How to create a pitch table - BuyAPresentation

How to create a pitch table - BuyAPresentation

Influencing customers is tough

If you have been in sales for a while, you would realize that, it is one thing to know a lot of information about your product, and completely another thing to know how to use that information to influence your customers.

What is a pitch table?

A pitch table enables you to see your information as an answer to the 4 critical questions in the minds of your customers. The 4 questions that a pitch table addresses are:

1. What concerns of your customers are solved by your product?
2. What features of your product solve those concerns?
3. What is unique about the features of your product compared to the alternatives available?
4. What is the proof for your claims?

Since these are the questions that a customer considers intuitively before making a purchasing decision, having the information available in one readily accessible table is extremely useful.

An Example

I have tried to construct a ‘Pitch table’, for our product - ‘Premium Animated Powerpoint templates for Sales and Marketing professionals’ as an example.

To give you a quick background about the product:

Our customers are sales and marketing professionals. They have excellent products and ideas that make a difference to their customers’ lives. But, they don’t have the time, or the design expertise to create professional looking POWERPOINT™ slides to convey those ideas powerfully, and make a lasting impression in their customers’ minds. With our premium, animated POWERPOINT™ templates, we help them win business. Now, they can spend their time to think and add value to their customers, instead of spending time on designing their slides, to get a professional look.

This is how the table looks:

What the various benefits of a ‘Pitch table’?

This table gives you all the information you need to convince your customers at a single glance, so it serves as your ready reference to address any type of customer objections. 

You can even arrange the points in the table to appeal to specific segments of your customers. That way, the information can be helpful to start a conversation with your customers.

You can use the information to write an email to your customers, like – ‘The 5 reasons why our service is different and better than any other alternative.

So, start making your pitch table. It is the starting point for all your sales presentations. Happy selling!

5 tips on handshake for sales professionals

5 tips on handshake for sales professionals - BuyAPresentation

The first impact we make

We interact with people at different levels. Starting from an email – where the connection between individuals is no more than a few electronic pixels, to a warm hug – where the connection is friendly and personal.

You would notice that the closer we get to an individual; the better is the level of engagement (of course, getting too close before knowing the person sufficiently well, invades the personal space of the other individual).

If we represent the distance between people, based on our different methods of engagement, this is how the continuum looks:

As you can see, a handshake is the closest you get in a business relationship. In trying to remember the tips on handshake etiquette, it is important not to forget this basic purpose. 

A good handshake sets the expectation for a presentation. So, how to shake hands to achieve the best level of engagement with your customers? Here are the 5 tips:

1. 1. Look into the eyes and smile before you shake hands:

Nothing builds a better engagement than a genuine smile and sincere eye contact. A handshake merely adds to the connection.

2. 2. Say your name and a greeting while you shake hands:

A good handshake lasts not more than 4 seconds. The time is just enough to say your name and convey your happiness in meeting your prospect. It is not the time to recite your bio data or your company’s history.

3. 3. Volunteer your hands by getting up and walking towards your prospect:

When your effort to engage with the prospect is genuine, the prospect always responds warmly. Do not wait for the prospect to extend hands. If in a rare case, the prospect doesn’t extend hands – lower your hands while keeping the smile and eye contact. The warmth is still conveyed.

4. 4. Use only one hand if it is your first meeting:

Adding your free hand to the shake conveys intimacy. If you use both your hands, you may look artificial and over eager.

5. 5. Let your handshake be a handshake:

Whether you are a woman or a man, the handshake should be firm, with your full hand (not just your fingers) and pumped 3 or 4 times. Be warm and be genuine. Everything else is just details.

I hope these tips help you make a better connection with your prospects, the next time you make your sales presentation. Happy selling!

Converting verbose slides into simple diagrams - BuyAPresentation

Converting verbose slides into simple diagrams - BuyAPresentation

  A few months back I met up with one of my friends who sells mission critical software to financial institutions.  His pet peeve is that in his industry sales cycles are very long and the competition is tough. It is difficult to get the decision makers to sit through a presentation.

As my company is into presentations, he discussed his problems with me.

 He said, “These sales presentations are killing me. I just don’t have the time to sit and make ‘good looking’ slides.”

He is quite an expert in his field and knows his banking and software inside out. But his problem is in translating that knowledge to slides that convince his audience.

This is what I told him. 

 

First off, most presenters don’t realize that, creating apresentation involves two very different types of activities that demand two different skill sets: 
1.      Ideating the content for your presentation

•  Ideating effectively requires a strategic bent ofmind, a thorough understanding of the situation at hand, practical ideas tosuggest alternatives, and a clear vision to drive execution.

2.      Translating the content into effective slides

• Slides need to hold your audience’s attention and influence their purchasing decision.

• To translate effectively, you need visual thinking,design sense, knowledge of the presentation software and loads of time

As you can see, the two are very different skill sets, and itis not fair to expect a presenter excel in both.

But, unfortunately – the market doesn’t care about that reality. A lot of wonderful ideas get completely ignored by the audience, just because the presenter could not translate his ideas into an effective presentation. On the other hand, beautiful ‘Zen slides’ may entertain theaudience, but not deliver the results.
Let us try to address this problem.
If I look at the above two skills – ideating and translating, it seems your job is more to do with ideating than translating. You are paid to think about the strategies that work, anticipate the moves of your competition and devise plans to counter their attack.
The second part of the work, is about translating and requires specialized technical skills and time.Unless you have years of specialized experience, it is not possible to createprofessional and clear slides in a short time.
My friend agreed to this and said, “I realized the issue, so I hired a graphic designer to rework my slides. But, it didn’t really work out. The slides looked good, but the message was lost. “
For which I said:
There are 2 ways in which presenters try to address this translation issue:
1.     Hire graphic designers: There are 2 issues with this.

• They are expensive and time-consuming
• There is always a huge gap between what you have in mind, and what a graphic designer comes up with on his slides.  Though the slides look ‘beautiful’, they do not help you make your point effectively. This is because most graphic designers specialize in print media. The rules that apply to print are very different from the rules that apply to slides.

2.  Get free presentation templates: The issues here are different:

• These free templatesare in reality just some gaudy backgrounds. The designs are not veryprofessional.
• They add verylittle in terms of providing clarity to your message

My recommendation to him and to you is to visit our site www.buyapresentation.com and take a look at the concepts and diagrams templates. They offer value to you because:
1.      Created by professionals, for professionals:The templates are created by professionals with years of corporate experience and a flair for design. They understand what you need as sales and marketing professionals to make your presentations effective.
2.      Unique templates with diagrams and concepts to help add clarity: There is a whole range of templates to help you explain all the concepts in your presentations. Each template is professionally animated and is editable to save you time.
3.      Reasonably priced: They are very reasonably priced at a $1 or less per template.
When you make a one time investment on the Mega Pack and download the folder to your desktop, you can create insightful presentations quickly and for years to come.

Isn’t that a smart thing to do as a sales and marketing presenter - use someone else’s technical expertise with your ideas? Go try it. Happy selling!

ZEN slides can kill your sales presentation

What do you think of these slides?

 

Aren’t they beautiful? Aren’t these poetic pictures taking you to you a whole new world? Aren’t you so absorbed by these images that you find it difficult to take your eyes off the slides?

That is exactly my point. Those are the very reasons why these ‘Zen’ slides will kill your marketing presentation. 

Let me explain…

When you project these slides to your customers, what kind of questions can you imagine popping up in their head? Here is my guess:

• “Is that sunrise or sunset? Those rocks look like bar graph. Wow!”
• “How are those rocks balancing so well? How are they connected to our software? Is he subtly hinting at modular development of software by using that image?”
• “Hey! This reminds of my trip to Mauritius. I really loved that vacation. I haven’t called Sandy for a long time. Let me note that in my diary.”

As you can see…

None of these questions are going to help them make a meaningful purchase decision. The amusement you see in your audience eyes is not because of the strength of your argument, but because of the beauty of those ‘Zen’ pictures.

Stop killing your chances of winning a deal, by using such pointless but beautiful pictures on your slides.

Instead, create slides that will make your audience ask questions like…

• “What kind of new opportunities have emerged in the market, to support the product launch?”
• “How will this software solve the issues which we currently face?”
• “How does this software compare to the competition? Why should I choose this software over any other?”

These questions when answered will help your customers make a purchase decision. 

I am not against using full bleed images in presentation slides. But, you need to be sure that the pictures add clarity to your message - in an obvious way. When your audience has to ‘think’ for two minutes about the second level meaning of the images you use – stop. When you feel that the images will divert your audience’s attention – save them for your son’s school project.

Remember! In your marketing presentation, YOU are the hero. Your slides are your support. Don’t let your slides dominate YOU for any reason.

Happy selling!