The actual presentation is perhaps the most important part of the sales process. This is where I see errors galore. More often than not, the slides prepared are not well thought out and follow a set pattern irrespective of the audience and the context. Also, presentations tend to be long-winded and often leave the most important points too late leaving limited time for discussion on them.
This is what I told my sales team recently. Our presentation should not take more than 20 minutes. The first segment should have 2-3 slides that establish the credibility of the company – through our history, lines of business, and the customers we have, with a special focus on the customers in the same segment as the company to which we are presenting.
The next part should showcase the solutions from the customer’s viewpoint, rather than a tech-centric view. In our case, these should centre around helping companies with customer engagement and enhancing their relationships, new customer acquisition and internal communications. This helps give an overview of what the company’s solutions are.
The last part should focus on the solutions to the problems that the company has – as discussed in the Pitch. In this case, we need to have case studies if we have done something similar. It should end with a clear set of actionable ideas that can be taken up immediately after the presentation.
