(SALES) 5 Rules Of Making A Presentation

4-26-2013

There are a few easy, but important rules to follow when making a presentation to a prospective client. Here they are:

1. ONE PAGE AT A TIME: You control the pages. Always take two copies of your presentation. If you?re presenting a printed version as opposed to sharing an electronic version. You?ll want to take two master, color printouts of your presentation. One bound and one unbound. The unbound copy is what you?re presenting so you can control the pages. The bound copy is your client?s copy, bound so that it stays in proper order. If you?re presenting on an iPad or a laptop, then you?ll only take one bound master printout as your leave-behind.

2. YOU CONTROL THE PAGES: Obviously you?re presenting one page at a time and you must control the process.

3. TRACK: Nothing is more frustrating than to get towards the end of a presentation and then realize you lost the client?s attention. You don?t know if you lost them on page 2 or page 5, but you lost them. So, you must learn to track. This means you ask a question on each page or two. For example, let?s say you?re on one of your introductory pages outlining some of things the client told you in your initial interview from your previous appointment, and they mentioned that business early week was painfully slow. When covering this bullet-point, you may ask, ?One of your challenges is how slow business is early week. Do you remember saying that?? You?re actually confirming here that you have their full attention. You must TRACK numerous times throughout your presentation.

4. ?WE, US, LET?S, and OUR?: This is simply learning to talk in same-team-language. ?That?s important to US, isn?t it? This is what WE want to accomplish. Do you agree this is OUR best solution?? Remember, if you both aren?t on the same team, odds are you won?t have a new client, so use same-team-language.

5. SOMETIMES COST FIRST: It still amazes me how sellers wish they didn?t have to talk cost; holding out to the last minute, the last page, and the last thing on the page. It?s often difficult to keep a client?s attention during a presentation when all they?re wondering is "What is this going to cost?" Don't allow the price to make you afraid to do what?s right! No one said doing business with you should be cheap. Hiring the best, finding the best plan, employing the best solution, are rarely synonymous with lowest cost. What?s costly is not fixing the problem or, worse, buying the proposal because it?s the cheapest. More often than not, getting the cost out of the way first is smart. Example: ?Today, I?m going to ask you to spend $60,000 over the next 12 months. Now, let me show you how I JUSTIFY that.? Business owners devote more attention to the details of your proposal when they know the cost up front and hear how this dollar amount will get the job done.

One page at a time, you control the pages, track, team language, and sometimes cost first. Now, go present boldly and with confidence. You?re worth the money!

Rob Adair is the President of Pinnacle Solving. His company provides revenue growth solutions, branding and differentiation strategies to radio and other industries. Adair is a former radio industry COO and Sr. VP overseeing 25+ stations and multiple major markets. He can be reached at 405-641-0458 or by e-mail rob@pinnaclesolving.com

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(DIGITAL) 5 Dazzling Sales Presentation Tools

3-11-2013

Think about the best radio sales presentation you?ve ever heard. Why did it stand out?

Now think about the best compliment you ever received about one of your own sales presentations. What was it?

We all have our own opinions about what makes a great presentation, but the most memorable ones usually have a very focused message, express information visually, and of course tell a great story.

PowerPoint has been one of the best and one of the worst sales presentation tools ever created. When used correctly, PowerPoint can help make your case to a prospect by succinctly organizing your research into digestible pieces of information, as well as visualize your message points.

Unfortunately, PowerPoint has been used as crutch by too made AEs. Either they stack their sales deck with 50+ slides hoping there is an idea in there somewhere the prospect will like or put them to sleep by reading paragraphs of text from their slides.

Many of the next generation of sales presentation tools have the potential to help AEs tell a better story about their station?s advertising capabilities. They are designed to be more entertaining and visual.

New mobile tools also enable AEs to deliver a sales presentation anywhere and at anytime they encounter a prospect. When you send your sales presentation by email there are now tools to help you track its usage.

Remember the best sales presentations are ones that share a great story. The best story to share with your prospects are your station?s recent advertising success stories. Here are five  tools that will help you create more visually appealing, engaging, and entertaining sales presentations . . .

1. Animate Your Presentations

Ever wonder what the next generation of PowerPoint would look like? Now you can with Prezi.

Just like PowerPoint, it helps you focus your message and organize your ideas. Unlike the linear presentation of PowerPoint slides, Prezi presents your information three dimensionally. Your prospects will no longer watch you plod along from slide to slide, but rather see your screen zip from one idea to the next, from image to image. 

Prezi breathes life into your facts and figures using images and animations that connect with prospects at an emotional level. After showing your prospect a Prezi presentation, you?ll make them dread boring PowerPoint presentations even more from other local media reps.

There?s also no need to send presentations as email attachments. Prezi is Web-based, so just email a link to your prospects for even easier viewing.

The best way to understand what makes Prezi different is to watch a presentation using Prezi. Check out this Prezi on the history of radio.

2. Infographics

Most people have a much easier time digesting complicated information or lots of data presented visually rather than drowning in text. Wouldn?t you prefer receiving an email with a link to an infographic as opposed to that same information presented in a wordy email? It?s easier to understand, more visually appealing, and it?s more fun!

If you?re still unfamiliar with infographics, they turn lots of research, data, facts and figures, info graphs and images. They are a great way to take a snapshot of all your research, examples and promotion ideas, so your prospect can understand your message points more quickly. Check out this infographic about commercial radio and social media.

Infographics are one of the most entertaining methods for presenting lots of sales information. There is no official research, but sending prospects an email with a link to an infographic using the subject line ?Infographic About ?X?? has a higher likelihood of increasing the open rate and even inspires prospects to share your email with other advertisers.

Here are a few of the most popular free infographic creators:

http://visual.ly

http://www.easel.ly/

http://piktochart.com/

3. Record Screencasts of Your Computer

Not only does telling a story make a radio sales presentation great, but so does educating your prospects about their latest marketing options. Make your sales presentations come alive by capturing local advertising examples on the Web and recording mini-tutorials about local marketing.

A great tool for recording screencasts of your desktop or websites along with audio is Jing. Think about creating a little audio tour of your station?s website and its advertising opportunities.  It?s free and also enables you to capture screenshots of advertising examples you find from around the Web.

Local advertisers are more overwhelmed than ever before by all the different marketing capabilities offered by radio stations today. Taking the time to educate your prospects about emerging marketing trends or new advertising products offered by your station will help you earn their trust more quickly. Their interest in learning about one advertising opportunity over another also provides you insight into what they are most interested in buying from you. 

4. Mobile Presentation App

In the not-too-distant future most of your sales presentations will be done from a mobile device like a tablet or smartphone. If you are already eager to start delivering sales presentations off your mobile device try sliderocket. You can either download their iPhone app or share presentations from your mobile browser. They offer a free option for casual users.

For those of you still skeptical about using a mobile device for your sales presentations, there are a number of benefits. You won?t have to lug around your laptop or worry if your prospect?s projector is going to work. Viewing a presentation from a tablet is more engaging and informal than delivering a sales pitch in front of a group.

You can also deliver a sales presentation on the fly. You never know where your next hot lead might come from. It could be from a conversation you have with someone waiting in line at lunch or while you are watching your kid?s soccer game. A mobile sales presentation will keep you prepared for any opportunity that might arise.

5. Track Usage of Your Presentation

You?ve probably emailed hundreds of proposals and presentations to prospects, but never really known whether they looked at them or not. Until now. You can upload your PowerPoint slides or PDF documents to ClearSlide.com. Once they are uploaded you can email prospects a link to the presentation and track how they use it. 

You?ll be able to tell if they opened your presentation, which slides they spent the most time on and even who they forwarded it to by email. How cool is that?  

ClearSlide helps radio AEs focus on the hottest prospects, those who viewed the sales materials sent to them. They can even tailor their pitch based on the information the prospect spent the most time viewing. 

ClearSlide offers a free trial, but their monthly per user-cost is roughly $70 with a minimum of five users. It?s costly, but there is huge upside using their tracking tools to close even more sales.

Just like the clothes don?t make the man, tools don?t make the sales presentation. Effective sales presentations educate, engage, entertain, and offer solutions. The above tools have great potential for helping your sales presentations stand out from the crowd, but could also become a liability if used as a crutch.

Stephen Warley is the founder of inboundarts.com, a research and training firm dedicated to helping radio broadcasters use digital tools to generate more qualified sales leads. He is also the founded of LocalBroadcastSales.com in 2008. Email him at stephen@inboundarts.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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SALES - Produce a Powerful Sales Presentation

1-18-2012
by Theresa Merrill

You?ve met with the prospect, conducted a thorough needs analysis and contracted for a follow-up meeting. Now how do you blow them away with your presentation? A salesperson?s success in crafting a compelling presentation depends on their ability to understand the prospect?s business so well that he can identify and analyze its problems and come up with a solution. In order to provide value, your presentation must convey the solution in terms that the prospect understands and accepts.

A well-executed client needs analysis makes a powerful sales presentation possible. During the CNA you set the stage by demonstrating effective listening. The value of the process is not only the information you collected, but the trust you gained. You modeled the behavior you wish to experience when it?s your turn to speak. Still you want to maintain a dialogue, and engage the prospect with questions and confirmations. If a question arises that you will cover in your presentation, its okay to say, ?Good thought, I will be addressing that in a few moments.?

Deliver in person. Make sure all decision-makers are present; do not leave it for others to tell your story. This is non-negotiable. Don?t give them a copy until you?re finished, you want them paying attention to you?not flipping to the last page. You shouldn?t read it either, maintain eye contact with the prospect and speak from the heart.

Remain customer-focused. Identify their biggest challenge?which will be either an opportunity or a problem. Focus on this when you write your presentation. Stay narrow; don?t try to solve all their problems?just the one that has the biggest upside for their business. Share the story. Create a story line; have a beginning, middle and end. The beginning is your understanding of their problem, the middle is how your plan provides the solution and the end is the client winning.

Start with the summary. Relate everything you learned about the prospect?s wants and needs. Explain how your product or service can help satisfy those needs. Demonstrate the additional research you conducted when you went back to your office. Communicate a ?we?re all in this together? mentality.

Clarify and confirm. Feed back the objectives they mentioned during the needs discovery. Engage them and gain commitment by stating ?I know you place a great deal of importance on customer service?is that correct??

Discuss outcomes and benefits. People buy products for what they can do, not for what they are.  Everyone is looking for value. Help your prospects understand the value of doing business with you by identifying the expected outcomes your solution will produce. Emotionalize the benefit by tapping into how the prospect will personally benefit or ask ?What will be the consequences to you if we don?t move forward with this plan?? Often the risk is greater in not taking action.

Provide a timeline and expectations. Include how long it will take to get started, taking them step-by-step through the process. If this involves another department in your office, make sure you have checked their schedule to ensure accuracy.  ?We could have a production team out next Wednesday to discuss creative, after that it takes about two weeks to turn a spot around.? 

Ask for the sale. As you proceed through the process, you have been gaining commitment, at each step through your question-asking. Now be assertive in asking for the sale. Summarize your most compelling reasons as to why they should buy from you and why they should buy now.  Then ask ?When can we get started??

You have the order. The sale begins now; it doesn?t end. Convey your success is directly linked to their success and you?re not in this for the quick sale, but a long-term partnership. You have an opportunity with each order to prove your value and develop the client?s trust, by exceeding their expectations.

Theresa Merrill is the Director of Business Development for Anovick Associates. She has more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience in NY, Boston and Atlanta working for Katz Communications, CBS, Tribune and Cablevision and can be reached at 201.444.2991 or by e-mail merrill.theresa@gmail.com
For more article from Theresa GO HERE

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Katz Creates Power of Sound Presentation

According to Katz Marketing Solutions President Bob McCurdy (pictured) the presentation was created to highlight the many ways that  sound  influences our attitudes, our behavior and our purchases. "Too many within the ad world have lost sight of the fact that sound truly motivates and is deserving of more respect than its currently being given. Most commercial communication is visual but sound, when properly used, is as powerful as anything visual. In fact it can be often more powerful. Our brain is the ultimate screen and what we hear greatly impacts what we see in our minds."

McCurdy says anyone who devotes 5-10 minutes a day for a week and then takes the time to really master this information would become more effective in communicating the incredible power of the radio medium. "Sound is what we?re selling in radio and anything we can do to understand how it impacts us on a conscious and unconscious level will enable us to represent the medium more effectively. So much of what we hear goes into our subconscious but that doesn?t mean it is not influencing what we do, think and how we act. We felt it was time to bring the subconscious power of sound into our conscious. The Human Response section really brings this to life. It?s also curious to see how different marketers use sound to sell and communicate values about their own products yet often neglect to use sounds, i.e. radio when marketing these products."

Take a look at the Power of Sound HERE. If anyone has any thoughts as to how this presentation might be  refined or if we missed any great ?sound? examples let us know: bob.mccurdy@katz-solutions.com

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