If you follow our blog, you’ve probably seen our posts with tips on how to create a great presentation. But even if you haven’t, one of our first pieces of advice for creating any presentation is to start by asking the simple but essential question that too many ignore: who is my audience?
And in the case of a sales presentation, that question is the most important part of the entire design process. Part of why it is so important that you ask this question is that the answer seems obvious: the audience is your potential clients, right?
Yes, and no. They are your potential clients, but they are also people with unique interests and wants from your presentation, and if you want to close the deal, you need to find ways to address those things.
So to get you started, here are four sales presentation tips that will help your next sales presentation resonate with your audience.
Build with purpose
Some presentations are intended to convey essential information to a specific group. Others are meant to create excitement and sizzle in a keynote-style format. But sales presentations are often called on to do both of these things, as well as persuade and convert customers to engage in the sales process.
That’s a lot to ask of one presentation. And that’s why one of our favorite sales presentation ideas is that they should be focused, economical, and punchy.
To get there, you can start by crafting a narrative, or story, that structures your presentation. This will help you see what your larger message is from slide to slide, and it will help you to parcel out information in small chunks, making each more memorable and avoiding information overload in your audience.
Don’t sweat the details
The downfall of many sales presentations is what you might call “death by a thousand details.” It’s the tendency to feel like you need to explain every product feature, every minor upgrade, or every piece of information that might-possibly-somehow-at-some point be relevant. We get it: it can be tempting to every detail of the product or service you’re trying to sell, particularly when you know the product better than anyone.
But the reality is, this level of detail can often be counterproductive. Instead of seeing the big picture about your product or service, the audience is trying to manage all of the countless pieces of information that are bursting from every slide.
One of our best sales presentation tips is to stay focused on explaining what your product/service is by showing what it can do for your audience.
Speak their language
Similarly, when you’re trying to convert new customers, it’s important to remember that not everyone lives and breathes your brand, your product, or even your industry. That’s why our next sales presentation idea is to avoid jargon, buzzwords, or insider terms whenever possible. By using clear, simple, and direct language, you’ll not only improve the memorability of your presentation, you’ll make the audience feel welcome and included.
Every pixel counts
Everyone is busy, and no one likes wasting time. So when your audience’s attention (and your next big sale) is on the line, it’s critical that you make sure every word, image, and slide is doing exactly what it needs to do, with no extra or wasted content. Not only does a cluttered presentation look unprofessional, it is likely to include extraneous information that slows down your meeting, and makes it harder to understand your key messages. This is not only an essential sales presentation tip, but one that you can apply to every presentation you create.
We’ll be the first to admit that there is no “one size fits all” approach to presentation design. So even these key sales presentation ideas need to be flexible. For example, we discussed how to assess your audience, but equally important is how to assess the presentation itself. Are you delivering it in person, online, or simply sending over a sales presentation? All of these situations will impact the way you write, design, and deliver your presentations.
The key takeaway from all of this is that you should always be thinking about your audience. It’s not about what you want to say but what they want to hear, and if you create your sales presentations with them in mind, their needs will always be at the center of your message.