5 tips to make a more Professional Company Presentation

At the end of every college year, companies start brushing up their presentations to make it more professional and interesting. Their aim is to get the best of new talent and they compete with companies from across industries for this.

Here are 5 tips on how to make your presentation really stands out and attract maximum new employees.

1.       Use professional presentation templates

Many times managers find it is convenient to use the existing presentation with modified data. Company presentations have too much space allocated to logo and color related branding. The people you present to will get their impression of your company based on the quality of presentation you use. Low quality images, poor opening slides, unprofessional ppt backgrounds etc. reflect badly on your company. Check online on sites like BuyAPresentation for professional ppt templates that truly reflect what your company is about – from title images to slide backgrounds to diagrams.

2.       Sell your company

A company presentation is not just about your company, but also about the audience. Include slides that will tell them what they can expect when they join you. This will ensure that they attend the company interviews with interest. Tell them what is unique about the company, how their career will progress. Give them examples of people who have done well with you.

3.       Dress to reflect your company

It is not just about the slides and the presentation template. You also reflect your company image.  Dress the way you would dress to work on a good day. If your company  is professional one, wear a suit, if it is about fun and being laid back, wear what feels comfortable.

4.       Prepare for question and answer questions

While a professional company presentation covers basics like salary, locations and career paths, potential employees are bound to have questions beyond that. Leave enough space in the allocated time so that you can interact with them and answer their questions.

5.       Leave behind

Those really interested in your presentation will want to follow up by looking up sources. Give them websites, books, references where they can look up to know more about your company.

As you can see, a company presentation is not a simple information presentation. The slides and the presenter need to be geared to treat it as a sales presentation.  Even if the presentation is being made internally to people who have just joined the organization, it needs to go beyond just providing information. Every company presentation is a professional sales presentation and needs to be treated as such.

The pressure cooker method of asking for business

The other day, I happened to see a sales presenter in action.

He made a 42 slides presentation, and after every few slides he kept asking if the audience would be interested in placing an order right away to avail of a ‘once in a lifetime discount’. 

Interestingly, people kept leaving each time he asked the question – and that seemed to have no effect on the presenter. 

When the presentation got over (prematurely of course), I asked him the reason for his action. He said, “Ram! I am not here to educate them or entertain them. I am here to get their business. So, every time I see people getting interested in what I have to say, I ask for their business. Isn’t that what sales gurus always advocate?”  

His method of selling is like pulling up the plant from the ground every day, to check if it has taken roots. This method of putting pressure on the customers all the time yields no results.

What is the right time to ask for business?

I think the best way to answer this, is by giving you an analogy. 

Imagine that you are washed ashore in a lonely island – like it happens in the movie ‘Cast away’. You want to cook a juicy crab you caught in the beach. You start a fire by rubbing sticks together. As soon as you see some sparks generated will you throw the crab on it to cook? 

Of course, not. It will kill the fire. 

You will feed the fire and let it grow, till it is big enough to cook your crab.

The same way, when you see the interest in your customer’s eyes – don’t ask for the business and kill your chances. Feed the fire by showcasing proof, warranties etc. till they are informed enough to make a decision. Remove all their fear, by assuring them of your continued support. 

Remember, your purpose is not to close a sale, but to start a relationship. 

Happy selling!

Are you using the mosquito method of selling?

Go through this conversation between a sales person and a customer:

Customer: I am a salaried person…

Sales person: That is great Ma’am! We have some wonderful insurance plans to suit the requirements of salaried people. Let me show you the ‘Life protect Plus policy’ and…

Customer: But, I am going to take a break to look after my child…

Sales person: That is good! Our child plans will protect your child. Let me share with you the ‘Life protect Junior’. The features are…

Customer: Our immediate need is to cover our home loan…

Sales person: Even better! We have ‘Life protect Homeowners’ which is a term policy with decreasing coverage…

Customer: It is my husband you need to talk to. He is the one who takes care of all finance related matters

Does this sound familiar? What kind of impression did the sales person leave on you?

I call this method of selling– the ‘Mosquito method’

What is mosquito method of selling?

Ever heard the buzz of a persistent mosquito when you only have a short blanket to cover yourself?  When you cover your legs, the mosquito bites you in the arms. When you cover the arms, you get bitten on your face. 

The above conversation reminds me of that frustration.

When you approach selling like a boxing match, you keep throwing punches, and hope that one of the punches lands and knocks down the customer; you not only frustrate the customer, but also frustrate yourself.  

A good sales person approaches his profession like a Doctor. He carefully listens to the customers before he suggests the right solution.

Just as you would you never trust a doctor who prescribes medicines before he learns about your problem thoroughly, a customer never trusts a sales person who does not understand his problems. 

Take a moment to check if you follow the mosquito method inadvertently. 

Happy selling!

Does your sales presentation sound believable?

It is said that 90% of your communication is non verbal. That means, while you are busy speaking one verbal sentence to your customers, your body language and tone are speaking nine other sentences simultaneously. 

The nine sentences spoken through gestures and tones naturally overshadow the one meek verbal sentence you put together after careful rehearsals. If you don’t believe in what you are saying, it will show through – whether you like it or not.

So, how can you sound convincing and look convincing? 

The answer is simple. Take time to convince yourself about what you are selling. There is no other ‘trick’ to fake conviction.

If you are selling credit cards, pull out your wallet and see if you use the credit card you sell. If you sell insurance, ask yourself if you have bought insurance to protect your own life. You can’t run a restaurant, and then eat your lunch in the restaurant across the street.

Apart from the above, there are some more ways to increase your conviction in what you sell:

•           Read every literature available on your product or service. Knowing more is the first step to  loving more.

•          Talk to all the happy customers and find out why they are happy with your product

•          Talk to the highest producing sales people in your team, and find out how they do it

These steps should get you pumped up sufficiently to meet your next customer and win him over. 

Finally, there is a simple test to know if your conviction levels are sufficiently high. The test is – “Do you feel genuinely sorry for the customers who have not bought your product, because they are missing something truly valuable?” 

If your answer is “Yes”, you are ready to make your next call. 

Happy selling!

Why do most pitch books suck?

You already have a ‘canned sales presentation’ dished out by your marketing team. They told you that you will be shot in the head, if you changed any of the ‘carefully crafted’ the material. To their credit, they put in a lot of hard work to create the ‘official pitch book’ on a Multimedia CD, to serve as a leave behind material. It looked like the ‘tool’ would be an instant hit. But in reality it doesn’t pan out that way.

The presentation turns out to be an ‘instant yawn producer’. No matter how hard you try, your audiences don’t seem to connect with the content. After the first few seconds of the presentation, they begin to lean back slowly and sink into their chairs. Next, they let out that dreaded yawn. In fact, some of the audience is so polite in their attempt to stifle the yawn, that you can see tears forming in their eyes. 

You then try to hide some slides in an attempt to recover the situation. You rearrange the order of the slides. But, nothing seems to work. You come out disappointed after your ‘short pitch delivery’, which flew over your audiences’ head. 

Why do these mishaps happen with ‘Pitch books’ or ‘Sales aids’ used by most organizations? Here is the answer:

Most pitch books are designed like brochures. They educate (read - bore) the unsuspecting prospects about the ‘greatness’ of the company. To ensure that the knowledge is exposed to as many people as possible, companies use their sales people as walking gadgets that convert text to speech. 

No wonder, pitch books suck.

What is the solution? 

Make your marketing team read the following few sentences: 

“Design ‘Pitch books’ that initiate a conversation with the prospects. Let every word center around the concerns and expectations of your customers. Let your sales people build the discussion further, using the pitch book as a starting point”

Yes. Initiate the change. Stop accepting literature that tries to dump information on prospects. Remember, selling is about building a relationship, it’s not about distributing information. 

Happy selling!

Measure customer rapport in centimeters

Have you observed that the physical distance between people, when they meet personally, tells a lot about the extent of their relationship? 

That is the reason why, when someone unfamiliar stands too close to you and starts a conversation, you automatically take a few steps back. Just like poles repel in magnets, people repel when their space is invaded. There is even a study on this subject. It is called ‘Proxemics’.  

This is important for a sales presenter to know. You wouldn’t like to start off by making your customer uncomfortable, would you?

What is the ideal space?

As per the study conducted by Edward T. Hall, the space around a person can be classified as:

·         Less than 1.5 Ft is intimate Space

      1. 1.5 ft is Personal Space 

      2. 4 Ft is Social Space

      3.12 Ft is Public space

What does this mean to you as a sales presenter?

When you meet a customer for the first time, don’t be too eager to get too close. He might feel you are invading his personal space. You might scare him off.  

Here is the secret to build a good rapport quickly. 

Give sufficient space to your customer and be eager to learn about him and his concerns. Interestingly, the more the customer talks about himself, the closer he gets to you. You will see the distance closing naturally as the customer leans forward to talk to you. In fact, you can even measure your rapport with the customer - in centimeters. 

When you are sufficiently close to your customer, suggest your solution. There is every likelihood that he will buy from you. 

Go ahead and try this in your next sales presentation. Happy selling!

HOW TO REFRESH YOUR SALES PRESENTATION

Time to press the pause button

Recollect the day you joined your sales team. 

You not only were eager to prove yourselves, but also were quite curious to find out as many selling points about your product or service as possible, to bag deals. You memorized all that was taught by your sales training team. You applied some of those ideas and got some success. 

Later, with experience on the field, you developed thumb rules of your own and discovered some ‘selling points that work’ that were not taught in your training. Eventually those selling points became part of your standard sales presentation. 

Now, it is time to press the pause button and take a day to ‘Hunt for fresh selling points’.

Why should you do this?

As sales people, over time we get complacent with our working ways, and stop looking for new ideas. We may take the time to refresh our selling points based on the product changes, market changes or changes in customer preferences. The one day you spend to step back and objectively look at your selling points can make a world of difference to the commissions you earn.

Planning the ‘selling points’ day

1.  Talk to colleagues: Start by spending 15 minutes with each of your sales colleagues in an informal setting (like - over a cup of coffee), to ask about the specific selling points they use to close deals. You might be surprised to discover some nuggets that you never thought of. Realize that like you worked out your own set of ‘selling points that work’, your colleagues too have discovered their own set too. There is very little opportunity for them to share it with you, if not for this day.
2.  Talk to customers: Next, pick up the phone and call up your existing customers. Ask them about their experience of your product. Ask them about the specific features of your product that benefit them the most.
3.   Create Value Statement: Once you finish compiling all the learning for the day, start creating a ‘value statement’ for each of those points. Now, take a print out of the value statements, and put it in your folder.
   This is fresh arsenal that will work wonders to your conviction about the product.  This reflects in your confidence and words when you make the next sales presentation.
   
   Whenever you feel a little down, go through the list – and you will get a fresh sense of energy to meet your next customer. 
   
   
   Remember, to conduct this exercise at least once in 4 months to recharge yourself and your pitch. Happy selling!