Begin Your Sales Presentation Here

When someone pitches you on a product or service, what is going through your mind? Most of us do not automatically begin wondering if or how we could use this product or service; neither do we begin a quick price assessment to see whether the proposition is worth our money. Instead, what we instinctively wonder is why should we care. In your sales situations you should be answering the question of what is in it for the prospect as soon as you possibly can.

Cost, effectiveness and process are all issues that matter to the customer, but they will rarely begin to consider them before they even know why they should care about your proposition. Answer this question at the beginning of your presentation and you will have your prospects’ attention throughout. Add a personal element to every sales proposition in order to explain to people how they personally benefit from what you are selling.

Take the following example: Joan owns a clothing manufacturing company that sells its beach wear and summer inspired clothes to small retail stores in tourist areas. She approached a local small store manager with her newest line of swimwear which has just been featured in a major magazine. "Now that the line has received such great publicity the sales projections are excellent," she insists. She goes on to show the magazine layout to the manager hoping to inspire interest.

The manager is not interested. He does not actually own the store and thinks his boss already makes too much money anyhow. The fact that this new product might in fact make extra sales does not concern him anywhere near as much as the fact that he would have to create an entire new window display which he cannot be bothered to do. When he gives Joan a negative response of "not interested," she leaves the store confused.

So why did he say "no?" The answer is simple. Yes, carrying a line recently featured in a national magazine would have increased revenue, given the store greater credibility and probably expanded their client base but these were issues the store manager did not care about. He was thinking of the extra work building a new store display. Also, there was a risk involved, what if he went out on a limb with the new product and wasn’t able to sell it? He would be responsible. No, the store was doing fine and currently reaching its goals, he didn’t have to work that much harder anyway.

Action step: When considering your product or service, imagine a prospect in front of you, asking you "what’s in it for me?" Keep asking the question until you come up with an answer they could actually care about.

First of all, there is no substitute for research. Joan cannot hope to explain to her prospect what’s in it for him if she doesn’t even know herself. She needs to find out whether or not the bottom line affects her prospect’s salary before she presents it to him as the major reason he should go forward. In this case, he didn’t care about that, but he did care about the extra work and the added risk. If Joan had focused more on explaining how she would take care of the store window display, and lessen his risk with a consignment arrangement she would have come closer to a proposition he would have actually cared about.

Never assume that your buyer will make a connection between the benefits you lay out and how they personally relate to him or her. You must make this connection yourself in order to ensure that your buyer sees what is in the transaction for him or her. If you leave this important element to chance then you leave your close to chance as well.

Alvin Day is a Sales Training and Personal Empowerment coach who has helped many sales professionals reach and exceed their goals. For more on Alvin Day’s Sales Training tools and resources visit www.theultimatesalesmanual.com.