Search Expertbase
Hire Albert
Virtually
Hybrid
In-Person
Slipping Up
50 Claps
1125 Words
6 min
Trying to perfect a flawless presentation can result in disaster...
Have you ever given a sales presentation that felt horrible when you made it and failed to get the business you were aiming for? Most salespeople have at some time or other. You may want to know what went wrong and how to avoid experiencing it again. There are three main reasons why this happens:
You are not being yourself
You are giving the presentation purely for the audience
You fail to perform on the day.
Just in case you were wondering who's responsible, it's you! The good news is you could be termed "responsible".
That means you can deliver presentations that are entertaining to watch, fun to give and effective - presentations that win business!
Be yourself
What if they don't like you? That's a good question, but here's a better one: What if you try really hard to be someone else and they do like you? How long can you hold the pretence? As with speaking on the telephone, some sales professionals adopt a different personality when presenting. It's usually a compensation for the nerves they are feeling when standing in front of a group. Their breathing is shallow, their diaphragm tightens and their voice rises by three octaves! If you doubt the value of working at being yourself, ask this? when was the last time you saw a convincing acceptance speech by an actor? These people are the pinnacle of being someone else - they earn a tremendous amount of money doing it, but just look at how badly they come across when they have to be themselves! If you try to act during your presentations, there is nothing that will make you look any less pained!
Think of number one
There's a good chance that you picked up a bad habit from your last presenting skills course: design for the audience, because they are the only ones that matter. Not true! There are two good reasons to avoid this trap. Firstly, you can go to extreme lengths to discover just whom the people are you'll be presenting to, and then turn up to find additions, deletions and substitutions to the buying team you were completely unaware of. That hurts, because it throws you off-track even before you start talking. Secondly, if you focus too hard on the recipients of the message, the message itself gets diluted and confused. It's far better to design your presentation with yourself in mind, since you are the one who's going to deliver it, and your performance matters.
You've heard it before, but people buy people. Before you shout clich? and switch off, please think about these words for a moment. It may be a clich, but it's true! What fascinates me is the number of sales professionals who know that personality is vital, but then act like it's not. Instead, they focus all their attention on the minutiae, forgetting the real purpose of the presentation they are going to give.
Knowledge of your intended audience is important, and it must not be overlooked, but do not give it such precedence that you ignore yourself and your own talents and abilities. If you do, you'll end up trying to please everybody, and you will be doomed to fail!
One final tip to keep you sane - I have delivered presentations to boards of directors that were a complete waste of my time. Why? They were just "going through the motions" of pretending to be interested. All they were looking to verify was that their chosen bidder had considered all of the elements necessary, and there was nothing on offer that had been excluded in their favoured bid. When this happens, and you've invested a great amount of time, energy and help from your colleagues to prepare and deliver your presentation, the disappointment hits you even harder. If you tweak a well-prepared and well-practiced talk to suit the audience, and then discover you've been duped, it's still not nice, but it's less painful and you recover quicker!
Do it well
Yes - do it well or don't do it at all. If there's one trait more annoying than the bumbling amateur standing up and reading PowerPoint bullets to an audience, I have yet to find it. If you are just not happy about giving a particular presentation, get out of it? let someone else have a go. If you ever find yourself in an audience and want to spot one of these bumbling amateurs, listen for the phrase: "I've been asked to give a presentation" or similar sometime in the first 20 seconds. If that happens and you are near a door, get out while you can!
It's undeniable - your performance is a major factor in the decision process that will follow your sales presentation. Try too hard to be word perfect, though, and you'll look desperate, which is worse than being awful. If you really must insist on a 100 per cent choreographed occasion, why not remove any doubt in your prospects' minds by writing "desperate" on your forehead before you start. If nothing else it will get a laugh.
If you are going to be successful, remember that the technical detail of your product or service is not what a presentation is for. There's a school that thinks it is, but I say they are wrong. If you're not sure, think back to the last "very technical" presentation you saw that really impressed you - if you can recall one - and try to remember any of the technical data you were given. This may well be a hard task!
Confidence is as essential as it is obvious. It has a habit of being infectious, as does the lack of it. Confidence comes from two things - a firm belief in what you are saying and practising the delivery of your message over and over again. Use a preparation ratio of 4:1, spending at least four times the length of your talk practising it. It's incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to appear poised when are trying to construct and deliver a presentation there and then.
Recall the presenters and the presentations that have made a positive impression on you. Write down what you noticed and what you still remember about them. Pick your top three for style and your top three for content, and then use them as a model to build your own presentations. Remember the five Ps for pucker presentations: Purpose - Poise - Passion - Planning - Practice, and you won't go far wrong!
This Article is authored / contributed by ▸ Albert Einstein who travels from Ulm, Germany. Albert is available for Professional Training Work both Virtually and In-Person. ▸ Enquire Now.
Comments
What's your opinion?
54 more Articles by Albert
POP
The Hacker's Code Of Ethics!
4 min. Recently, I came across a code of ethics for hackers (yes, it really does exist) that I'd like to share with you, because I think it really hits home with ...What Is The Business Of Business?
15 min. By building social issues into strategy, big companies can recast the debate about their role in society.Managing Your Organization By The Evidence
17 min. An organization is much more likely to improve its current performance and underlying health by using a combination of complementary practices rather than ...Strength Inspite Of Size
11 min. Growth is necessary, but size is no guarantee of a successful future! Nevertheless, growth is needed. Without growth there is no life. In a certain sense, ...Getting Labor Policy To Work In The Gulf
16 min. For GCC states, liberalizing the labor market and developing the local workforce are the keys to moving beyond a reliance on foreign workers.Organic SEO Or Pay-Per-Click Advertising - Which Should You Choose?
8 min. Organic search engine optimization has some distinct advantages over pay-per-click advertising. However, there are undoubtedly certain situations and scenarios ...The Next Generation Of In-House Software Development
17 min. How leading-edge companies are streamlining applications development.POP
Eight Business Technology Trends To Watch
19 min. Eight emerging trends are transforming many markets and businesses. Executives should learn to shape the outcome rather than just react to it.Speakers Don't Always Have To Be Famous
6 min. Plenty are the professionals who are on the "front lines" of the industry, knowledgeable of the countless changes, and who are willing and able to speak ...Must Work Be Fun?
5 min. Should work be fun? Must it be fun? Today, the answer to these questions is mostly yes. What else should it be? Yet however plausible this answer might ...Move Over, Baby Boomers
8 min. Gen X-ers want far more collaboration with companies - both as customers and as employees. CIOs are uniquely positioned to help their enterprises meet ...A Guide For The Ceo-Elect
13 min. The days, weeks, or months between taking the job and assuming power are precious. Put them to good use.Dwindling Readership: Are Tabloids The Answer?
14 min. Newspapers have tried a host of measures to halt the long-term decline in their readership, but they haven't stopped consumers from turning to TV and the ...New Tools For Negotiators
15 min. Five easy-to-use tools help negotiators in complex deals arrive at a negotiating position that is not only acceptable to them but also palatable to other ...POP
Corporate Transformation Without A Crisis
19 min. The art of leading deep corporate change can be learned. The trick is to help each member of the company discover a new reality...POP
Value Talk: Getting The Most Out Of Your Speaker
6 min. Valuable insights on using your speaker to maximise the success of your eventLiving With The Limitations Of Success
6 min. Once companies reach a certain size, setting realistic performance aspirations gets a bit trickier.Finding Facilitators That Fit!
3 min. The aim of this guide is to prepare you for discussions with a bureau, and to get you thinking about all the factors that affect your Facilitator choice.7 Ways To Stop Selling - And To Start Building Relationships!
7 min. Sometimes we can all use a friendly reminder to keep us from backsliding into old ways of thinking about selling that lead us down the wrong path with potential clients.Defining Customer Touchpoints
5 min. Improving the customer-centricity of your organization isn't just good business, it's also good marketing.A New Model For Marketing
4 min. The proliferation of brands and channels is forcing companies to restructure their marketing efforts significantly.The Top Ten Things Customers Want
3 min. Over the last two years of working with hundreds of clients from all walks of life, I have noticed trends of what my clients want and need. This top ten ...Strategy Session: What To Look For When Hiring A Professional Speaker
4 min. How do you know if the speaker fits? How do you avoid embarrassing mismatches?Branding, Recruiting And Learning Through Public Speaking And Conference Attendance
11 min. Reasons Why You Should Speak at and Attend Professional SeminarsPOP
The Parkland Way - Never Thought You Could Learn From A Hospital?
18 min. Looking for inspired leadership, passionate employees, unsurpassed productivity, and grateful customers? Forget the dispirited corridors of corporate ...POP
Sales Person Or Customer Advocate - Who Do You Need To Be?
10 min. To get beyond survival and to grow both profits and margins, the successful companies of the future will be forced to become true customer experts.POP
TRIZ As A Lean Thinking Tool
11 min. Lean Thinking is a highly evolved method of managing an organization to improve the productivity, efficiency and quality of its products or services. The ...Project Success And Failure
20 min. What is success, what is failure, and how can you improve your odds for success?A Good Look At Corporate Social Responsibility
31 min. There appears to be plenty of room for much greater effort and involvement by companies and organizations around the world. Here a few thoughts and pointers.Intrapreneurship: Leveraging Organisational Talent
9 min. The global talent war has seen organisational leaders scratching their heads to understand how they can attract and retain the very best talent that is ...How Gulf Companies Can Build Global Businesses
8 min. Companies based in the GCC states are using their petrodollars to expand into global markets. But in the long run, these companies will have to develop distinctive capabilities and skills.Who Knows Whom, And Who Knows What?
13 min. Employees' personal connections can be as valuable as their individual knowledge base. Social network analysis, or SNA, helps maximize a company's collective smarts.Games Managers Should Play
9 min. The success of strategic investments depends largely on the subsequent moves of competitors. Uncertainty about competitive conduct can lead executives ...What Procurement Areas Should Be Outsourced
4 min. Few companies have the skills to effectively manage procurement across all spending categories. Smart enterprises should examine their procure-ment strategies ...Enterprise Risk Management - Risk's Rewards
21 min. Are you on board with enterprise risk management? You had better be. It's the future of how businesses will be run.The 'Unprofitability' Of Modern Technology
13 min. Of all the findings on business strategy yielded by the study of the businesses in the PIMS? database, the following is one of the most controversial: ...Best Practice And Beyond: Knowledge Strategies
12 min. Value created by knowledge is often not captured. Five accounts of knowledge strategies.So This Is What Communication Can Do?
13 min. Everything that we do for our clients is based on the idea that improved communications will improve an organisation's performance and contribute to the ...POP
Pros & Cons Of Pay For Performance
11 min. Somewhere in Corporate America, a human resources manager is tweaking her company's employee-incentive program. Maybe she's dumping last year's customized ...Management -The Handling Of Complexity
9 min. Complexity has been one of the most frequently used words for some years now. People talk about complex systems, complex interrelationships, complex problems ...15 Seconds On The Web: Ten Writing Tips To Improve Sales
7 min. In 15 seconds, a visitor to your site determines whether or not they are interested in your product or service. Web usability experts can provide all sorts ...Growth And Size
4 min. "Size is no guarantee of future success." What is strategically important is strength not size. Speed is more important than physical mass and flexibility ...Better Operational-Risk Management For Banks
15 min. Operational risks are costly, but they can be conquered when high-ranking executives join the battle.Succession Planning: Often Requested, Rarely Delivered
28 min. Surprisingly, many organizations lack a proper succession plan. One reason is that they do not have an effective succession planning process. This author ...Beyond Oil: Reappraising The Gulf States
15 min. Further reform will be essential if one of the world?s fastest-growing regions is to seize a broader role in the global economyPOP
We Need Teamwork - But Is It The Only Useful Form Of Work?
6 min. Two of today's buzzwords are Team and Teamwork. Those with a particular desire to conform to the spirit of the age portray them as the polar opposite of ...The CEO's Role In Leading Transformation
15 min. The CEO helps a transformation succeed by communicating its significance, modeling the desired changes, building a strong top team, and getting personally involved.Tracking The Growth Of India's Middle Class
17 min. Over the next two decades, the country's middle class will grow from about 5 percent of the population to more than 40 percent and create the world's fifth-largest consumer market.50