Everyone presents themselves multiple times during the day, whether you are at work making a sales pitch or on your free time trying to convince a retail store why you want to return their product. So why not maximize your opportunities by improving your skills? Here are 15 steps to create memorable presentations:
1. Prepare: The key to memorable presentations. Identify the prospect’s or client’s main objective with the meeting. This will allow you to make the presentation a targeted one by determining whether it is a fact gathering presentation, product demonstration, or sales pitch.
2. Key Points: Determine the topic and key points you wish to cover and create a logical order to present them in. Create a list of FAQs by anticipating what questions might arise. Make another list for possible objections that might arise so that you can respond to each calmly.
3. Review: Take time to rehearse and review your thoughts. Also, just before you exit your car to for the presentation make sure to review your key points so they are fresh in your mind.
4. Organize: Determine how long your presentation will be. Be mindful of other people’s time- a good rule is to plan for about 20 minutes and if you get more time, great! If you asked for 30 minutes of their time when you set the appointment, never go over this limit!
5. Ask Questions: Ask questions during your presentation. Make sure you prepare them to be open-ended and organized. Well thought questions are a stimulus for expanding the dialog and opening the doors of opportunity.
6. Use Visuals Later: Visual aids are generally not necessary in initial calls because these are best used for fact finding. Get answers during this time to questions that you have not been able to answer during your pre-calls.
7. When to Use Visuals: On follow up calls when you are presenting your program or discussing specific products, PowerPoint presentations, virtual samples, and or physical samples work great. When using technology to present visuals, make sure to have a physical back up plan as technological difficulties can often occur.
8. Group Presentations: Come prepared with ample supplies of any and all products and literature to present to all attending. Try to refrain from handing everything out at once; this will take the focus off of you as your audience will scan through the items as you are speaking.
9. Practice: You should have multiple presentations for different situations such as cold calls, follow-ups, and an introduction to a gatekeeper or secretary. Each situation needs a different approach so be prepared for each.
10. Rehearse: Rehearse in front of a peer or make it part of your weekly sales meeting. Ask your audience what you could do to improve.
11. Be Mentally Prepared: Get yourself psyched before the presentation so that what you say is something the client or prospect needs to hear. Be confident and enthusiastic in your approach.
12. What to Wear: Dress appropriately and look the part but don’t overdo it.
13. Engage: Ask good questions during the presentation and then LISTEN to their answers. Actively listening to the client will allow you to pick up on a huge amount of quality information for future opportunities.
14. Handle Hard Questions: What do you do when you are faced with a question for which you have no answer? Acknowledge the question as a good one and tell the prospect or client that you can’t answer that now but you will get back to them quickly with an answer. Be sure that you do get back to them quickly.
15. Presentation is Over, Now What?: What you do after is as important or perhaps more important than the actual presentation. Do what you say you will when you said you would do it. Follow through with your promises to build strong relationships with loyal customers.
Do you have a pre-packaged, organized presentation kit on hand? What visual items and leave behinds would you say are most important?
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