Off the Cuff Interview Question: What one tip could you provide that would begin to bring a person’s sales presentations to a higher level?
The most effective way to bring your presentation to a higher level doesn’t happen during your presentation. It takes place during your preparation. There is no perfect deck, value proposition, or story that can replace the need for a thorough understanding of your customer.
Today’s buyers expect tailored solutions, and only through proper discovery can you achieve that. Without these insights into your prospect’s business, interests and challenges, you are making educated guesses or assumptions at best, which can slow down the sales cycle or even grind it to a halt.
Garbage in, garbage out. Your presentation is only as good as the quality of the information you have. Certainly plenty of information about a company can be found on-line, but the best, most insightful and valuable source of information comes directly from the mouths of people within your prospect’s organization.
In order to tailor your presentation to the buyer’s interests, role and objectives, you need to know things that only they can answer, like: what’s the specific challenge or opportunity they are looking to solve? How are they currently dealing with the problem and what’s the impact? What would success look like and how is it measured? Who else will be in the presentation and what are their roles?
Many salespeople tell me it’s difficult to get decision-makers or key influencers to commit to a discovery call. But don’t give up. Approach it as you would a prospecting call. Be persistent. Sell them on the benefits of discovery. Make it easy for them to respond. Yes, discovery is that important as it can dramatically improve the quality of your presentation and your close rate.
Pipeliner CRM empowers salespeople to truly know their buyers. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.
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