4 Ways to Improve Your Sales Presentations

When you embark on a sales career, you know pitches are part of the deal. You've got to deliver presentations that persuade and win over your audience. But the idea of pulling this off is sometimes easier to envision than accomplish every time. To improve your presentation skills, you need practice and guidance.

After all, you want to showcase your company's offerings in the best possible light. Whether you consider yourself a born salesperson isn't as important as fine-tuning your pitches according to tips learned by top performers. Here are four of them.

1. Be More Personable From the Start

Every sales rep knows you've got your work cut out for you before you make a presentation. Getting your foot in the door is often more challenging than delivering an in-person pitch. You're trying to persuade someone at the other end of the line before you even shake hands. However, people dismiss cold calls and emails for good reason.

Besides being potentially disruptive, cold calling and standard email templates tend to be impersonal. Why should someone give you the time of day if you haven't made your opening pitch relevant and personal? You don't want to use something anyone could have written or said. And no, making an email personable doesn't mean copying a few details from a LinkedIn profile and using a prospect's name.

Instead, you can find ways to put a face to your name from the get-go. Try videos rather than relying on the written word and people's imaginations. You can use everything from basic screen-capturing tools like Snagit to more advanced video content software like Zight. When you need to stand out, a video with your face, name, and personality can get the conversation going. Personable is more difficult for prospects to ignore, especially when the content gets to the point.

2. Keep It Short

The average adult attention span is 10 minutes when listening to a lecture, and in my experience, that's fairly comparable for a sales pitch. You're more likely to lose them if you're long-winded and go over the 10-minute mark. That said, this likelihood doesn't mean your entire presentation should always be 10 minutes or less. However, if you do have a lot to say, it's better to break it up into smaller, digestible segments.

In other words, you don't want to be the only one in the room talking. You want to engage your audience with questions and take pauses to initiate a two-way dialogue. Use your research on the company you're pitching to ask insightful questions.

Maybe you've seen your prospect's firm using a particular strategy. Ask them how well it's been helping them achieve their goals. And then, based on the answers, lead the conversation back to how your product or service has helped other clients. It might be boosting the effectiveness of a strategy your prospect is already using or a new approach to crossing the finish line.

3. Emphasize Benefits

You may have heard of the FAB model, which stands for features, advantages, and benefits. This model can help you determine why someone would buy your product. If you operate in a saturated market, a FAB model analysis could uncover where your competitive advantage focus should be.

But when you're giving a sales presentation, your prospects don't need to hear all these details. They're most interested in how your product can benefit them. Concentrate on discussing what benefits your offering brings to the table. Leave the rest of your analysis in the back of your mind.

While knowledge of your product's features is an absolute, focus on how those features add value. Maybe you're pitching a software program that automates email drip campaigns. While this is handy, what does it do for a prospective client? Perhaps it's improved efficiency, increased conversions, and more accurate targeting. Highlight the added value and your leads will walk away understanding what they stand to gain.

4. Flip the Format

Traditional sales presentations start with a slide deck and someone talking. Then, it's time for the real conversation to begin. The prospective clients ask questions, you respond, and you both elaborate on whether the partnership looks promising.

It's a tried-and-true format most people come to expect. However, you can flip the script by sending your deck to your prospects before the meeting. This approach lets them review the information you plan on going over. Now, this may sound counterintuitive. Why reveal the secrets of your pitch before you've delivered it?

But it does allow your leads to formulate questions before you walk into the room, whether the meeting is in person or virtual. Rather than starting with a "lecture," you can ask your prospects about what they've reviewed. It's a way to respect their time, get a dialogue going, engage your audience, and discuss collective insights beyond the data in your deck. You can demonstrate you can deliver more than a slide show and understand your audience's point of view.

Improving Your Pitch

You may have gotten into sales to help others by offering solutions you're passionate about. But giving presentations about those solutions might not be your favorite part of the job. Besides being nerve-wracking, your presentation usually follows a series of voice-to-voice and virtual pitches.

Dealing with rejections and objections raises the anxiety bar higher, making the art of persuasion even more challenging. Nonetheless, there are ways to think outside the box when it comes to improved delivery. Using tools to make the conversation more personable and flipping the conventional format are a couple. The next time you're getting ready to pitch a prospect, give them a try.