One Minute Pause No 31

OK - here it is in black and white: some sales people do tend to talk a little bit too much. Here’s what the client seems to hear over the course of a 45 minute presentation:

“Here’s what we offer…and another thing…and here’s another really great service…and another…and another…here’s a client saying how good we are…and another…and here’s a list of reasons why you should buy from us…and another way of putting it…and we are global…and our people are our greatest asset…”

In a social situation, when we hear people talking about themselves at length, we tune out. During presentations, sales people talk about their company, and themselves, at length. So it stands to reason that prospective clients also tune out.

Which is why sales presentations as we know and imagine them, are well and truly dead. And by the end of the presentation, most of the audience wish they were too.

So why do sales people tend to talk too much, and talk in features rather than benefits?

1. It seems logical.
Sales people tend to think if they provide more reasons to buy then the evidence will be overwhelming. This is simply not true. Usually consumers buy for one, or maybe two reasons, but never the dozen or more that sales people tend to give them.

2. It is easy.
There’s no time to be designing particular presentations for every client, so it unfortunately has to be a generic, one size fits all presentation.

3. It is ego boosting.
Sales people do enjoy giving presentations once they are underway. However it is hard to stop a sales person in full swing, with more than a shot of adrenalin pumping through the veins.

Gary Larson has the answer
The best salespeople realise that when they make a presentation their audience is listening out only for what affects them. Every statement a salesperson makes in a presentation is met with this thought from the audience: “How does that personally relate to me?” It’s a little like this wonderful Gary Larson cartoon: http://snipurl.com/gary_larson. As the audience member, if I don’t hear about me, all I’m hearing is “blah”.

Let’s go back to university
Think about your university days. Remember how little you usually learned in a lecture? It was a big bunch of “blah”, and most of the time you couldn’t work out what you had scribbled down.

Now, remember the smaller classes and tutorials? You probably learned much more. That’s because it was more like a two-way exchange, where you could ask questions and have a more natural conversation.

Sales people should avoid giving one-way presentations as much as universities should avoid giving lectures. Instead salespeople should treat their presentations as a smaller, two-way interaction. Discussion can cover a variety of topics, as long as the end result is that: you have a connection; you have achieved understanding; and best of all that you have agreement.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 10:35 am and is filed under One Minute Pause, Sales advice, Presentation skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.