4 Mistakes to Avoid in making Sales Presentations
Gone are the days when generic speeches and loud presentations are enough to makes sales presentations. In today’s recession stricken economy, closing sales has become more difficult as more and more customers reduce spending. This is why it’s crucial that you retool your sales presentations to better address the needs of your customers.
What’s a sales presentation?
It’s basically the goal of every sales process. It’s the time when you offer your customers something to buy. A sales process will never be complete without it, thus, making it the foundation of the entire process.
A sales presentation can be done in different ways—a PowerPoint presentation, delivering samples or proposals, responding to a request, and printing glossy product catalogs or brochures. These are all forms of sales presentations. With a well-executed presentation, the sales process will be completed as quickly and effectively as possible.
Unfortunately, not all sales people are well-trained in providing effective sales presentations. Most of them are left to learn on their own and often commit lethal marketing mistakes. If you are a sales person or a business owner, you need to avoid committing these mistakes if you want your sales presentation to be successful:
Mistake # 1: Information overload
Sure, you know that your products are good and each feature will address all kinds of needs. In fact, you believe that you have a super product at hand. But that doesn’t mean that you have to tell everything to your prospective customer. That can be a totally long and dragging presentation. Instead of listening, your prospect can simply tune out. Remember that people have short attention spans. They are busy individuals so if they don’t get your message at once they will be turned off and simply tune out.
The best you can do is to keep your presentation short and tell only information that you think your prospect will be interested in. Give him a brief overview of your products but don’t forget to mention the benefits and solutions you provide.
Mistake # 2: Poor preparation
In any sales presentation, preparation is vital. You have to check on your sales pitches, the materials you will use (samples, proposal, printed promotional catalogs, etc.), and practice your presentation until you are confident enough to deliver it.
Unfortunately, preparation is one practice that a lot of sales people overlook these days. They simply assume that their impromptu pitches are enough to get through their prospects. What they don’t realize is that they are only disappointing their prospects with their lack of preparedness. The result is lost customer and eventually sales.
Mistake # 3: Making irrelevant presentations
Understand that a sales presentation is more about the customers than the products. If you fail to include you customers in the presentation, you risk the chance of losing their interest. A lot of sales people simply focus on the features rather than benefits. But remember that customers will want to know more about how the products will impact them, so every presentation should revolved around them.
Mistake # 4: Failing to connect with prospects
Some sales person concentrates only on the presentation to the point of losing connection with their customers. Every interaction with the customer is a chance to build relationship with them. If you don’t work on your relationships with them, you risk the chance of losing them all together.
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