Slide Tips: The Sales Presentation - Part Two (by Kevin Sasser)

This post by Kevin Sasser is the eighth in our Slide Tips series.
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(This post is a continuation from last week’s article….)

Famous last words of a sales person…
“…so I’m going to just blow through a few of these slides and then we’ll get right to the demo.”
…right before they dive into 30-45 minutes of slides.

In our first post, we discussed some fundamentals in building a sales presentation. To recap

Tip 1: Your Prospects Time and Your Slide’s Real Estate are Both Precious, Treat Accordingly

Tip 2: Follow Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule (Available on Slideshare)

Tip 3: Take advantage of innocent bystanders (practice with people not directly involved in your pitch)

Once you these basics mastered, the following two tips will put you on your way to creating and delivering effective sales presentations.

Tip 4: Clean is Good

If you haven’t watched a Steve Jobs presentation, please do so now, you can find some on SlideShare and on Apples’ website. I’ll wait.

In case you didn’t want to leave, here’s one slide from a recent presentation.

Do you know what he’s talking about? Most do.

Did you see precious real estate dedicated to extraneous logos or words? No.

The typical sales slide would look like this:

The image below is a screen shot of a presentation that contained a photo of Steve Job’s iPhone presentation, so an image capture, of an image capture, of a photo, of a presentation. Got that? Notice you can still clearly see the text, and you know what he is talking about. That’s the goal.

Steve Jobs is an uber-expert in design and has been the lead on one of the most successful corporate turnarounds in modern times, if anyone has earned the right to spew facts, figures, and other meaningful tidbits into a presentation it’s him.
However, Steve’s genius is reflected most in the simplicity, yet effectiveness, of his presentations. Think about that the next time you are almost overwhelmed with the urge to put a mission statement somewhere it doesn’t belong.

For your next presentation try this. Start with a blank template; change the background to a darker color.

Create your pitch using only a 32pt font and key words, no more than 3 bullet points per page, and no more than 3 words per bullet.

Run through the pitch and refine until you get the flow.

Now, at this point, to make any adjustments, you must ask yourself

“Will this help convince my audience to purchase my solution? If so, why?”

For example: “Will adding a photo image to this slide strengthen the point I’m making?”

If the answer is “yes”, crop the image down to it’s most relevant point, especially if it’s a screen shot of your solution or a website.

Tip 5: Credibility Rules

There are two measurements of credibility that apply to every sales presentation. The first is the accuracy and honesty of the content that is being presented. The second is the believability of the presenter.

You want to gain credibility and engage your client, start off with a very specific problem that when solved with your solution results in a tangible benefit.

For example:

“After implementing our Knowledge Management program, our clients in your vertical have lowered employee attrition rates on average of 18%, and some have experienced annual savings of over $60 million dollars, resulting in an ROI of 654%”

Remember a few years ago when several college football coaches were fired after it was discovered that some “creative licensing” was applied to their resume’s? One coach lost a multi-million dollar job with a major university; another was done in by a reporter who simply used a simple internet search to uncover the fraudulent details.

While the professional sales professional maintains his integrity at all costs, there are hidden dangers when making unsubstantiated claims.

Sales Rep: “Our customer service is superior”

Audience: “Really? How?”

Sales Rep: “Uhhhh….well…I know those guys and they are really good.”

Audience: “Thank you, please leave your name badges with the front desk”

If you are going to make a claim, be prepared to back it up. Remember, your audience will have web access and can double-check you at any point in your presentation.