This past week I was happy to attend the Business Development and Senior Sales Peer2Peer session at Communitech in Kitchener/Waterloo.
If you are in the KW area, I would highly recommend finding the right Peer2Peer group for you. I’ve found that they are great for networking and very informative. This week’s session was on Effective Sales Presentations by Nancy Lefneski from IWCC. Nancy had a lot of great content in her presentation, focusing mostly on:
- Open and Close
- Verbal and non-verbal
- PowerPoint
- Audience Interaction
- Notes and Rehearsal
It was very good session and got me thinking about what my top tips are for great B2B sales presentations.
1. Understand Goals
A sales presentation should help bring you closer to a sale. It is important to understand what you would like to get out of the session. It’s equally important to understand what your customer is hoping to accomplish in the presentation and ensure that they achieve their goals as well.
2. Engage the Audience
Unless you are presenting to a really large group, I would allow people to ask questions when they come up, not at the end of the presentation. That way you can deal with questions when they are fresh in the attendees mind. One of the ways I like to encourage interaction is to start with introductions and ask what each person is hoping to get out of the presentation. This gets everyone talking at the start of the session.
3. Timing
People’s time is valuable and going over in time for a presentation is a big sales fail. The best way to stay on time is to plan out the sections and how much time each should take. The worst scenario is running out of time or being rushed in a part of the presentation that you feel is very important.
4. Keep It Crisp and Clean
Slides should be uncluttered and clean. I would leave out effects, other than pertinent video clips. There also should be slides with consistent fonts and sizes and remember not to have too much text one each slide.
Next Steps
I like to finish up the presentation with the next steps, just like a regular sales meeting. It is an excellent time to get agreement with the customer of next steps for yourself, but also for them.
These tips should help you have better B2B sales presentations and ultimately close more sales. If you are interested in getting more sales, marketing, and social Media tips from VA Partners on regular basis sign up for our monthly newsletter.
