Are you presenting a product or service to a potential client or an audience of potential clients? The main point of your presentation is to make the sale. However, the focus of your presentation should be the audience. How can you accomplish both in one shot? Craft an effective sales pitch. Here are some tips.
All Sales and No Consideration for the Audience
Makes Jack an Ineffective Speaker
When salespeople have quotas, the customer can become lost in the process. Remember door-to-door salesmen? (And don’t get me started about the Kinney’s Shoes salesman from my home town! You couldn’t even glance into the store while walking by without him pouncing upon you.) Good salespeople — those who ended up with good reputations and repeal clients — always thought about the needs of their customers. Those that didn’t consider the client, well … their career didn’t last as long.
As a business owner or a manager for a company, knowing the importance of new business as well as the importance of client needs can translate into better sales — with the right formula. Being prepared for anything (even big fat Nos) actually makes your job a lot smoother and simpler. Sometimes it isn’t what you know but how you convey what you know to your target audience.
Building Your Presentation around Your Sales Pitch
If you want to make the sale at the end of your presentation, you need to catch the attention and emotion of your customer from the first word, picture or slide. This means you must understand who’s butts are in those seats.
Do your homework before crafting your sales pitch
The key to engaging a customer is to know who they are. What do they need that your product can provide? What are their immediate needs? Who else has the potential to meet those needs? It is not inappropriate to ask a potential client or customer some questions that would help you prepare for them. But, you will have to do some digging on your own as well to get what you need.
Know your product before crafting your sales pitch
What aspects of your product’s features speak to the needs of the client or customer? Or, in other words, what benefits does those features translate to for your ideal customers? This is how you tailor a presentation to the specific needs of the audience. Choose one feature that can solve the issue they are currently having and use that as the topic of your presentation.
Make the presentation about the customer
When you begin by discussing your company or product, the talk focuses on you. Instead, use words and imagery to show the benefits of the product to customers. It’s all about meeting their needs, not your revenue. Use stories they can relate to. Make them the center and focus of your presentation.
Tell a story
Speaking stories, make sure the stories you use are relevant to your topic and to your audience. Relay a time when your product was used by a past customer who is similar to the potential customers in the audience. Be sure to include positive outcomes, as well. Choose a story whose outcomes are also the desires of the current audience. Show empathy towards your audience.
Listen to your audience
Ask questions and wait for the response. Show that you are listening. Move your presentation in a direction that highlights the need expressed in their responses. This is tailoring on the fly. Realize that no matter how much tailoring you have done before your presentation, there will be something you can’t anticipate in advance. Be prepared for this.
Remember the call to action
If you want to sell something at the end of your presentation, you will need to make your sales pitch — ask for the sale! The deal is not sealed until you tell the audience what you want them to do (buy your product or service). Some will say “yes” right away. Others will need time. So, be sure to create a follow-up strategy to keep the delayed deciders interested until they do say “yes.”
Conclusion
On the part of the customer, a good sales pitch will instill confidence in your ability to meet their needs. Using the tips in this post, you’ll be better able to craft a sales pitch that is successful for both you and your audience.
Additional Resources for Sales Pitches
- The Science of Selling: Proven Strategies to Make Your Pitch, Influence Decisions, and Close the Deal
You can align your sales pitch with how our brains naturally form buying decisions by using research in social psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics. According to the author of this book, doing so will dramatically increase your ability to make more sales. - Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal
According to the author, creating and presenting a great pitch isn’t art, it’s simple science. In this book, he shows you how to use the latest findings in the field of neuroeconomics to remain in complete control of every stage of the pitch process. - Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale
We are hardwired to respond to story, so it shouldn’t be any surprise that stories sell. In this book, the author reveals the ingredients of the most effective sales stories and how to create them for your product or service. - The Introvert’s Edge: How the Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone
Introverts often get the bum wrap when it comes to speaking and selling. But we can be just as effective — if not more so — despite (or because) of our retiring nature. In this book, the author explains how the introvert can feel comfortable and sincere in the sales world — without changing who they are.
