How well do you present yourself and your company to a prospect? Are you too busy bashing your competition to tell your prospect what YOU have to offer? Stop telling your prospects that you’re the best choice and show them you are with an approach that your competition won’t be able to duplicate! Forget about the competition!

There are two methods of presenting yourself to a prospect:
A. Speak negatively about their current vendor to make your own company look good in comparison.
B. Show off your innovative concepts and solutions to present your company in a new and extraordinary way, without comparing yourself to the competition.

Which option do you think will most likely lead to a sale?

I hope you chose B. For some reason, many salespeople think that speaking negatively about their competition will make themselves look great in comparison. They see their prospect admitting their dissatisfaction with their current vendor and running to you, their new hero, with open arms. In the real world, this doesn’t happen.

Speaking negatively about your prospect’s current supplier will only evoke negative emotions.

This will actually distance you from your prospect and the possibility of making a sale. Consider common questions you may ask your prospect with method A: -Are you paying too much? -Are there hidden charges that you didn’t notice? -Are you getting the type of service that you deserve? All of these questions will produce negative emotions from your prospect. You will make your prospect feel ignorant and misinformed about a decision they made in the past, and make them feel stupid for doing business with their current supplier. What gives you the right to come into their office and start pushing buttons to make them feel this way?

Show that you are different

Basing your entire sales presentation on your competitor’s shortcomings will not only make your prospect feel bad, it will also make you look bad, because the approach is amateurish and lackadaisical. Customers know that it takes creativity and preparation to make an original and valuable presentation. If you want your prospect to think you are different from your competition, then you must bring something new to the table. Don’t ask the same questions and use the same comparison technique that other salespeople use. Find out what makes you different and let that be the driving force behind your presentation. What do you have, other than price and service, to single you out from your competition? Do you have something that will make them more profitable in their business? Do you have a unique concept that your future customers would enjoy hearing about? Of course you do! Now use it! Once you decide what your creative focal point should be, construct your entire presentation around it. Put those negative comments on the back burner and get excited about your creative approach to the sales presentation! Your enthusiasm and preparation will carry you from the initial phone call all the way to the signing of the contract.

Take it to the top

Choosing a presentation that is different from your competition will give you the distinction you will need to set up an appointment with a prospect at the top of an organization. With this attention, you will be in a position to speak with someone from the company who is not bound by existing budget restraints and has the power to make the decisions necessary to award you with business. Without this distinction, you would be stuck speaking with an administrator of the company, who would probably be more concerned with price than fresh business concepts. Their lack of authority and desire to make radical changes will often bring up obstacles that you are most likely used to dealing with. These can include current contracts that have yet to expire, budget restraints, and the lack of gumption to alter the status quo. Those who actually run companies are interested in new concepts that can make their business more profitable and more productive. Coincidentally, these people are the ones with the authority and desire to make changes when they have a compelling reason to do so.

Having a presentation that is positive and focuses on your innovative solutions and ideas will grab the attention of the actual decision maker. By abandoning the old fashioned presentation method of using comparisons, you will mark yourself as a leader in your industry. You will be seen as an expert in your field and will win sales at margins that support the level of service that your customer expects. In this position, you will be practically untouchable by your competition. Your prospects will see that the creativity and preparation of your presentation reflects your business practices. They will assume that you will be just as unique and thorough in their fulfillment and service after the sale. This will separate you from the competition and facilitate a level of trust and loyalty that can’t easily be matched. Because of your presentation, YOU will get the attention of the decision maker, and YOU will get the sale!

Have you ever seen a presentation which has content all over the place, and you wonder, which part to look at first? The slide may have charts on one side, text on another side and pictures on another side. They presenter assumes that since they are explaining what is written, the audience will ‘get it’.

Such slides typically happen when presenters use presentation templates provided along with their presentation software. While such complex presentation templates make the presenter look intelligent, they confuse the audience.

The reason for such ppt slides confusing the audience is – the way we read.

When we read, eyes typically travel in the following order:

1. From left to right

2. Top to down and

3. Clockwise

Given this order of reading slides, can you imagine how confused the audience becomes trying to read the slides with a lot of content?

A good presentation template should have content placed in a way that audience can read without feeling confused. The presenter’s aim is to always keep the audience focused on his content and not on reading tough to understand slides.

How much content on the slide is too much? Here are 2 simple rules to determine if there is too much content on the slide.

1. Follow the eye movement: Using the order in which eyes move, read the slide and see if your eye movements are smooth. If the eyes move in a zigzag way, then the ppt template is too complex and needs to be simplified.

For example if the slide requires the reader to move his eyes from left to right, it is simple enough. If it requires the audience to read from left to right and up to down and left to right again, it is too complex.

2. Two is company, three is a crowd: This common saying holds good for slides as well. If there are more than 2 types of elements on the slide, it is probably too complex. By elements, I mean a text box or graph or an image. For example, when a presentation template has text box, image and a table, it counts as 3 elements. It is probably too complex and needs to be simplified.

Remember, that adding a new slide does not cost anything. It is better to add another slide than to confuse your audience. When you confuse your audience, they stop paying attention to what you are saying.

So, whether you are selecting a ppt template, a presentation background or a readily available presentation template, remember to use 2 elements or less in a slide. We have seen a number of templates on offer that use strong colours as well as too many elements on a slide.

Did you know that one of the secret keys to the art of good conversation is actually the art of being a good listener? This also applies to the skill of being a good public speaker – one would need to listen to one’s audience. Now that sounds very strange, but we’ll enlarge on that a little later.

How often do you hear of people being discussed and being labelled as being a bore? Usually this is because they do all the talking and very little listening. Have you, like me, ever been a victim of one of these characters at a meeting or party? I am sure you can relate to a situation where you finish up looking at everyone who passes by, hoping they will rescue you! I had this happen to me recently at a seminar. I had intended to spend some time mixing with other people who have the same interests as me and who I hoped to share some important information with, however I was cornered by one particular person who went on and on and on about their own efforts, their achievements and expertise and I just could not get away.

To be honest I felt that I had missed out big-time, the seminar itself was excellent but the time spent at lunch break etc. would have been very useful for networking and getting to know like minded people, but had just been a waste of time and I was more than a little irritated.

If you enjoy good conversation then you have probably learnt the art of listening as well as speaking. Have you ever used the expression, “It has been nice talking to you”? Would it not be more appropriate to be able to say, “It has been good talking with you”? There is a difference…

When you think about it, when you are speaking with someone, you are hoping to impart some of your thoughts or ideas to them, or perhaps learn something from them. If you do not take time to allow them to make a comment or ask a question or even indicate whether they have understood what you are saying, then what is the point of continuing to say things which they don’t really need or want to hear? In order to listen you need to learn to pause at the right time and that in itself is a whole new topic!

Now, you may feel that this does not apply to a situation where you are giving a talk or a presentation, because generally speaking the audience is not in a position to answer back to you, or to ask continual questions. So how can you listen to an audience which may consist of just a few people, or maybe even hundreds?

One way that we can employ the art of listening is by using it even before we actually give a presentation. Take the opportunity to speak to the chairman or the organiser of the event to make sure that you will be delivering just what they have organised or perhaps even advertised. In fact you should, as part of your preparation, have spoken to the organiser in depth when the presentation was being booked in order to prepare your talk with that specific audience in mind. Ask them what they are expecting to gain from your presentation and note the answer. In fact take the time to prepare a list of questions which will explore the nature of your expected audience, their age group, ethnicity, education and background – and listen carefully to the answers, they will prepare you for the next step which is:

Endeavour to take the time to speak with several members of your audience before you give the presentation, this will give you the opportunity to size up your audience and discover what they as individuals are expecting to gain from listening to your talk. From their comments you will learn exactly why they have put themselves out to come to hear you speak. This means of course that you will need to schedule your time to arrive early for your presentation, however you will find it time well spent.

Equally, don’t be in a hurry to leave after your presentation, be prepared to associate with your audience and listen to their comments and take them on board to improve your next talk.

In another article we’ll explore the technique of listening to an audience while you’re actually making a presentation and will learn just how this tip can improve your presentations no end.