If you’re about to embark on writing a sales presentation, take the time to consider what it took to get you to this stage.
- Look at the product or service you’re selling and the staff and money involved making sure that it’s market leading.
- Look at your marketing team and the money spent on your website, PR, advertising, direct marketing and collateral.
- Look at the people involved and the money spent on salaries, recruitment, equipment, bonuses and training.
Think about the amount of time, money and effort that has gone into getting this far – added up, it’s a huge investment!
Now think about how much you normally spend on your presentation.
More often than not the difference is staggering – in a recent survey by our chums at Eyeful Presentations, 72% of respondents had no formal process for updating their presentations.
Let’s just take a moment to ponder that - 72% were effectively spending little or nothing on the key final stage in the sales process.
Our recommendation is both simple and common sense:
Step 1
Quite simply, know what you want. Before you put pen to paper or finger to keyboard you need to understand what your goal at the end of the presentation really is. This goal must drive your actions…and you must always keep it in mind.
Step 2
Coming back to our original point, you must invest in your presentations to get the most out of them. Understand there are two fundamental things key to every sales presentation:
- A quality presenter
- A quality presentation
To get the most out of a sales presentation, you need to invest in both!
As with all investments you must look forward to realise their value.
If you find yourself a week away from a big presentation its probably too late to make the investment and derive the real benefits. By creating a 12 month plan for both your presentations and your presenters you can invest well and see the benefits when it really counts.
Now you understand your key objective and have invested well, you are ready to start developing the presentation in earnest. Oh, and don’t be a stranger – give us a buzz if you’d like to chat through your presentation…we’re here to help…
I know the idea of turning down work is an anathema to most people and the optimist in all of us always thinks no matter how small there’s always a chance we might get the work…but nowadays your time is too valuable to waste large chunks of it.
