Great Speaking Coach

Sales Teams Win with Atypical Advanced Planning

Just got a call from a company who was given five days notice to prepare for a presentation to win a contract. Given the demands in the marketplace today, perhaps you don't get even 5 days to prepare.

Two things come to mind:

1) Start preparing for a live presentation from the minute you know there is a possibility you will be called to deliver one

2) Get someone from outside your inner circle to work on this with you. Make this a priority--it is money well spent.

Prepare in advance

• Buyers expect sellers to present to them, so begin preparing before you need it.
• Make a list of 5 things this customer is suffering from--their pain/challenges/hot buttons.
• Write 2 slides for each of these problems that address these problems for this customer. Not generic one-size fits all, slides laden with pure corporate speak. No one is fooled by this, no matter what your marketing department says.
• Create one slide that shows the results this customer will enjoy 1 or 5 years in the future. Show them how they have already benefited from selecting you.
• Include discriminators and value adds that will be appreciated by this particular customer. 10,000 people in the company is meaningless to a customer who only needs the exact right 10 people to work for them.
• Preparing in advance when you are not under a deadline helps you see what you're doing very clearly.

Which leads to the second point: bring an outsider in to help you.

The outside consultant/coach will be free to say what must be said, which doesn't happen when the only people to work on a presentation are the ones who will be together long afterwards. You need a clear-eyed review that focuses on how effectively the message gets across to the customer audience. It's better if your outsider doesn't know a lot about you or the customer--they are unbiased when giving their input.

My client sent me their deck and it was a conglomeration of slides from 3 companies, no continuity and nothing remotely about the customer audience. I showed them this, suggested how to add personalization and to greatly improve the coherence and flow--without huge re-writing or any new graphics. By creating a smooth and meaningful progression of ideas, the speakers will be better able to speak from their knowledge, not just from a hodge-podge of words on slides.

What did this investment cost the company and is it worth it? It took me about 6 hours to thoroughly read the proposal and review and write up recommendations for their slides. I will spend about 8 hours coaching the team to deliver their solution with confidence and in a way that helps them connect with the audience. Even at the last minute, this investment of 14 hours will make a difference in the way their customer audience will evaluate their solution. The total cost compared to the contract value is very minimal.

There are longer-lasting benefits too: they have taken the first step in a new culture of presentation thinking and preparedness; they have opened themselves to feedback from someone outside their inner circle and found that it helps tremendously; they gained confidence that took them from "I hope we do okay" to "we are going to show them we are the only right choice."

Are you going to do things the same old way, or are you going to get started immediately building a new speaking culture that will increase the magnitude of your sales success?

Sales Presentations: Be Selective Because Less is More

A recent client showed me slide decks his company has available for anyone to use when meeting with a new prospect or current client. The decks are made by graphic designers and technical writers who work full time creating these resources for the company. As you would expect, the slides are perfect--fonts matching, alignment perfect, a balanced mix of visuals and text. Unfortunately, they have no personality.

Personality means the slides reflect the company values and brand promises, as well as the needs and concerns of the prospective buyer. Professionally designed slides that address a specific niche of the company's offerings are like a textbook or instruction manual--great for after the sale, but not much good in the relationship-building phase.

Research continues to show that corporate buyers still care first and foremost about themselves. When a potential vendor puts the buyer's needs and concerns first, and describes their offerings in terms of those needs, they send the message that the buyer comes first. That is the only way to build the trust that leads to the sale.

I appreciate the desire for companies to standardize the look and content of their slides, which is certainly one of the good purposes of these pre-made slide decks. However, the company also must communicate to its sales, marketing and technical personnel that personalizing the decks for each prospective audience is more important that whipping through the slides.

1) Study the pain behind the prospect's willingness to listen to your presentation. Pain, challenges, issues--these are far more important than requirements.

2) Begin your presentation with customized content about the prospect's mission, vision, place in the market, community involvement, known previous accomplishments. Then connect this information to what you have to offer in terms such as "increase," "enhance," "improve". This beginning does not need slides--it should be spoken from ideas in your own mind.

3) Pause frequently to answer questions. If there is a time limit, cut out some of your slides and use that time for a conversation. They are buying you and your company, not the inanimate slide deck.

How do you combine corporate slide decks with customized sales presentations? Share your ideas through our comment link.

Public Speaking Mistakes You Should Dare to Make

Mistakes in a speech or presentation? No one wants to make mistakes yet I've realized that there's a lot of value in making a few--from your mistakes, you learn what to do better.

Here are three mistakes I have made and what I learned from them.

1) Handout exercise that didn't work. I wrote a puzzle that was intended to teach the audience five simple words. I thought these words would be more sticky if the audience discovered them by themselves through a word puzzle.

There were 2 mistakes in my thinking--first, the puzzle was not as popular a type as I had thought it was, so my simple directions were insufficient. Second, I wrote it badly and it turned out to be unsolvable.

Now I know to use a puzzle type that is more familiar, and to edit it at least 5 times over different days to ensure there are no mistakes.

2) Too long music clip. I begin my keynote speech with a clip from a song. The first time I used it, I ended up standing in front of the audience mouthing the words for 70 seconds--clearly too long once the audience was paying attention. Now it is a brisk 35 seconds, makes my point with impact, and I move on.

3) Being unclear about a point. I wanted to show how a lesson I learned from my hobby of horseback riding has made me smarter in my business--and that audiences should look for similar lessons in their own lives--but I was having a hard time making this powerful. It was only after giving the speech to live audiences that I had my light bulb moment--how to show the intersection of riding and business. I am glad I made the mistake--more of an omission-- with the live audience because the point is worthwhile and I had not hit upon it until I experienced the audience's reaction.

Post your stories about speaking mistakes you have made and what you learned from them through our comment link.