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altrendo images / Getty Images Different situations will call for a different type of 'pitch,' or sales presentation. In some circumstances, a full-bore sales pitch is inappropriate and will be more likely to annoy or offend a prospect than engage them. As a rule of thumb, the less of a relationship you've built with a given prospect, the easier you should go with regards to selling. The Elevator PitchWhen you first meet a potential customer, the only pitch you should make is an elevator pitch. That's a quick speech that introduces yourself and your company and provides a benefit or two. A good elevator pitch is designed to leave the prospect wanting to know more about your product. That way they'll be the one to ask you for more information, instead of you having to ask them for permission to proceed. An elevator pitch is a good way to introduce yourself even when you're not actively pursuing a sale, particularly at networking events and similar functions. The elevator speech can also be used as the opening phrase during a cold call. But once you have piqued the prospect's interest, you should then move on to a more information-rich pitch. The cold call pitch is longer than the elevator pitch, but it's still intended to intrigue the prospect rather than to immediately close a sale. Ideally, your cold call pitch will give the prospect enough information that they'll want to proceed to an appointment with you, but no more than that. Too much information too early in the sales cycle can actually hurt you, because the prospect may decide they've heard enough to know that they're not interested after all. The Full Sales PresentationFinally, once you have a prospect sitting down with you for a sales appointment, it's time to pull out all the stops and give a full sales presentation. By this point, you've spoken with the prospect at least once before and have had time to ask them some pertinent questions and to do some research. You should now be aware of the prospect's 'hot buttons' – their most important issues and needs with regard to your product. If you try to give a full sales presentation without that information, you're shooting blind because you don't know which benefits matter most to the prospect. The other danger of giving a long presentation early in your relationship with a prospect is lack of trust. When you speak with a prospect, you are always facing the negative stereotype that nearly everyone holds about salespeople. Consciously or unconsciously, each prospect expects salespeople to launch immediately into a self-serving attempt to close the deal. If you hold off on your sales push during the first conversation or two, you diminish that stereotype a bit. The Cold Call PitchYour elevator pitch will be roughly the same no matter what the occasion, but your cold call pitch will tend to vary slightly depending on the prospect and your full sales presentation should change quite a bit depending on the information you've picked up from the prospect. You can simplify your presentation-building by drawing up a basic outline that you can flesh out by plugging in the right language for each new prospect. The presentation's basic structure will remain the same throughout, making it easier for you to customize your pitch without having to start from scratch each time. Make the Most Out of Your PresentationEach of these types of sales pitches is a critical tool for salespeople. The precise style of your pitches will vary based on the type of product you sell and on your intended customer base. Keep in mind that even the perfect pitch should be revised on a regular basis because saying the same words in the same way for too long will start to sound rehearsed. Periodic tweaking can also help you to uncover more effective ways to get and keep a prospect's attention. TopicsWhat is a sales presentation? Storytelling and your sales presentation What to bring to your sales presentation Great sales presentation examples (and why they worked) Tailoring your sales presentation How to nail the sales presentation
What to do after the sales presentation You might think of a sales presentation as a simple pitch, a demo, or a list of facts and figures, but while a good presentation does incorporate all of those elements, it’s more than the sum of its parts. Done well, at the right time in your sales process, it gets your prospects’ attention, drums up excitement and moves them towards making a buying decision. In this guide, you’ll learn how to use the power of storytelling to drive decision-making and close more deals, with some pitch examples straight from Shark Tank and Dragons’ Den. We’ll also cover the fundamental elements of a sales presentation strategy, what to include in your sales decks and practical ideas on how to deliver them. Read on for plenty of sales presentation examples and pitch suggestions that will help you develop your own effective sales narrative. What is a sales presentation?Although the terminology differs from company to company, a sales presentation is not always the same thing as a sales pitch. A sales pitch is what your team of sales professionals does all day long, on the phone or in person with clients. It’s usually one on one, and they’re pretty comfortable doing it. A sales presentation (although it’s still a sales pitch) is a bigger deal, figuratively and probably literally. It’s a more complicated version of a sales pitch, and usually, it happens when your sales team is trying to close a more lucrative deal. It’s not a simple phone call, as it often involves a meeting and a demo. You’ll need to budget more time for a presentation, as you’ll need to account for prep time and testing. In many cases, more than one person from your company will give the presentation, so there’s a need to coordinate with other team members. Even for a seasoned salesperson who cold calls and pitches all day on the phone, a presentation can be unnerving, as you’re likely presenting to a group of senior decision-makers and executives. Storytelling and your sales presentationPeople love to be told a story, especially if it’s relevant to their experiences and problems. Statistics, facts and figures can help when you’re trying to persuade a prospect to become a customer, but they’re more impactful if you can frame those statistics in a relatable way. For example, if you tell a story about an existing customer who faced the same challenges as your prospect, and supplement that with powerful data, they are more likely to listen and want to know more. Human beings have a deep relationship with storytelling. Stories move us, teach us and, in a sales context, persuade us. We remember stories more than we remember anything else. Chip Heath, a Stanford professor and the co-author of Made to Stick, demonstrates the importance of storytelling by doing an exercise with his students. He divides them into groups and asks them to deliver a one-minute persuasive pitch based on data he’s just shown them. After the pitches have been delivered and there’s been a break, he’ll ask the class to jot down everything they remember about them. Although most students use stats rather than stories, 63% remember the stories, while only 5% remember an individual data point. The stickiness of stories makes them a useful tool for developing a sales presentation outline, as they help prospects understand and remember the key points of the presentation and your product. “Analogies or relatable stories are an extremely powerful technique to avoid using internal ‘jargon’ and allows the customer to understand the product/service in the real world,” explains Thomas Dredge, sales manager at Particular Audience. “For example, explaining a display ad across the internet can be likened to a billboard on the side of a building. Sellers often
confuse clients by using complicated language. They may believe this makes them come across as more knowledgeable, but it’s not a good way to sell. People buy things they understand. Help them understand.” Start with a problem (and a deadline)Your presentation is about the solution you’re offering your prospects, but it shouldn’t start with that solution. Instead, you should begin with the problem your solution was designed to solve, and the challenges you’re solving for your customers. “Value Selling is key,” says Bradley Davies, business development at Cognism. “It is important to understand your buyer and tailor their journey to what you can do for them. “First you need to understand what is motivating them to have a discussion, which allows you to identify their pains and present how your offering solves their pains. Everything presented to a prospect should be based on the value for them specifically.” The problem, their pains associated with it and your solution should be delivered with a story; a tale that highlights the specific challenges faced by your customers. You might also choose to tell a story that positions your product as the hero, helping the customer vanquish a villain: their pain point. Your story, which should be tailored to the prospects in the room, should focus on change rather than their pain point. For example, on a change to their business, industry, or to the technology they use — something that impacts and improves the way they do business. “If an element of your offering is not relevant, then don't distract them from the important features. It will keep them engaged and help to build their user story,” adds Bradley Create a sense of urgency around your product: It’s a solution to their problem, but if they don’t act now, they could miss an opportunity. Tell a story about what might happen if your prospect doesn’t change, framing the consequences of not taking action. Start talking about the solutionYou’ve outlined the problem, and, if you’re doing your job, your audience is nodding along. Now it’s time to start talking about the solution. However, that doesn’t mean you should launch into the features and benefits of your product just yet. Rather than presenting your product, a good sales presentation draws a picture of what life could look like for a customer once they start doing things differently. How will their business or lives change for the better? How will their world change? Importantly, how will they reduce spending and increase revenue? Then you can start talking about your solution and the features that can make this brave new world possible. Do this in a few ways:
Download the Sales Presentation Templates ebookNail your sales presentations with this guide containing the 8 slides you need and tips on how to make them. What to bring to your sales presentationNow that we’ve discussed the story elements of a sales presentation, what should you bring to a presentation? Most sales presentations are in-person affairs and include visual elements, like a sales deck, handouts, or even, for some products, an in-person demonstration of the physical products (think of the stereotypical door-to-door
vacuum salesperson, spilling dirt on the floor just to vacuum it all up). The PowerPoint presentationMost sales presentations include a slide deck to help deliver facts, figures and statistics that back up your presentation and help your prospects embrace your solution. While you don’t have to use PowerPoint, you should use a slide application (like Google Slides) to present your sales pitch deck so that it’s clearly visible to everyone in the room and easy to move from slide to slide with the click of a button. The best sales decks have a few key elements:
A note about text in your sales deck: Keep the slides simple and light on text. Your prospects don’t want to be looking at a wall of words to read. According to data from Venngage, 84% of presenters use visual data in their presentations and there’s a good reason for that: as your audience is listening to you, looking at your sales deck and watching the demo, you don’t also want to overwhelm them with text in your presentation. Lastly, ensure
your sales deck design has a font (and font size) that can be easily read by everyone listening to your presentation. The productNothing sells a product like seeing it in action. Take the example of Scrub Daddy, a sponge that changes shape depending on the heat of the water. When Aaron Krause, Scrub Daddy’s founder and inventor, presented the product on Shark Tank in 2012, he demonstrated the sponge cleaning dirty kitchenware and greasy countertops. He also used bowls of water, and two 10-pound weights to show the sponge’s amazing morphic abilities. The tactic paid off for Krause: Scrub Daddy partnered with Lori Greiner for $200,000, in return for 20% equity in the business and is now considered one of Shark Tank’s most successful products. So how can you show off your product? Figure out how to make your product portableNot all products are easy to demo, so you may have to improvise.
HandoutsDepending on the nature of your solution, you may need to hand out materials to the prospects in the room. This can be as simple as contact information or sales literature, or it can be something that’s part of the presentation, like a QR code that allows them to download the demo on their phones. Make sure this material is simple, to the point and won’t overwhelm them. You may want to distribute any handouts at the end of the presentation. After all, you want the people in the room listening to you, not reading the information you just gave them. Your teamIf you’re doing a presentation, chances are you’re not going alone. You might be heading to the presentation with another salesperson or two. Whether you’re going solo or as part of a team, it’s important to prepare beforehand. Here are some sales presentation tips for preparation. Here are some sales presentation tips for preparation:
Great sales presentation examples (and why they worked)Here are some sales pitch examples you can use to inform your next sales presentation; these examples range from great sales decks to presentations and we’ll explain why they worked so well. The successful demoBrian and Corin Mullins of an organic cereal startup opened their elevator pitch on Canadian Dragons’ Den in 2015 by handing out samples of their cereal to the dragons. The couple barely had a chance to launch into their stories and numbers before Jim Treliving, a few spoonfuls into his sample, offered them a deal. Why it worked: The Mullinses knew the strength of their product and led with it, betting (correctly) that it would sell itself. The data-driven presentationSEOMoz is an inbound marketing and marketing analytics SaaS. The sales deck the company used to raise funds in 2011 told the business’s story up until then, including how it used the services it sells to boost business, with charts, graphs and other visually presented data. Why it worked: The
deck tells two stories, one about the company itself and another about the way the marketing world has changed. Moz used data to show how it met the industry’s new pain points both for itself and for other companies. The presenters with overwhelming confidenceWhen Brian and Michael Speciale went on Shark Tank in 2017 to pitch their product, The Original Comfy, they had very little – no numbers, no inventory; just a prototype of a big fleece blanket/hoodie and video of that hoodie being worn everywhere from the couch to the beach. What they did have was a good product and confidence in that product. Their presentation earned them an offer of $50,000 for 30% from Barbara Corcoran. Why it worked: Corcoran says she bought in because the Speciale brothers had a good idea, the guts to present it and knew
they had to strike while the iron was hot. While you probably should be more prepared for your own sales presentation, the Original Comfy story shows just how important confidence is in a sales presentation. Tailoring your sales presentationIt can be tempting to come up with the greatest sales deck template and use it over and over to pitch a particular segment of your target audience, but remember, personalization is important in sales. During lead generation, prospecting and sales calls, you know that prospects are more interested in buying if your pitches are tailored to them. It’s the same with your sales presentations, especially if you have an unusual prospect. Let’s say your product is a CRM that’s normally used by sales organizations, but a human resources department has expressed interest in using it to create a recruiting pipeline. You wouldn’t use a sales deck with sales-related examples to sell it during the presentation. Instead, you’d do research about HR challenges, ask your product department to create a template or a demo aimed at recruiting and build your sales deck around that. Different industries have different challenges and opportunities. If you want to sell to them, you need to address them, which means research, preparation and tailoring your value proposition and key bullet points accordingly. “To craft the perfect sales presentation pitch,” advises Danny Hayward, Sales Manager at Unruly, “ensure you take care of these three things:
“Asking the right questions before sculpting your sales presentation pitch allows you to tailor it directly to what the client needs in order to help them meet their specific business objectives. “Learning everything you need to know about your product ensures you know it inside and out, so no stone is left unturned in case you get asked any sticky questions. Finally, rehearsing out loud is fundamental. Record yourself if need be to uncover any sticking points. “You’ll pick up on nervous ticks and words you might repeat over and over. Once you’ve ironed these out, you’ll get every sale.” How to nail the sales presentationYou’ve done all your prep and now it’s almost time for the presentation itself. Here are some ways to get the presentation right and close the deal. Practice confident body languagePresentations usually happen in person, which is why you need to practice strong body language. You want to look relaxed, confident and like you know you’re going to land this deal. (Even if you’re shaking in your shoes). Here are some ways you can improve your body language:
How you can engage your audiencePresentations often take a while, usually 30 to 60 minutes, so you need to be able to keep your prospects interested. There are a number of ways to keep everyone on board, even if you’re talking for an hour. 1. Understand your audience’s attention span These are the two important parts of every presentation: the beginning and the end. They are the most memorable, so that’s where you want to use your strongest material. Rather than leading with your product’s features, use the first few minutes of a presentation to briefly introduce yourself, and then lead off the presentation with the compelling story we mentioned earlier, or if your demo itself is compelling, lead with that. Then talk about product features and pricing. This is important information, but your prospects might have already researched it or can look it up afterward, so it’s fine that it’s occupying real estate in the middle of the presentation, where not as many people will remember it. Lastly, finish strong. Return to your story, sharing how your product solved an important problem. Then say something like “I’m confident this product can solve your problem.” 2. Be funny Humor can be tricky, so if you’re not comfortable making jokes or it feels forced, don’t make yourself be funny. If, however, you’re comfortable with it, humor is part of your brand voice and you think it will be well-received by your buyer personas, go for it. Humor can be a good way to connect with prospects, make your presentation memorable and relax everyone in the room. 3. Use a little showmanship The best thing about a sales presentation is that it lets you show off your product. Unlike a pitch, a presentation lets you pull out the stops, make a splash and showcase your solution. Use this to your advantage, and be as memorable as you possibly can. “Get public speaking coaching, even if you are a competent speaker,” recommends Sophie Cameron, Business Development Representative at CAKE. “I once took an eight-week course, and it’s immensely helped my communication skills during a pitch. Just to drive this home, I then coached someone who entered a Santander start-up competition. They won.” What to do after the sales presentationSo you’ve made it to the end of the presentation. What now? It’s time to wrap up some loose ends and then close the deal. Taking questionsSometimes your prospects will sit through your whole presentation and then ask questions. Other times, prospects may want a question answered right in the middle of a presentation. That’s fine. It means they’re engaged. If that happens, stop the presentation and take their questions head-on. You want them to know you’re listening to their concerns and taking them seriously. You also should encourage them to share their thoughts and concerns. This is a consultative selling approach that works to build a relationship with your prospects. Following upBy the end of your sales pitch, your prospect should be ready to come along with you and start the next step of your business relationship. Outline the next steps of the process. The first could be offering a trial of your product, scheduling a follow-up meeting, or sending over a proposal. Whatever the next steps are, make sure they’re clearly defined. If you don’t hear from them soon after the proposal, be sure to check back in. We have follow-up email templates that will help you do that quickly and easily. Final thoughtsIt can be tempting to play it safe with a sales presentation by keeping it to a sales deck and a speech – but a sales presentation should be a show-stopper. The best sales presentation tells your customer’s story, shows data, offers a demo and more. It’s a major undertaking that shows the strength of your product. Done well, it keeps your prospects engaged and will make them want to do business with you. Tell
a story, prove your value, show customers how they can change their business with your solution and you’ll have a winning sales presentation that sparks your customer’s interest and drives sales.  Download the Sales Presentation Templates ebookNail your sales presentations with this guide containing the 8 slides you need and tips on how to make them. Share your thoughts with our CommunityStart or continue the conversation with like-minded sales and marketing professionals on our Community. Join our Community RecommendedWhat are the 4 types of sales presentation?The four categories, namely memorized(structured), persuasive selling(semi-structured), need-satisfaction(unstructured), and problem-solution(centralized), are presented in a zig-zag fashion to make ample space for the additional details.
What are the three types of sales presentations?The three types of presentations most organizations use are canned presentations, organized presentations, and written sales proposals. Canned presentations include scripted sales calls, memorized presentations, and automated presentations.
What are the 5 steps of sales presentation?How the 5-step sales process simplifies sales. Approach the client.. Discover client needs.. Provide a solution.. Close the sale.. Complete the sale and follow up.. What are 4 common methods of sales presentation and demonstration?4 Sales Presentation Methods. memorized,. persuasive selling,. needs-satisfaction, and.. problem-solution method.. |
