Childhood habits that can kill presentations

Take a moment to travel back to your schooldays. What were some of the thumb rules you followed to score more marks in your school examinations?
Let me make a guess…

Rule 1: Write more
The more pages you filled the more marks you got in your exams. It made the evaluator feel that you knew a lot. So, you learn the habit of fluffing up your content in presentations as well.

Rule 2: Make it look beautiful
Decorating your answers with highlighters and sketch pens got you more marks. So, you learnt the habit of decorating your presentations.

Rule 3: Sound knowledgeable
Using jargon and acronyms made you look intelligent. By littering your answers with some technical words, you could impress your evaluators into give you more marks. So, you learnt the habit of using technical mumbo-jumbo as your weapon against objections.

Unfortunately, those very habits that got you more marks in your school might be killing your sales presentations.

The rules that your customers follow to evaluate your presentations are very different. Here are some of their rules:

Rule 1: More is bore
Your audience is allergic to long winding presentations. The moment you put up that bullet point slide with 6 points and 4 sub-points your audience take a walk mentally. You need to say it in a crisp and clear manner to score more with your audience.

Rule 2: Bling is cheap
Your audience won’t fall for that cool animation or a ‘Zen’ picture. Your slide should make your message memorable by explaining your ideas in a visual way. Concept diagrams are a very useful tool.

Rule 3: Jargon is rude
It is not about what you know; it is about what they learn. Jargon puts a distance between you and your audience. Always talk at their level to win them over.

So, play by the new rules and unlearn your old habits. You will score more in your sales presentations. Happy selling!

Dont trigger the SCAN IT button in your audience’s head

How do you read a newspaper?

Do you go through every word written out there? No.

As soon as you pick up the paper, you quickly scan through the headlines. If any of it attracts your attention, you read the first paragraph. If it still sustains your attention, you skim through the rest of the content.

You follow exactly the same method whether it is about reading the books in your library, articles on the net or to going through any detailed information.

Why is this information of how people read important to you as a sales presenter?

When you present a slide that looks like this…

 

Audience sees a lot of information presented at once. So, they automatically start scanning your slide. This is how their attention spans across the slide:

As you can see, the detailed graphs at the end, which were probably important are completely ignored.

How do you avoid this declining attention span, as a presenter?

Follow this simple rule – 1 slide: 1 thought i.e. ‘One slide should carry just one thought’. This reduces the material you put on your slides. Your audience therefore takes the time to understand and assimilate the information. Your message gets read and retained longer. 

Will you follow this simple tip? Happy selling!