Making a great presentation is one of the most important things in making great sales. What we usually think is that we’re going to go there with our PowerPoint, it’s going to be one fantastic presentation with Only 50 or 60 slides. We will absolutely razzle and dazzle them with our brilliance and what our company can do. And I’m going to be a little bit in your face here and tell you to STOP! Don’t do that!
For a fantastic presentation, you need to go there and figure out what’s going on in their world. One of the phrases that I commonly use is “You know before we get started, why don’t you guys give me the Reader’s Digest version of what you guys do. I’ve checked out your website but I want to get exactly what you do from your point of view.” So they tell you what’s going on at their end, taking those as cue, you can start asking questions. Ask them brilliant questions so you can uncover what their problem is. By uncovering their crisis points, you will know that a) they will want to talk about it b) if you ask about problems they come to realize how severe the problem is and c) once everyone sees how severe it is then you can figure out what it’s costing you. When they figure out that it’s costing them $500,000 a year, and you’re there selling them a solution that’s only $20,000, guess what?! It’s really a no-brainer decision for them.
On the other hand, if you went through the old ways and said, “Let me tell you about my $20,000 solution. It does wonders and it’s fantastic and we have testimonials and you’ll love us”. They’ll think $20,000, that’s a lot of money, I’m not too sure I need to think about it, or “Thank you very much for coming over, we’ll let you know.” So the first place to start is, figuring out what’s happening in their world, where are their problems, where’s the pain, what’s the financial impact and what’s the emotional impact? Once you get that, and you monetize it, you’d have gotten this ginormous number, half a million dollars, a million dollars, ten million dollars, and then your solution seems like a simple, no-brainer decision that they need to act upon immediately. And that’s how you do a great presentation!