine. Yes, you can still use them, but your audience members will roll their eyes.

I wrote Sales Presentations For Dummies after training sales teams all over the world and recognizing that most are operating off beliefs and techniques from the 1970s, 80s, or 90s well before prospects were able to escape to their smartphones or tablets the second they werent engaged. With this book I hope to help you rise to the challenges of presenting in todays selling environment. Whether your presentation or demonstration is formal or informal, virtual or live, this book gives you the strategies and tactics you need to win more deals, more consistently.

Regardless of industry, location, or company size, salespeople face three common challenges when giving a sale presentation today:

• How do you keep your prospect engaged long enough to hear your message?
• How can you differentiate your solution in a crowded marketplace?
• How do you present your product or service in a way that inspires your prospect to take action or is remembered when buying decisions are made?

In Sales Presentations For Dummies, you find the tools, techniques, and best practices for addressing those challenges and more. The techniques here are proven to shorten your sales cycle and have a dramatic impact on your win ratio. I organize this book around the sales presentation process, from planning your presentation to using discovery to closing with a strong, clear call to action, from developing a tailored message to delivering that message with confidence and skill. Along the way I explore a variety of contemporary presentation scenarios: virtual presentations, product demos, team presentations, and more. You also see examples drawn from real-world sales presentations and get step-by-step instruction on how to make your presentation more compelling, persuasive, and memorable.

Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If youre reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as its noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesnt exist. If youre reading this as an e-book, youve got it easy just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

Just like you must do for a sales presentation, I have to make a few assumptions about you, my audience. You dont need to check all the boxes to qualify all you need is one and this book is for you. Here are the assumptions that I make about you:

• You didnt arrive here by accident. Youre in sales. Your title may be business development manager or sales engineer, but you have a role in persuading a prospect to purchase or lease a product or service.
• You give presentations or demonstrations. Formal or informal. Virtual or live. Long or short. No matter the kind, you engage in a purposeful sales conversation with the goal of closing or advancing the sale.
• You have sales experience but recognize you need new tools to engage and persuade todays busy decision makers in a highly competitive market.
• Youre new to sales and you want to start off with best practices for today not 1980.
• You have picked up a few good presentation basics. But because your competition has too, you need to up your game.
• Youre not technically in sales, but you need to make a persuasive case that inspires someone a manager, a committee, a partner to take an action or change a behavior. Forget the fact that this is the definition of sales, and let me just say, Welcome. You are also in the right place.