How to Create a Winning Sales Presentation

One of the key fundamentals in garnering new business is to have a powerful sales presentation.

What is a sales presentation?

A sales presentation is the talk or story that a seller uses to persuade the prospect to buy their solution. How? Presenting your value proposition in such a way that the prospect identifies your product or service as the best solution for her pains and needs.

But to maintain interest and stay relevant, your presentation must adapt in line with changing technology and the modern approach this brings. Your sales pitch and core idea can remain intact, but using more modern sales presentation tools adds value and gives a potentially stale presentation a boost.

We’ve put together some tips and sales presentation ideas on how to create a powerful sales presentation in the modern era.

Best Practices for a Sales Presentation

Believe in Your Product

Belief in your product or service is by far the most crucial aspect of a successful presentation. How you feel about what you’re selling comes across in your body language, your voice, and your eye contact.

If you’re enthusiastic, you’ll naturally be more animated and excited during your sales pitch. However, if you’re not sold on your product, your presentation will lack that animation.

You can use the most expensive presentation tools available, but if your audience doesn’t feel your passion for your product, they probably won’t want to invest in it. Be careful not to be too enthusiastic, however, as you don’t want to come across as false. Being perceived in this way is an insult to both your product and your audience.

Provide a Solution

In days gone by, a salesperson would focus largely on the product and its main features, identifying all the reasons it was such a fantastic product.

Times have changed, and that information is easy to find online. By shifting the narrative slightly, you can create a more buyer-centric sales presentation that focuses on the buyer’s needs and identifies how your product can meet them.

Knowing your buyer’s pain point allows you to emphasize the benefits of your product in helping to solve that problem. While going into the nitty-gritty of the product’s many wonderful features is undoubtedly worthwhile, your audience is more interested in knowing how it can help them.

Make this the focus of your sales pitch and follow up with an outline of the features. Remember that buyers have different pain points, so adjust your product presentation to meet the individual needs of each audience.

Sales Presentation Tools

A great sales presentation requires more than just a salesperson. Even before technology advanced to today’s levels, a sales rep used images and diagrams to enhance his message.

Visual aids are known to be effective in sales presentations and are even more so with modern-day sales presentation tools.

A PowerPoint sales presentation is one of the most-used options available. The sales deck on this presentation tool can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, depending on how much detail your presentation requires. Simply customize the PowerPoint presentation template to best suit your needs and start building your sales presentation deck. If you’re looking to engage your audience more than you should definitely use an interactive presentation tool that can help you spice up your content with animated elements

If you need to share your sales presentation deck with multiple people, use an online presentation tool like Google slides. You have similar functionality to PowerPoint but can share the presentation online with the other parties rather than sending it as a sizable attachment via email. Like PowerPoint, you can select a presentation template from the options available on Google slides. To stay aligned with the current trends, consider utilizing AI presentation makers. These tools can help you craft visually stunning presentations that captivate your audience.

You may want the option of putting together a shorter pitch deck to send to your potential buyer ahead of the presentation. A pitch deck is a short overview of your sales presentation and is often the first communication with your audience.

Whatever sales presentation software you choose for this and the full presentation deck, always be confident that you know how the presentation tool operates so that your sales pitch goes smoothly.

In a remote selling environment, where you need to use several remote selling tools, your presentation will be done over video conferencing. Fortunately, Zoom has many great features for delivering great presentations.

For example, Zoom filters can be the key to break the ice before your sales presentation. Check out this short video to learn how you can build rapport with Zoom filters.

Now, when it comes to Zoom meetings, there are many factors that will make you succeed or fail in your presentation. Make sure you also watch this video to learn some of the technical and practical aspects of using Zoom for sales.

The more expression and animation you inject into your sales presentations, the more interesting they’ll be for your target audience. This becomes even more essential if you’re conducting remote sales presentations, as an online sales pitch lacks the physical, human element. In these sales presentations, it’s usually harder to keep your audience interested and focused.

Grab attention from the first line, whether by asking a question, posing a problem, or cracking a joke. However, make sure that the opening gambit of your sales presentation is in line with your audience. How you present to top executives will differ from your sales presentation techniques to a room of sales reps. Top decision-makers thrive on information and statistics, whereas a salesperson gets more out of an interactive sales presentation.

In the right environment, a physical demonstration can go a long way toward capturing a buyer’s interest. Whether you demonstrate the product itself or use an oblique way to show how it benefits the buyer, the adage of “show, don’t tell” makes a good sales presentation better. And when combined with enthusiasm, knowledge, and passion, you have all the ingredients of an effective sales presentation. As a side note, in order to engage clients, you need to learn how to present yourself so that you generate interest from potential clients, many people find going on presentation training course helps.

Structure Your Sales Pitch

The structure of your sales pitch is vital to get the correct message across and instill confidence in your buyer. Haphazard sales presentations give an impression of disinterest and disorganization, and your buyer will lack confidence in you and your company.

• Start with a concise slide that captures your company’s essence.
• Limit the use of words on this opening slide; a visual compilation is more appealing to your audience.
• This opening imagery leads into a summary of your business, what you do, your values, and your promise to the buyer.
• Humanize the company and the team. The more your buyer relates to you, the salesperson, the better your chances of success.

Once you’ve established that your company is trustworthy and customer-centric, delve into the product and identify the solutions it offers for your audience. You should keep it simple but use facts and figures, testimonials, and data to back up what you say. This way, your audience is confident of realizable results.

Finish the sales pitch with a call to action. Whether this is appealing to the buyer to go out and purchase the product or make use of a free trial, it’s your last chance to motivate them to take the plunge.

Use language that appeals to their senses, particularly sight, sound and touch. Language linked to these senses is known to evoke a response, more so than plain unemotive words will.

After the Sales Presentation

The end of your sales presentation is still the beginning of the sales process. There’s still work to do.

When you consider what to do after the sales presentation, don’t neglect the value of analyzing the success of the presentation.

• Did you cover every key point?
• Did the buyer ask questions?
• Was there interest?
• Did you meet your goals for the presentation?

These are all valid questions, and your answers will indicate whether or not your sales pitch was well-planned and equally well-executed. Use this information and anything you picked up from the buyer during the sales pitch, and tweak your presentation accordingly. Minor improvements here and there will ultimately lead to a presentation deck that runs seamlessly and is clear and concise.

Plan your next steps to cement your buyer-seller relationship and move closer to your ultimate goal of making the sale. These steps may include a follow-up email, phone call, meeting, or even a combination of all three.

According to Marketo , your sales increase by close to 50% if you take care of your client. On the flip side, research by Invesp tells us that over 50% of buyers are more inclined to purchase when not hassled by a salesperson.

Therefore, while it’s vital that you continue communicating and following up with your buyer, do so in such a way that they don’t feel that you’re pressuring them. In this way, you can overcome any objections they may have until the sales cycle concludes with a purchase.

Win More Deals

Your sales presentation is your first real opportunity to connect your audience to your product. It’s not something you can throw together at the last minute.

You need time to brainstorm ideas for sales presentations, select your presentation tool, decide on the structure, and plan the content. In addition, you should preempt any questions and prepare answers to these so that if faced with one in the meeting, you can answer without delay.

A well-thought-out sales presentation that complements your sales pitch and drives to the heart of the buyer’s problem is a significant step towards your ultimate goal.

Of course, before you can do a sales presentation, you need to build your sales pipeline and book meetings. Are your prospecting efforts bringing you more opportunities?

If not, click on the image below to get help with prospecting, especially if you are in the B2B sales business!

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