Do you really think your customer wants to sit through your boring sales presentation?
Who are you kidding?
What they want is a discussion.
They want to know why it would make sense for them to buy from you.
If a customer wanted to hear a presentation, they could go to YouTube and watch a video. Ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be me or would I rather be a YouTube video?”
The objective of a sales call is to have a discussion with the customer. The objective is to engage them and find out their needs.
The more engaging you are with the customer, the more likely you will be in closing the sale.
When working with a salesperson, I tell them to know their material so well and be so confident with every aspect of how they can help a customer that the they (they salesperson) won’t need any sales material to conduct a sales call.
Too many salespeople are what I call “presentation crippled.” They don’t know their business well enough and are so lacking in confidence that they need PowerPoint or a sales deck to guide them through their own sales call.
If you need materials to make a sales call, then you don’t know your business. This is increasingly becoming a major issue, because of the amount of information customers can get on the web.
If all you’re doing is providing them with information they could get on the web, then what does that make you? I’ll tell you what it makes you — a human internet. Well, that is something I’ve always aspired to be!
Your job is to help the customer see and understand things.
Sure, you can show them pretty pictures and glossy charts, but they’re all meaningless unless the customer understands how they will impact them. The way you find out is by engaging them in a conversation.
Make your next sales call discussion focused. Skip the materials and just converse by asking questions. Let me know how it goes! Drop me an email or post a comment.
My sense is that within a week or two of moving to this approach, you’ll be closing more sales and making a bigger impact with your customers.
Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
2 Responses
Mark,
I agree. A sales presentation is way overrated. I won deals when I never presented and lost deals when I gave great presentations.
What is a good way to handle the fact that often they expect to “see” something?