sales 101 presentation

Sales 101: A Sales Beginner’s Guide to Closing the Deal

1. take a breath..

Welcome to the world of sales! Whether you’re a sales representative or a business owner, embarking on this exciting career path can be both rewarding and challenging. As a beginner, it’s not uncommon to feel overwhelmed, akin to a gazelle in the wilderness, constantly anxious and looking over your shoulder. However, it’s essential to pause and clarify your path to success. Pause. Take a deep breath. Then ask yourself, “How can I model success and shorten the learning curve?”

2. Be willing to screw up.

Mistakes are an inevitable part of the journey to becoming a successful salesperson. There will be moments when you may inadvertently upset people, face rejection, or lose potential sales. Embrace these challenges and be willing to screw up. It’s through these experiences that you learn and grow. Moreover, by giving yourself the permission to make mistakes, you eliminate the fear that often hinders sales performance. Remember, failing fast allows you to learn faster and progress on your path to success. Simply being willing to screw up is a critical part of Sales 101.

3. Follow a process from day one.

The best way to fast-track your success in sales is to follow a proven process right from the start. You have two choices: spend years trying to figure it out on your own, making countless mistakes along the way, or adopt a successful process from day one. By choosing the latter, you can model a process that already works, ensuring you start off on the right foot and avoid unnecessary struggles.

4. Drop the enthusiasm.

I wish every single salesperson in the world could hear this simple but powerful Sales 101 tip: Drop the enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is often touted as a must-have trait in sales, but it can actually be counterproductive. Prospects encounter enthusiastic salespeople all the time, making it essential to set yourself apart. Instead of focusing on enthusiasm, be genuine and real in your interactions. Simply focus on your process, not your enthusiasm for your product or your service.

5. Be firm and real.

As a salesperson, it’s crucial to strike a balance between being firm and authentic. Avoid the trap of putting on a fake voice or an overly enthusiastic demeanor. Instead, assert your expertise and lead the prospect through a structured process. This approach positions you as a confident leader, capable of guiding them towards the solution they need. Prospects often seek guidance, and by being firm and real, you build trust and credibility.

6. Script out everything.

Scripts are a powerful tool in sales. While many salespeople resist using a script because they think it will make them sound “scripted,” I’ll let you in on a Sales 101 secret: the more consistently you use a script, the less scripted you’ll sound. The best actors in the world follow scripts to deliver compelling performances, and salespeople can do the same. Having a script for various aspects of the sales process keeps you focused, ensures consistency, and helps you refine your message over time. Additionally, it allows you to cut out any unnecessary elements and concentrate on what matters most to the prospect.

7. Disqualify.

A common misconception in sales is that you must persuade and convince prospects to do business with you. However, this approach is outdated. In the modern sales landscape, we must focus on disqualifying prospects who aren’t a good fit from the start . This saves both parties time and energy and allows you to concentrate on prospects who genuinely need your product or service. A thorough disqualification process also helps you understand the prospect’s challenges better, enabling you to tailor your solution accordingly.

8. Cut your presentation in half.

One of the biggest newbie mistakes that I see over and over again is having a presentation that is just way too long. So here’s a Sales 101 bombshell for you: it’s time to cut your presentation in half. Presentations should be concise and tailored to the prospect’s needs. Avoid long-winded pitches filled with unnecessary information. Again, aim to cut your presentation time in half. Let the prospect’s questions guide the conversation, addressing their specific concerns and demonstrating how your product or service can solve their challenges effectively..

9. Model success.

My biggest piece of Sales 101 advice for anyone who is new to sales is to model success. Don’t try to figure this stuff out on your own. Identify a process that is proven to work, and follow it. As a sales beginner, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Identify successful sales processes and strategies and model them in your own approach. By learning from those who have already achieved success, you can avoid common pitfalls and accelerate your growth as a salesperson.

So there you have it. Now you know the keys to Sales 101: A Sales Beginner’s Guide to Closing the Deal. Which of these elements will you work on including in your own sales strategy? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section below to join the conversation.

More Must-Know Sales Beginner Sales Strategies:

Do you consider yourself a sales beginner? Or maybe you’re not a beginner, but you’re still not at the level that you’d like to be…

Maybe you’ve been at this for a while, but you still find yourself struggling to get to the point where you feel like you’ve really got sales under control.

If so, then there are some fundamental sales techniques you can implement to go from beginner to expert —in very short order. And yes, you can skip the intermediate phase altogether.

The key is bypassing that long learning curve and instead going from where you are now to that expert level, which is a huge step above where most sales professionals are.

10. Sales 101 is about building the foundation for selling.

It’s like learning guitar. What’s the foundation of guitar? Learning the basic chords; understanding how to hold the guitar. You must have that foundation in order to get to the next level of guitar-playing skill. The same goes for sales.

You need to build that foundation using basic sales philosophies and establish that systematic approach. How are you starting your calls? What types of questions are you asking? How are you demonstrating insight? How are you presenting to your prospects’ challenges?

Build your selling foundation by being able to answer all of these questions, instead of just figuring it out as you go.

11. Be okay with messing up.

That’s why a key pillar of Sales 101 is to be totally and completely okay with messing up any sales opportunity.

Of course, messing up is not the goal. But you have to be okay with it. Give yourself permission to mess up any selling situation. Do this at the earlier part of your learning curve in sales, because if you don’t, you’re going to freeze up and do things that will ultimately hurt the sale. 

The more you’re okay with messing up, the more comfortable you’ll feel, and the more willing you’ll be to try new things—which is exactly where you need to be in order to break through to the next level of success in selling.

12. Pissing people off is part of the game.

We can’t talk about Sales 101 without driving home the point that you must be willing to piss people off. Now, again, your goal is never to piss someone off. Of course not. But sales is about pushing people to their limits; it’s about helping them see what they need to see…and sometimes they don’t want to drink the medicine they know they have to take.

Be willing to tell them exactly what they need. In some cases, you might frustrate people, and that’s okay. It’s all part of the game of sales.

13. Focus on them, not you.

That’s why a crucial Sales 101 strategy is simply to focus on your prospects. Demonstrate that you know what’s going on in their lives and in their businesses, and seek to understand more by asking really good questions about their key challenges. What are their objectives? What are their goals? That’s how you start retaining customers: focus on them, not you. 

14. Create your lead gen machine.

I’ve made a ton of training videos on how to build your lead generation machine, so check them out if you need some guidance. Without a lead gen machine in place, you simply cannot increase your close rate enough to hit your sales goals.

15. Discover their challenges.

You’ve got to be able to get them talking . Discovering prospects’ challenges is a powerful Sales 101 strategy because once you dig deep enough to really understand what’s going on in their world, you can demonstrate whether you can solve their challenges or not.

16. Follow-up is junk.

This Sales 101 strategy is one that all top-performing sales professionals have mastered. If you’re struggling with follow-up right now, you need to completely change what you’re doing in your meetings. Follow-up as a concept in sales is complete and total junk.

Instead, focus on what you’re doing in the meeting to get the prospect to say, “I’m happy to schedule a next meeting.” That’s how you keep sales on track, and that’s ultimately how you get to the close of the sale.

17. Be cautious of who you listen to.

But if you want to learn and implement solid Sales 101 strategies, you need to make sure that you’re getting advice from someone you can actually trust. Be cautious of who you listen to.

When I was first learning to sell, I was taking advice from anyone who would give it to me—and as a result, I was all over the place. When I finally learned a sales process from people who were true sales experts, that’s when things came together for me.

18. Make it a big game.

You’ve got to see sales as a game. If you’re taking rejection in sales personally, you’re not going to make it. You’ve got to allow yourself to have some losses. Allow yourself to learn from every single selling interaction.

19. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

If you’re breaking into hives every time you make a small mistake, you’re simply not going to achieve long-term sales success. And sales is a long-term game. So don’t sweat those little things. Just learn from them. This is a simple but crucial basic sales philosophy.

20. No’s are a good thing. A Sales 101 MUST!

The more comfortable you are with the word no as a possible outcome, the more likely you are to get a yes.

This is one of those counterintuitive, magical Sales 101 strategies that I wish I had learned earlier on in my own full time sales career. When you’re only trying to get a yes from a prospect, you’re putting tremendous pressure on the situation, and as a result, that prospect is actually more likely not to buy from you. Only prospects won’t want to disappoint you, so instead of telling you no, they’ll just say what they think you want to hear, which is some version of, “Hey, this is great. Let me get back to you in a couple of weeks.”

Most sales professionals love to hear that, but the reality is that a no is actually a great thing. Get comfortable with winning sales and losing sales, but avoid the stuff in the middle: unknown, wishy-washy uncertainty.

Even More Must-Know Strategies to Master Sales 101…

Are you relatively new to selling? Or maybe you’ve been in sales for a while, but you’d still consider yourself a sales beginner .

If that’s the case, it’s not a bad thing.

In fact, acknowledging that you’ve still got a lot of sales training basics to learn is the first step to starting to crush your sales.

Once you’ve come to that realization, you can follow one of two paths…

1) You can try to figure out sales training basics out on your own— banging your head against the wall as you keep doing the same things over and over again.

Or 2) You can learn a proven selling process.

If you choose the path of learning a proven selling process, you’ll be able to train yourself on the most foundational sales training basics necessary to be successful at sales in any industry.

What’s more, you can actually begin to outperform advanced salespeople in no time.

Bonus Tip #1: Know your first 30 seconds.

As a result, they end up meandering through sales conversations, never getting into a true flow because they simply don’t have a repeatable system for starting great conversations.

Knowing your first 30 seconds is everything.

When I was first learning sales training basics myself, I had a mentor who always used to say, “Start strong, end strong.” Are you starting off strong enough? Think about what the first 30 seconds of a sales conversation sound like when you sell. Do you just launch into a long list of all the reasons why the prospect should do business with you? Or are you using a systematic approach that really engages prospects in a two-way conversation?

I challenge you to write out the first 30 seconds of any selling interaction you typically have—whether it be a cold call, what you say to someone you meet at a networking event, or the first 30 seconds of a Zoom conversation on a scheduled video call.

Don’t wing your first 30 seconds. You should know it cold.

Bonus Tip #2: Get them talking.

(By the way, if your organization doesn’t have the technology to record both sides of the call, at least use your iPhone to record your own voice during each conversation.)

When you listen back on your sales conversations, chances are that you’ll discover you were doing far too much of the talking. You’re likely to find that you’re just droning on and on…and the prospect isn’t talking much at all.

This can be painful to listen to, but it’s imperative that you hear what you sound like.

Talking too much is one of the most common mistakes made by beginner salespeople. And in fact, it’s also one of the most common mistakes perpetuated by veteran salespeople who’ve been selling for years.

Still, overtalking is a particular problem for beginner salespeople simply because they tend to be nervous. And when people are nervous, they often start talking and they don’t stop.

In the moment, it might not sound that bad to you. But I promise that when you listen back on your conversations, you’ll have a realization such as, “Oh wow, that’s a total mess.”

So start recording your conversations and ask yourself, “Am I getting the prospect to do most of the talking, or am I doing most of the talking?” As you listen to your calls, track approximately what percentage of the time you’re talking versus the prospect.

Advanced salespeople get the prospect talking. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have periods of time where you’re the one doing a bit more of the talking, particularly at the start of the conversation. But whenever you speak, the explicit goal should be to get the prospect to open up and talk more.

One of the most important keys of sales training basics is to get them talking. If you’re just doing all the talking, you’re in big trouble. Engage prospects in a conversation by implementing a strong first 30 seconds that prompts a true back-and-forth dialogue.

Bonus Tip #3: Have your process.

When I say “have your process,” what I mean is that you should have a systematic process in place that you follow on a step-by-step basis in order to close sales. If you’re just winging the sales process and doing whatever comes to mind, you’re in trouble.

Having a process is a fundamental component of sales training basics. It’s one of the biggest distinctions between average salespeople and great salespeople. And by the way, if you don’t have a sales process now, at the start of learning to sell, then you’re likely to never have a process down the road.

Think about it this way. Have you ever gone golfing with some friends? If so, you’ve probably noticed that some people have learned golf by taking lessons—and after years of practice, they’ve got a good swing and they’re solid golfers. But others are “self-taught” golfers—their swing is all over the place, and every now and then they have a huge slice that goes way off one side because they never learned how to golf the right way. They might have practiced just as much as your lesson-taking friends…but because they didn’t learn how to do it right, they were practicing the wrong form and so they failed to improve. They just play around a really strong slice and hope for the best.

The same is true for sales. You need to learn how to sell the right way now, or else you’ll be using bad form the rest of the years you sell. Make a commitment to learn a strong sales process now. The process you use at the start of your career will ultimately determine how effective you are for the rest of your time in sales.

Bonus Tip#4: Don’t go for the close.

When you think about it that way, it’s not the close itself that’s very important. It’s all the little moments that have made up the conversation thus far. The close is simply indicative of how the conversation has gone from the beginning until now. The prospect is going to use the quality of the conversation as the basis for deciding, “Do I want to do business with this person or not?”

Now, if you’re strong in sales, you’re going to focus much more on the earlier part of the sales conversation than on the close. If you’re not closing the sale in the 59th minute of the conversation, it’s not because your close wasn’t strong enough. It’s because the 58 minutes leading up to that point weren’t strong enough.

So don’t worry about going for the close. You should never have to verbally arm-wrestle a prospect to get them to buy from you. That’s old-school selling. Instead, you should be using a process from the beginning all the way through the close that leads the prospect to want to do business with you.

Bonus Tip #5: You’re not a punching bag.

In fact, the customer isn’t always right…and the prospect is rarely right. And you certainly shouldn’t do whatever you can in order to close every sale. You only want to close sales with the right people.

If someone’s not a fit, don’t waste your time trying to close the deal. You should only be focusing and spending time on the right prospects.

To that end, one of the key sales training mindsets you must master is that you aren’t a punching bag.

Let’s say a prospect is being a jerk and says something abrasive like, “Hey, you know what? Just tell me the price. Let’s just cut all this crap and you tell me the price right now.” You don’t have to then just acquiesce and say, “Oh, okay, well, it’s $1,000.” That’s weak. You’re strong.

You’re a strong person and you have rights as a salesperson, too. You’re not a punching bag.

Start to think of yourself as a doctor. You’re there to solve a problem. If a prospect isn’t a fit for your solution, then you can both move along. That’s okay. This is how top-performing salespeople think—like doctors, not customer service reps.

Always remember that you have value. Your purpose is to solve problems, and thus you are changing people’s lives for the better. This is the mindset you must have when you’re selling. If you can’t get into that mindset, then move on from sales. Don’t be a salesperson—go into operations, or something else, because this industry is just not going to be a fit for you. You must believe that you’re bringing value into your prospects’ lives in order to succeed.

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Get instant access to our free sales training:, why prospects push back on price, give 'think-it-overs,' and ghost in sales until they meet a sales superstar who is following these 7 simple keys, about the author marc wayshak.

Marc is is the best-selling author of three books on sales and leadership, including the highly acclaimed titles Game Plan Selling , The High-Velocity Sales Organization and his forthcoming book, Sales Conversations, Mastered.

Marc is a contributor to Inc , HubSpot , Fast Company , Entrepreneur Magazine , and Huffington Post Business . He also hosts a popular YouTube channel on sales strategy with over 103,000 subscribers.

Marc helps thousands of people his data-driven, science-based approach to selling that utilizes all the best tools available to sales organizations today.

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15 Sales Presentation Techniques That Will Help You Close More Deals Today

Updated: June 01, 2022

Published: May 31, 2022

Hate the thought of doing sales presentations ? You’re not alone. But the best reps have sales presentations down pat, even if it’s not their favorite activity.

The best sales reps know that, when done right , sales presentations are a high-earning skill.

So, let’s hone that skill with simple sales presentation techniques that communicate an irresistible narrative and get buyers to close.

Sales Presentation

An effective sales presentation tells a compelling story, highlights your value proposition, and aligns with your audience's needs and desires. It ends with a strong call-to-action and leads prospects to your differentiators instead of leading with them.

As it can sometimes mean the difference between closing a deal or losing a customer, you definitely want to get your sales presentation right. There are strategies and tips you can follow to ensure your sales presentations are effective, memorable, and engaging. Let’s go over them below.

Sales Presentation Methods

1. structure your presentation. .

Guiding your prospects down a clear path is key to a successful sales presentation. You’ll follow a logical structure, and listeners will understand how each element of your presentation relates to one another, rather than them having to piece together disjointed information on their own. 

There are times when flipping the structure can add unique elements to your presentation, though, and we’ll discuss this further below. 

2. Use data visualizations. 

Using visuals, like charts and graphics, to supplement your message is a valuable way to showcase your content in an easy-to-understand format as they make your words more impactful. 

For example, if you’re selling SaaS that helps users organize their sales process for a shorter cycle, you can create a visual that displays the average length of your clients’ sales cycle vs. those using other tools. 

By doing this, you’re adding extra emphasis to your words with a visual picture, and a bonus is that visuals are more likely to stick with your audience and get them thinking versus just hearing you talk. 

3. Rely on spoken words — not text.

If your presentation slides are text-heavy, prospects may get caught up reading the words you’ve written instead of listening, causing them to miss out on the value you’re sharing. Aim to include less text by calling attention to the most significant elements with short bursts of text that you supplement with your words. 

In addition, when you have less text on your slides, you may be less inclined to just read from them, which can be a bad part of presentations. You’ll have to speak instead of relying on written content. 

Let’s go over some sales presentation techniques that, when paired with the three methods above, will help you nail it every time.

Sales Presentation Techniques

1. send your buyer the presentation deck before your call..

You might assume that sending a buyer a deck before a call is like revealing whodunnit on the cover of a murder mystery. No one will pay attention to the rest of the book, right? 

When the Gong.io team started sharing our deck before opening sales calls, we learned it was a winning move. 

If your deck is compelling, prospects will want to get into it with you, even if they know the main point. Together, you can dive in, dissect the good bits, and talk through questions. It’s going to be a juicy conversation, and they know it.

Then, you can begin the conversation during your presentation with a statement like, “Based on the information in the deck I sent, where should we start?”

2. Invoke self-discovery.

It’s tempting to stick to a positive linear story during your sales presentation. That usually invokes talking about benefits, outcomes, and desired results. But, that approach isn’t always the best. 

Before discussing solutions and results, you must understand your prospect's problem. More importantly, you have to be sure your prospects understand the problem. 

Self-discovery is the ticket that gets you there. Instead of telling the buyer what the problem is and how you’ll address it, get your buyer to connect with the problem on their own. 

3. Talk about Point A. Don’t skip to point B.

This is 100% linked to the tip above. There’s a problem (point A) and desired outcome (point B). Point A is the status quo. It’s a problem your buyer will continue to face if they don’t make a change. 

You can stand out by focusing on point A, as talking about a pain point is shockingly more effective than talking about positive outcomes. 

Make your buyer feel the pain that results from the status quo. Convince them the pain will only worsen without your solution — because you know that to be true.

You should only talk about benefits once they’re on board with that line of thinking. Urgency is what allows benefits to land. Without urgency, benefits are just happy points that hold no real meaning.

4. Insight is your #1 lead story.

Buyers are experts on their circumstances, but they want insights into their situation from you. 

You’re most likely to impress a buyer by telling them something new about themselves, as your offering is a unique insight into their problems and opportunities.

Check out this TaylorMade video. It’s a bang-on example of how to lead a presentation with insight, and then move on to your product’s strengths:

You learned how to get more distance from your golf swing (an insight into what you’re doing). Then you learned how that’s supported by the product’s particular strength.

Insight comes first. It changes how your buyers think about the problem your product solves. Only then benefits can land effectively.

5. Don’t lead with differentiators, lead to them.

At Gong.io, we’ve taught our sales reps to speak with buyers about a critical problem only we can solve. It’s the delta between top producers and the rest of the team.

• "The numbers from your top reps are fantastic."
• "The downside is they’re annulled by everyone else who’s missing their quota."
• "Your team goes from outstanding numbers to breaking even or missing quota. Both of those options are unsustainable."

We only introduce our key differentiator once the backstory is clear and the buyer gets it. Then, our reps say something like this:

"Gong is the only platform that can tell you what your top reps do differently from the rest of your team. We can tell you which questions they ask, which topics they discuss, when they talk about each one, and more."

See why we lead to our differentiator, and not with it? It just wouldn’t land the same way if we started with the differentiator. In fact, it might not land at all.

6. Focus on value, not features.

Gong.io research found that focusing on features over value is not impactful. Prospects, especially decision-makers, want value propositions about how you’ll help them solve their problems rather than an overview of the features they’ll get. 

7. Flip your presentation.

he next, eventually achieving a shiny, final outcome. This isn’t always the best strategy. 

Instead of building up to the most significant and impactful part of your demo for your prospect, begin with the most valuable part, which is how you’ll help them, and let the conversation flow from there. 

There’s one other tactic underlying it all: The best product demos start with topics the buyers highlighted on the discovery call . For example, if the buyer spends 4 minutes talking about X and 10 minutes talking about Y, you want to begin with Y, as the buyer has demonstrated that they’re heavily interested in Y. In the opening section of your presentation, address the biggest issue from discovery. Address the second biggest issue second, etc.

It’s called solution mapping, and it’s going to change your sales presentation process forever. Stop saving the big reveal for last. Stop building anticipation. Start with the good stuff. Let it rip right out of the gate.

8. Turn your presentation into a conversation.

If you sensed we were looking for a two-way dialogue during your pitch, you’re right. That’s a relief to most salespeople, especially the ones who hate delivering traditional presentations.

A two-way dialogue is going to make your pitch feel more natural. To do this, Gong.io says to get buyers to ask questions by giving them just enough info to inspire them to ask more questions and keep the conversation going. In fact, top performers ask fewer questions because they don’t bombard prospects with too much information but instead give buyers just enough information to have them ask questions. 

Long monologues won’t help you have real conversations with your buyers. Instead, aim for a great two-way conversation. 

9. Mind the 9-minute period.

This tip is crisp and clear: Don’t present for more than nine minutes. Gong.io data supports this. 

Presentations for lost deals last an average of 11.4 minutes. Why do they go so poorly? Because it’s hard to retain attention. If you do go longer than nine minutes, switch it up. 

Vary something that re-captures attention and keeps people engaged. Change channels by doing something like switching up who’s speaking in real life or on video. This can rest your clock to zero, and you’ve got nine more minutes for the next portion of the show. 

10. Be strategic with social proof. 

Social proof. Best friend or worst nightmare? It can be either one, so use it carefully. For example, generic social proof (i.e., naming impressive clients for brand power alone) is a disaster. Buyers might not identify with them. Sure, they’re dazzled, but they may not see how they relate to your current client.

An effective strategy is to reference clients similar to your buyer, with the same pain points, challenges and needs that they can relate to. You can tell an accompanying story about the client and their pain points, helping the buyer see themselves in the story you’re telling.

11. Talk price after you establish value.

Would it surprise you to know it matters when you talk about certain topics? It can actually affect whether you win or lose a deal. Pricing is a great example of this principle.

The top salespeople wait to talk about pricing. They know it’s important to demonstrate their product’s value first.

Set an agenda at the start of your call so your buyer knows when to expect a pricing discussion. They’ll be less likely to raise it early, and if they do, you can refer back to the agenda.

Open with something like, " I’d like to talk about A, B, and C on our call today. Then we can go over pricing at the end and -- if it makes sense for you -- talk about next steps. Does that work for you?"

You’re all set.

12. Reference your competitors.

Our data shows that you’re more likely to win a deal if you talk about the competition early in the sales process instead of ignoring them completely.

For best results, practice this during your first sales presentation. Waiting until the end of your sales process puts you into a dangerous red zone. Your buyers will already have formed opinions, and they’ll be harder to change.

In other words, at the end of the day, buyers will justify a decision they made early in the process, which is why it’s critical to set yourself up as the winner early on. Talk about the competition in your presentation. Put the conversation out there. Get your buyer to see you through that lens, and you’re golden.

Over To You

You now have 15 new tips and techniques to throw down this quarter. Many of these data-backed moves come from Gong.io’s own findings and have proven to be effective for us. Implement them, and I know you’ll boost your numbers.

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Effective Sales Presentations: 11 Tips to Win Deals + Templates

What makes a sales presentation truly effective?

Is it that secret-sauce font, the comprehensive case studies, intricate graphs, or your shining personality? Or is it… something else?

It might seem like a simple question, but understanding the answer unlocks a world of opportunities for sales reps.

If your sales presentations are truly effective, they should accomplish these 4 things:

• Give prospects confidence in your brand
• Develop a deep relationship and mutual understanding of needs and priorities
• Convince potential customers of the value of your product
• Give clear direction for the next conversation

How many of your recent sales meetings have fallen short of these results?

A study by Forrester of more than 300 C-level buyers found that many reps are lacking key information for a successful sales meeting:

Put simply, most salespeople go into meetings:

• Unprepared for questions
• Without knowledge of the business or industry they’re selling to
• Without understanding the prospect’s situation and problems
• Without relevant social proof

Want to avoid falling into the trap of generic, ineffective sales presentations?

While preparing for and delivering a really good sales presentation isn’t an exact science, the following best practices will lead you to better results.

Let’s dive into the top methods sales professionals are using to nail their presentations and deliver killer sales pitches .

How to Prepare the Perfect Sales Pitch Presentation

Think you can get away with giving a great sales presentation on the fly? Think again. A PowerPoint presentation that was thrown together over lunch is not going to impress your decision-makers.

Preparation is a key aspect of every effective sales presentation.

Here are five ways you can prepare for success:

1. Set a Clear Agenda

Your sales presentation is built to guide the conversation and gives you a structure to work with throughout the meeting. But the prospect doesn’t know how your presentation is structured.

Does this situation sound familiar?

Prospect: “This is really interesting, but how does your product solve XYZ?”

You : “Actually, we’ll talk about that in a few slides. Anyway, as I was saying…”

These kinds of interruptions are common, and the popular response of “We’ll get to that” doesn’t normally go over very well with prospects.

Here’s how to avoid this: Set a clear agenda for the conversation, and share that with your prospects.

This could mean sharing an outline of the presentation topics you’ve prepared, or it can mean sharing the whole sales presentation with your prospect.

This way, your prospect can review the information before your meeting, see where you’ll cover certain topics, and save their questions for the right moment.

2. Adapt Your Script and Presentation

Above, we saw that 77 percent of reps enter meetings without a clear understanding of the issues that their prospect is facing, or areas where they can help.

There are two clear ways to fix this problem:

First, do your homework. The more you know about your potential client's business and current situation, the better. Also, try to understand their industry and target audience, read up on current news in the sector, and get a feel for the particular pain points this person is likely feeling the most.

Second, base your presentation and accompanying sales script on your ideal customer profile. If your sales team has multiple ideal customer profiles to sell to, discover which profile this prospect fits into and base your arguments, questions, and main points on the specific needs of this profile.

3. Pick Three Main Points for Each Prospect

No matter how many crazy statistics and fun features you throw at your prospect, they’re still only human. Shocking, we know.

In other words, they’ll probably forget at least half of what you say.

To create effective sales presentations that your prospects will remember, focus on three main bullet points that you want to highlight.

This isn’t a number we pulled from a hat. It’s based on an experiment performed by Kurt A. Carlson and Suzanne B. Shu. Their study found that, when your audience knows you’re trying to persuade them, the ideal number of positive claims to make is three. After four claims, your audience will start to become more and more skeptical of anything you say.

The title of their paper is a catchy phrase to help you remember this principle: Three Charms but Four Alarms .

So, go through your slides and pick three key points that you want your prospect to remember. Maybe these will be product features or maybe not, but once again, base these points on the real, felt needs of your prospect. You’ll see better results.

During the presentation, draw your audience's attention to these points as you introduce new ideas. Phrases like these draw attention at the right moments:

• Here’s the point…
• This is crucial…
• But this is what matters…
• But it gets even better...
• This next point is really important...
• This is what XYZ could mean for you, Jack…

And make sure these key points lead directly where you want them to—to your call to action. If they aren’t leading you to that, what’s the point?

For more, check out this video, where I talked in-depth about captivating and directing your prospect's attention during a sales conversation. Remember: whether you're delivering in-person or via video conferencing, maintaining eye contact and using body language to draw attention to main points works.

4. Use Visuals to Show, Not Tell

A sales deck can have several different functions. For example, if your sales deck is going to be read and discussed among stakeholders at your prospect’s company, it will need to include text that explains the visuals presented.

However, if you’re giving a sales presentation with that deck, it doesn’t need all that text.

To prepare a sales presentation for a product or service, make sure you include infographics and visuals that complement what you’re saying. You can use Canva or even a responsive whiteboard to do this.

Think of your slides as visual aids that give more meaning and context to your words.

These visuals can help to:

• Simplify complex processes
• Provide a clearer understanding of data/metrics
• Add credence to your words
• Keep your audience engaged
• Help your audience remember main points (this one is backed by science )

In short, for an effective sales presentation, keep your script and your slides separate. Use your words to add meaning to the visuals, and use your visuals to maximize the power of your words. With this approach, you will elevate your value proposition —and increase your close rate.

5. Show Them You Know Their Pain

Using a narrative in your presentation shows that you’re sympathetic to the problems your prospects are facing and that you know how to solve them.

So, what’s the narrative for your product?

Generally, the story you tell with your presentation will follow this pattern:

• There is a problem caused by a shift in the market, a change in the company’s circumstances, or the world situation
• That problem is solved, the business is saved, and your product is the hero

A compelling narrative that captures the feelings and frustrations of your prospect shows them that you understand them, you’re on the same page, and you’re here to help.

Maybe this is the story of how your product was born, to solve a problem internally at your own company. Maybe it’s the story of one of your successful customers. Or maybe it’s just a narrative that they can relate to and see themselves in.

In any case, using stories instead of just facts makes your presentation more memorable. According to one study, people only retain about 5-10 percent of the statistical information they hear. But they’ll remember 65-70 percent of the information they hear as stories.

Take advantage of this fact: Turn your data into a narrative.

Once you’ve prepared your sales deck and accompanying script, you’re ready to nail your next sales presentation.

Or are you?

Day-Of Sales Presentation Tips: Nail Your Next Sales Presentation

Ready for the big day? Here are six more tips you can use while actively presenting to your prospect, to give a truly effective sales presentation.

6. Open With Your Biggest Selling Point (Don’t Save it for the End)

Many sales reps like to save their product’s biggest selling point for the very end of their presentation, as if they’re coming to some grand crescendo.

But your prospect didn’t come to this meeting hoping to hear the Philharmonic Orchestra play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. So, don’t play this pitch deck like another day at the theater.

Instead, open with your big selling points. Dazzle your prospects from the get-go, and you’ll have them hooked to the end.

To be counted among the Sales Success Stories and Stars of your organization… just go for it. Get the show on the road with a big opening. Leave them in (happy) tears.

7. Ask Open-Ended Questions

To understand your prospects and to keep them engaged with your presentation, questions are essential.

But wait, if you’re giving a sales presentation, aren’t you the one that’s supposed to be doing the talking? You answer the questions, right?

True. But, how do you know if your prospect is paying attention? How can you highlight the relevant points in your presentation if you don’t know what interests them?

To engage your prospect and draw them into your presentation, ask questions like:

• Can you walk me through how your team handles [problem]?
• Have you found any clever workarounds for when [issue] happens?
• What would your ideal solution to this problem look like?
• How would you expect a solution to this problem to affect your team?

It’s true; you’ve probably asked a lot of similar questions during the qualifying stage . But with these questions, you can lead the conversation and keep your prospect engaged with what you’re saying.

Open-ended questions will also help you with the next tip:

8. Build Context Around Your Biggest Value Points and Differentiators

The same questions we shared above can help add context to what you’re saying.

Don’t just tell the prospect: “ Our product helps you solve X problem. ”

Add meaning to that value point by asking questions:

• How often do you face X problem?
• How much time/money do you lose when this happens?
• How does X problem affect the morale/productivity of your team?

When you have the numbers clear, reiterate the problem: “ So, you lose $X every week because of this problem. That’s more than $Y per year that’s going down the drain until you solve this issue. ”

Then, bring in your value point: “With our product, you could save $Z every year by eliminating this problem for your team.”

The same method works for highlighting your key differentiators.

Instead of telling prospects that your product is the best because it’s the only one that does X, lead prospects to the features and benefits that set your product apart with open-ended questions.

This creates value and context around a problem that only your product can solve.

9. Make Social Proof Engaging: Mirror the Prospect’s Situation

This data blew our minds and will probably blow yours, too: According to studies from our friends at Gong , sellers who use social proof in their sales calls have a 22 percent lower close rate .

Have you noticed a similar pattern with social proof in your sales presentations?

We all know that social proof is a powerful tool in the hands of sales reps and marketers. No need to throw out all your social media customer quotes or company testimonials. But, it must be used correctly to work effectively.

Otherwise, you could actually hurt your chances of closing.

So, what’s the correct way to use social proof in your presentations?

Favor customers that are part of this prospect’s tribe .

For example, imagine you’re selling to an SMB, and you tell them that Facebook is your customer. They’ll be impressed, sure… but they’ll also start to wonder if your product is really a good fit for their small business.

Instead, when selling to SMBs, talk about your other SMB customers. Use examples of happy customers who are in the same field or industry. Or, find customer stories that mirror this prospect—with similar pain points.

With tribal social proof, you’ll gain the respect of prospects while demonstrating that you truly “get” them.

10. Never Talk Price Before Value

Chances are, you’re talking price somewhere in this sales presentation. At this stage in the sales pipeline , it’s normal that your prospect is ready to hear what your solution will cost.

But don’t open the conversation like this.

Sometimes, you get into a room (whether in-person or virtual) with your main point of contact and important stakeholders, and the first thing they want to know is: “How much will this cost us?”

One of the golden rules of sales is this: Never talk price before value .

If you fold to the pressure and start off by talking about the price of your solution, your audience will view your product as a commodity, not as a valuable solution to their problem.

When stakeholders push you for a number, don’t be afraid to push back. If they’re insistent, turn the question back around on them:

“Before we talk about price, let me ask you this: How much will it cost your company if you don’t get these issues solved by next quarter?”

By focusing on the real monetary value that your product provides, you’ll help position your product as a premium solution, not a wholesale band-aid.

11. Keep It Less Than 10 Minutes

Did you know that every presenter at Apple’s product launches speaks for just 10 minutes or less?

This is because science tells us that the brain gets bored easily—our attention spans just can’t expand beyond a certain point. However, you can reengage your audience by introducing a change every 10 minutes.

Apply this principle to your keynote sales presentations: If you’re presenting longer than 10 minutes, the prospect’s interest will steadily decline. Wrap it up.

Our friends at Gong found that there’s a sweet spot for winning sales presentations: 9.1 minutes. It’s like the ideal elevator pitch for sales presentations.

So, stick to this rule of thumb: Keep your presentations under 10 minutes.

Sales Presentation Templates: Use These Sales Pitch Decks to Win More Deals

Want to build a stellar sales pitch presentation? Steal these presentation templates and customize them to your business—including stunning visuals, striking text, and a presentation process that wins deals.

Get the Powerpoint or Keynote version of these templates, and start creating your own effective sales presentations!

Ready to Give the Best Sales Presentation Ever?

You’ve got all the pro tips you need to nail your next presentation.

In the end, you want to demonstrate that you understand your prospect’s needs and concerns. Show you “get” them by adding a compelling narrative and including customer stories that mirror their own situation.

An effective presentation must also be engaging, which is why it’s essential to highlight three main points and add context with open-ended questions.

With this info, you’re ready to deliver a winning sales presentation. ( Psst... don't forget to use our sales presentation templates to get started!)

But what happens next? There are still some unaccounted-for areas of the sales process. If you want to really crush the follow-up and close more deals, you need a CRM to help you do it.

Close CRM does all this—and so much more. Watch our demo or try Close free for 14 days.

More articles from The Close Blog

Discover our latest free sales tools powered by AI

Learn from the sales pros with our free sales guides.

10+ Sales PowerPoint Presentation Examples To Get Inspired!

One of the biggest challenges B2B sales and marketing teams face is creating sales presentations that impress potential customers and lead to conversions.

So, what does an excellent sales presentation look like? Today, we'll explore some of the best examples to help you craft your own outstanding presentation. And that’s not all, we’ve interviewed our head of sales, Robert Juul Glaesel , to provide you with the BEST insights to unlock success. So…let's dive in!

We’ll be covering the following topics

What is a sales presentation?

Sales presentation vs. sales deck vs. pitch deck.

• Sales Presentation PPT Examples - and why they were successful

Sales Powerpoint Presentation Templates

Sales presentation video examples, get ready to create the best sales presentation: tips from our sales expert, unlock success: expert support for your sales presentation design.

Let’s start from the top! - Or, as always, you can skip to your preferred section.

A sales presentation is a crucial part of the sales process. It refers to a meeting where a sales team showcases their product or service , persuading potential customers to purchase.

This meeting typically takes place after initial contact with the prospects , either through marketing efforts, cold calls, or expressions of interest from potential customers themselves.

In this meeting, the sales team usually provides a comprehensive overview of the product or service. They address key points such as:

• What is the product or service?
• How is it used?
• What distinctive features does it have?
• What problem does it solve?
• Why is this their best option?

→ Free Download: 10+ Sales PowerPoint presentation template [Access Now]

The sales presentation and sales deck are pretty similar. On one hand, a sales presentation is designed to persuade potential customers about the value of your product or service. It typically includes detailed information about your product, its features, benefits, pricing, case studies, testimonials, and more.

On the other hand, a sales deck is essentially a condensed version of a sales presentation . It is usually concise and only includes key highlights.

In contrast, a pitch deck is a presentation created for investors to secure funding. It generally contains information about the company's vision, the problem it aims to solve, market opportunities, business model, and financial projections.

Sales Presentation PPT Examples: and why they were successful

Below are several sales presentation examples you can use as inspiration to create your own. Let’s look at each of them and see exactly why they were successful.

Spendesk is a powerful spend management platform designed to help users save time and money by offering a clear view of their company expenses. Their sales presentation is the definition of a successful sales presentation: it is incredibly clear and straightforward . It clearly defines the problem it solves and introduces you to the solution, highlighting how it stands out from the competition.

As you’ll see, this presentation is not overloaded with text - it's simple and easily shows you how the product works. And most importantly, it’s branded! Which is key for brand positioning and visual consistency .

To check it out, click here .

Reddit Advertisement Sales Presentation

Reddit's sales presentation is definitely one of a kind. By incorporating memes and other pop-culture images throughout their deck, they engage the audience and stay true to their brand identity . This approach not only resonates with the Reddit community but also sets them apart from mundane sales pitches.

The presentation not only provides valuable data and showcases the effectiveness of its product but also does so effortlessly, proving that a presentation does not have to be overly serious to be effective.

Click here to explore Reddit's engaging sales presentation.

Zuora, a SaaS platform for subscription billing, takes a compelling approach in its sales presentation. It starts by highlighting the industry's changing landscape , effectively showing the importance of adapting to these changes.

But Zuora doesn't stop there. Throughout their presentation, they also showcase what their platform can do for the audience and provide social proof to back it up . This includes quotes from CEOs and other business executives who have successfully used their platform to improve their subscription billing process.

See for yourself and check out one of the best sales deck examples here .

Drift, a web-based live-chat tool for sales and marketing, takes a unique approach to its sales presentation. They begin by highlighting a common problem that many businesses face : how traditional communication methods, such as email, calls, and forms, are insufficient.

The presentation then goes on to showcase how Drift can provide a solution to this problem. They demonstrate how their live chat tool offers a more personalized approach to communication that can lead to impactful results.

Check out Drift's impressive sales presentation here .

Salesforce, an integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, provides a valuable lesson about creating sales presentations that convert . They start by explaining how the industry has undeniable changes and how we need to adapt to keep our businesses successful.

But they don't stop there. They continue showing us what things can look like, in other words, "the promised land," and how their product can change everything about how companies do things. And obviously, they finish with the greatest success stories from CEOs and clothes executives.

Click here to get inspired by the Salesforce presentation.

→ Free Download: 10+ Sales PowerPoint presentation PDF [FREE]

Snapchat Advertising

Snapchat Advertising's sales presentation stands out not only for its visually appealing design but also for its unique features. The presentation begins by emphasizing the vast reach of its platform and key age demographics, providing valuable insights for those looking to make the most of their marketing campaign .

In addition, Snapchat Advertising effectively compares itself to the competition, showcasing its unique features and advantages. And, of course, the presentation is visually branded with the company's iconic ghost character , making it instantly recognizable.

Check out their captivating sales presentation here .

Klima’s sales presentation is a special one. This climate change app’s presentation makes sure we know they are a company that focuses on “what truly matters.” It presents itself as a business with real, global impact.

And that’s not all. One standout feature of Klima's sales presentation is its visually appealing design. The slides effectively showcase the app's interface and demonstrate its key features. This visual representation really helps prospects consider getting an employee benefit with purpose .

Click here to get inspired by one of the greatest b2b sales deck examples.

Are you ready to create the best Sales PowerPoint presentation? We’ve got great news for you! Discover our sales presentation templates that you can download for exactly $0 .

Any of these templates could be a GREAT starting point for your next sales presentation . And what’s best…they are completely free for you to download at our Templates platform ! You’ll find not only these ones but also hundreds of other PowerPoint templates, for ANY industry, completely at your disposal.

Sales presentations can take various forms, including videos. Video presentations can effectively engage and captivate the audience by combining visual content, audio narration, and sometimes animations or graphics. Here are a few examples of sales presentations that are delivered in video format:

Medallia's video presentation showcases the effectiveness of using video to clearly represent their platform. The video highlights the platform's features, demonstrating how it can be a powerful tool for businesses.

By utilizing video, Medallia effectively shows viewers what the platform looks like and what they can expect to access and analyze in terms of data. The detailed exploration of each feature gives potential clients a comprehensive understanding of the platform's capabilities and how it can benefit their business.

Click here to check it out.

Moodcaster, a digital casting platform, starts with the main problem: how time-consuming castings can be and how tedious auditions are . It then shows you how they can be a great solution and how the platform works.

This video presentation truly shows what the client can expect when using the platform , by showing the process step-by-step. And if they are not convinced yet, it ends up listing all the fantastic features it has one by one, leaving the best impression.

Click here to view Moodcaster’s incredible video sales presentation.

Viable, the pioneering experience analysis platform, doesn't just identify the problem you're facing; it swiftly transitions to showcasing how they can provide the solution . They offer a real-time demonstration of how their platform works, providing concrete insights into how it can improve your business.

Finally, they conclude by highlighting all the advantages, features, and versatile applications that can benefit your specific needs.

Click here to take a look at Viable’s video sales presentation.

We know that creating the best sales presentation is key for your business. So, in order to provide valuable insights, we consulted Robert Juul Glaesel , head of sales at 24 Slides, who understands the importance of a good presentation for your business.

Let’s take a look at some insights from our head of sales:

Insight #1: Take elements out instead of adding elements in

Remember that quality is always more important than quantity . So, keep in mind not to overload your presentation with excessive text, because your audience’s attention will go directly there, instead of your speech. In Robert’s words:

“If you incorporate too many elements, it results in clutter, obscuring the main message and making it more challenging for the presenter to effectively convey their message.”

Insight #2: Don’t rely on your slides

We know this might sound counterintuitive, given that all this article is about creating your presentation, but remember that the presentation and the story are yours . As Robert says:

“Make sure that your presentation supports your story, it shouldn't tell your story. You, as the presenter, are the storyteller. Therefore, presentations should emphasize key points.”

Bonus insight #3: Brand your sales presentation !

This is one of your most crucial presentations; it should reflect who you are . There should be consistency between what they see on your website, social media, etc., and what they will see in this presentation. So, it is extremely important that you show that you care about your image and pay close attention to detail.

Creating a sales presentation is an incredibly important task, so it's best to leave it to the experts. Here at 24Slides , we can assist you in creating an amazing sales presentation that perfectly aligns with your brand. All you need to do is share the content you want to include and your brand guidelines. In less than 48 hours, you'll have your presentation ready for sales!

Want to learn more? Check out these articles!

• The Best Sales Presentation Services for Winning Sales Decks
• How to Create the Perfect B2B Sales Presentation
• Learn How to Start an Effective Sales Presentation
• Top 20 Free Templates for Corporate and Business Presentations
• +20 Self Introduction PowerPoint Templates: Download for free!

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7 Sales Presentation Examples for Successful Pitches

A successful sales presentation can significantly influence a potential client’s decision-making process. It needs to be engaging, informative, and persuasive.

This guide explores the components of an effective sales presentation, and best practices for creating one, and provides seven exemplary sales presentation templates from various sources.

What Is a Sales Presentation?

A sales presentation is a strategic dialogue designed to persuade a potential client or customer to purchase a product or service. It typically involves a detailed explanation of the product’s features, benefits, and potential return on investment.

What Is Included in a Sales Presentation?

A sales presentation typically includes sections on:

• Introduction : Brief introduction of the company and the presenter.
• Customer Needs : Identification of the client’s needs and how they align with the product or service.
• Product/Service Details : Detailed information about the product or service, highlighting unique selling points.
• Success Stories : Real-life examples or case studies demonstrating the value of the product or service.
• Pricing and Packages : Overview of pricing options and any customizable packages.
• Call to Action : Strong conclusion that prompts the audience to act or decide.

Sales Presentation Best Practices

Creating an effective sales presentation involves several best practices:

• Tailor Your Message : Customize the presentation to address the specific needs and interests of your audience.
• Keep It Concise : Focus on key points to maintain the audience’s attention and keep the presentation within an appropriate timeframe.
• Use Visuals : Employ charts, graphs, and images to make your points clearer and more engaging.
• Rehearse : Practice your presentation multiple times to ensure smooth delivery.
• Engage Your Audience : Encourage questions and interact with the audience to make the presentation more dynamic.

7 Sales Presentation Examples

1) piktochart: “sales pitch examples”.

Piktochart’s Sales Pitch Examples illustrate how to effectively communicate the value of your product or service. These examples showcase various strategies to capture and retain the audience’s interest, making them highly practical for anyone looking to enhance their sales presentations.

Canva Sales Presentation Template offers visually appealing templates designed to make sales presentations more engaging. These templates are easy to customize and suitable for a wide array of industries, helping presenters create professional-looking presentations effortlessly.

2) Slidebean Sales Pitch Deck Template

Slidebean Sales Pitch Deck Template is designed to streamline the creation of impactful sales presentations. The template guides users through structuring an effective pitch, emphasizing the art of storytelling to captivate potential investors and clients.

3) Prezi Sales Plan Presentation Template

Prezi Sales Plan Presentation Template offers a dynamic way to engage audiences with its distinctive zoomable canvas. The template allows sales professionals to outline their strategies and goals in a visually engaging sequence that captures the natural flow of a sales process.

It is designed to help presenters illustrate complex sales plans through a structured yet flexible narrative, enabling the audience to follow along through a visual journey of targets, tactics, and expected outcomes.

4) Queza : Pastel Color Sales Marketing Powerpoint

Queza : Pastel Color Sales Marketing Powerpoint from Envato Elements is designed with pastel colors and a clean, modern aesthetic, making it ideal for sales and marketing presentations that require a fresh and inviting look. This PowerPoint template is versatile, featuring a range of slide layouts that can be used to showcase products, market analysis, sales strategies, and more.

5) SlideSalad Sales Deck PowerPoint Templates

SlideSalad Sales Deck PowerPoint Templates ****offer a comprehensive sales deck that is robust and creatively appealing, ideal for making impactful sales presentations. It features hundreds of unique slides designed for various sales niches, allowing for extensive customization.

6) Solua : Cyber Monday Sale Event Powerpoint

The Cyber Monday Sale Event PowerPoint on Envato Elements is a powerhouse for creating high-impact sales presentations. This template features a modern design that effectively combines bold colors and sleek layouts to capture audience’s attention. It includes multiple slide options to showcase products, promotional offers, and pricing strategies.

7) SlideModel Sales Pitch Presentation Template

SlideModel Sales Pitch Presentation Template offers professionally designed templates tailored for sales presentations. These templates are structured to facilitate clear communication of complex data, strategic alignment, and persuasive storytelling. They are particularly useful for sales teams looking to present data-driven arguments effectively.

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Sales Presentation 101: Examples and Ideas That Can Help You Present Like a Pro

Updated On: 14 Apr, 2023

Your sales presentation can make or break a deal.

No, that is not an exaggeration. While it is true that a customer’s final decision depends on many other aspects of the product, one cannot deny that an effective sales presentation significantly influence their decision. If done right and at the right moment, your sales presentation can accelerate the buyer’s decision. 

Making a solid sales presentation requires storytelling skills , a robust structure, and some planning. Your presentation has to provide a unique perspective on the product that the customer wouldn’t have normally thought of. 

Let’s find out what a good sales presentation should look like. From the structure to the key elements every sales presentation needs, we’ll cover everything you need to know. 

What Are the Principles of An Effective Sales Presentation?

• How To Build A Sales Presentation? 

How To Deliver a Sales Presentation

Great sales presentation ideas, what to do after a sales presentation.

• Conclusion 

It is important to understand that a sales presentation is much more than a sales pitch . A sales pitch is an attempt to persuade a buyer to consider your product. It is something that your sales team does every day, in every preliminary interaction with a prospect.

Sales pitches are relatively easy because they are mostly one-to-one, over a call or an email. You only need to convince that one person and when that’s done you successfully close the deal. In a sales presentation though, you have to face more than one decision-maker.

In a nutshell, technically a sales presentation is similar to a sales pitch but far more elaborate and complex.

Sales presentations are driven by certain principles; they are – 

1. Personalization  

A sales presentation cannot be generic. If you wish to connect with your audience and sell them the idea, you have to personalize your presentation to fit their use case.

To do this effectively, learn about the buyer’s primary pain points and focus your presentation on these issues. The buyer needs to feel understood to have trust in your pitch. 

For example when we pitch Kylas to our potential buyers, instead of focusing on our features we rather convey how the tool will benefit their business and fit their use case. This helps user understand in what ways the product/service can help them.

2. Simple and To-The-Point

Time is valuable. Both yours and your audience’s. So your sales presentation has to cut straight to the point. Of course, you would need to give them a brief introduction and context. But don’t beat around the bush or bore your audience with too many industry statistics, jargons or your company history. Grab their attention in as little time as you can. 

3. Focus On the Problem

The sales presentation needs to focus on the problem and not skip to the solution. Through the sales presentation, you need to help the buyer understand their problem even better. When the buyer sees that you know the problem better than they do, they assume that you probably have the best solution too. 

4. Differentiators Are Best Left for the End

A common tendency of sales leaders is to highlight the differentiators from the very start of the sales presentation. This only comes across as desperate and pushing to make a sale. Differentiators should not lead your sales presentations. Your buyer should themselves see how you are different from your competitors. 

Once the buyer gains an insight into the key problems they face, they can be led to the differentiators. At this point, feel free to show them how your product can address the problem that your competitors can’t. 

5. Connect With the Decision-Makers  

If you talk like a sales rep, you will automatically be directed to interact with an equivalent position in the buyer’s company. If you really want to make an impression on the decision-makers, you have to talk in a language that executives would relate to.

Product specs and features are best left to the end-users or IT teams. Decision-makers need to hear how the product will impact the business as a whole. 

6. Conversational  

Don’t make the sales presentation sound like a sales pitch. Presentations need to be more conversational and flow more naturally. Encourage questions and engage in a two-way conversation to ensure that the buyer is equally invested in the presentation. 

How To Build A Sales Presentation?  

Now that you know the underlying principles of a good sales presentation, you need to know how to build one. Every sales presentation needs to have a structure to it. How you open the presentation, what you talk about in the body of the presentation, and how you close it are crucial. 

So what goes into creating a killer sales deck ? Let’s look at the structure of a perfect sales presentation step-by-step. 

1. Here Is How You Should Begin Your Sales Presentation

You always start with a brief introduction of yourself and your company. Once the pleasantries are out of the way, go on to the important part. 

Highlight the Problem  

Every sales presentation needs to have a problem statement. It is the problem that you aim to solve with your product. So without much ado, get to explaining the problem you want to address. It could be a change in the industry that needs organizations to catch up or a specific problem at the buyer’s end that you have identified and can help solve. 

The customer may not be aware that they have a pain point that needs to be addressed. It is your job to make them see where they are lacking. Also, show them what they could achieve if these issues are taken care of. 

Use numbers and figures to quantify the problem. It helps drive home the point better. Say things like, “you are losing X amount in revenue each year” or “Y number of your customers are slipping through the cracks because of this”. 

This helps them understand the scale of the problem. It also creates a sense of urgency as the buyer surely doesn’t want more damage done. Tell the buyer how much more they could lose if they didn’t apply a solution right away. 

2. Body of Sales Presentation  

Now that the buyer is aware they have a problem, it is time to offer a solution. 

2.1 Present the Solution  

At this stage, you need to talk about the product you are offering and how it can help them. Your product could cater to many different users. So you should be careful that the positives you highlight are meaningful and relevant to the current buyer in question. Discuss more on how it helps them solve their specific problem instead of discussing common features. 

But words alone can’t do a good enough job of convincing your buyer. You need to back it up with data. 

2.2 How to Present Sales Data and Performance ?

Presenting sales data and performance reports at a sales presentation is a tricky job. You don’t want your audience dozing off at the sight of all those numbers and figures. But you definitely want them to see what you have achieved so far. 

The golden path here is to only show what is relevant and rely on visual representations. Create charts, graphs, and infographics to support your presentation. Present the results of case studies that show what your customers have gained from using your product.

Use data from customers who have a similar profile as the current buyer. This helps the buyer relate better and see your solution as truly useful. 

For instance, if you are pitching to a startup, you cannot show them what an MNC has gained using your product. The scale and priorities of the two businesses are very different. So, the buyer may not see this as an ideal solution for themselves. 

Use social proof wherever it fits. Share a few customer testimonials or reviews. Again the customer reviews you are sharing should be from companies in the same space as the buyer. 

Keep your data engaging, meaningful, and limited. 

2.3 What Makes a Good Sales Presentation?

A good sales presentation should be short but impactful. Many thought leaders in the industry suggest that your sales presentation  should not be longer than 10 minutes . Within these 10 minutes, you have to cover everything that the buyer can find useful in making a purchase decision. 

Maintain consistency throughout your presentation. Everything from the images you use to the brand colours and logos should be coherent. Make sure you have researched the buyer well enough. Wherever you need to use their brand assets, ensure that you are using the right ones. 

3. How to End a Sales Presentation  

After you have said all that needed to be said, it is time to close your presentation. You can add a final slide highlighting the next steps. This should be more like a call to action. If the buyer decides to move forward with the purchase, what do they need to do? Finally, leave the floor open for questions from the audience. 

Let the buyer come up with their queries and concerns. The answers that you provide at this stage are going to be very crucial to the deal. 

Building a good sales presentation is only the first part of this complex job. How you deliver the presentation plays an even more crucial role in this. Presentation skills are going to matter a lot in how you influence the buyer. 

Here are a few quick tips for the presenter. 

1. Be Confident Inside and Outside

The first thing your audience is going to notice is how confident you are about the whole situation. Your confidence has to reflect in your speech and your body language. If you can deliver the presentation even without the slides, it shows that you know what you are talking about. Avoid looking at the slides every second. 

Stand/ sit straight and be careful about the hand gestures you make. Keep them minimal if you are not sure what to do. Try to look optimistic and in control of the situation. 

2. Modulate your Tone  

The last thing anyone wants from a sales presentation is a boring, monotonous voice just reading out the slides. A lot of your charisma exudes from the way you talk. So use your voice well. Modulate where necessary. Know which points to stress on and where to use a lighter tone. This also helps direct the attention of the audience to the right points. 

3. Look Involved  

If you want your audience to be invested in the presentation, you have to look involved yourself. For instance, if your audience consists of C-suite executives and you are selling a software solution, you need to be dressed for the occasion.

If you are presenting to an audience of young, energetic entrepreneurs running a startup, you will need to exude the same kind of energy. 

When you look involved, your audience automatically trusts you. 

4. Do Not Assume That the Audience Cares About Your Product

The audience does not care about the product you are selling. They only care about the problem they face. So don’t assume that they would be familiar with your product. You need to ensure that everyone is on board when you start your presentation. Look for their reactions during the presentation and see if they are following. 

Change your pace accordingly and let them ask questions mid-way if they need to. 

There are some common sales presentation examples that you can learn from. These templates can help you build on and create a solid sales pitch. 

1. The Product Demo  

One way of going about your sales presentation is by giving a demo of the product you are selling. In this case, you don’t even need those slides. You can give your prospects a taste of what your product offers first-hand. If this is a feasible option, then you should definitely go for it. 

It can be far more engaging than a slideshow. But it may also be a little time-consuming, so you will need to plan well. 

2. The Data-Backed Sales Presentation  

Another very convincing template is the data-driven presentation that offers proof that your solution works. The idea here is not to stuff the presentation with numbers but to show your buyers what you can provide in an engaging way. Create infographics, videos, graphs, and handouts that will keep your audience engaged and informed. 

3. The Minimalistic but Confident Sales Presentation

If you are confident about the product you are selling, you don’t need much, really. You can even present without a slide deck or a demo. Just prepare your pitch well, invite questions from the audience, and offer convincing answers. If you are doing it right, it should be enough to take them further down the sales funnel . This kind of confidence only comes from experience though, so tread very carefully. 

The job does not end with delivering a good sales presentation. You have work even after the presentation is over. Your audience will likely have some questions they want to ask. Also, they won’t be making a purchase decision immediately after your presentation. 

1. Accept Questions  

Always encourage your audience to get back to you with more questions if they need to, even after you have left their office. This keeps the door open for communication. It also helps build a stronger relationship with the prospect. 

2. Follow Up  

If the prospect does not get back, you have to follow up yourself. Give them some time to ponder, and then send a follow-up email or make a call. Ask them if they need any further assistance to help finalize their decision. 

Conclusion  

Though you may think that a sales presentation is just another sales pitch, it is so much more. The power of your sales presentation can only be unleashed if you know how to do it right. The sales presentation gives you the opportunity to share your customers’ stories, highlight your achievements and demonstrate what value you can offer to a prospect.

Letting go of an opportunity like this would be a mistake. So invest some time and effort into making a winning sales presentation and using sales CRM software for your growing business.  

Boost your sales productivity and nail your sales target with customizable sales CRM software .

If you want your business to scale new heights,  Kylas  is the answer for you. Kylas Sales CRM tool can help you streamline your sales by providing you with Custom Sales Insights and more. Contact us today to know more!

Shagun Sharma

Shagun is a content marketer at Kylas, extremely well-versed in all things Marketing. She works closely with the sales team to create best-in-class content for our readers. Her experience combined with her thorough research skills makes all her blogs very in-depth and insightful. In her leisure time, Shagun enjoys hiking, gardening, and immersing herself in music.

• Sales Best Practices
• Sales Productivity
• Sales Techniques

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The Most Effective Sales Presentation Tips & Techniques

Selling is difficult, but sales presentations can help. This article demystifies the art of creating a winning sales presentation that connects with your customers and increases your revenue.

Dag Hendrik Lerdal

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Selling is difficult, but one of the most effective tools sales reps have in their back pocket is the sales presentation. When done right, it’s the key to landing more deals and generating higher revenue for your business. 

However, it takes more than throwing together a couple of PowerPoint slides and calling it a day. It requires compelling content and engaging delivery to close the deal. 

In this article, we will demystify the art of creating a winning sales presentation that connects with your customers and ultimately drives more sales. 

Understanding Sales Presentations

Before we get into what makes a sales presentation “good,” let’s first make sure we’re on the same page about what a sales presentation is. At its core, a sales presentation is a meeting between your sales team and the key stakeholders of your target client company. 

The ultimate goal is to convince them that your product/service is the best solution for their business needs. This means you need a clear understanding of their business challenges, solutions, and goals. 

What sets a sales presentation apart from a typical sales pitch is the scope and resource requirement.

Sales presentations are usually geared toward going after big-ticket deals and generally have multiple stakeholders that will have the final say. Also, sales presentations will often have a product/service demo so the target customer can see your offering in action.

With so much on the line and so much to gain, a sales presentation also requires more time, money, and effort in preparing and planning to make sure everything goes smoothly.

What Makes a Winning Sales Presentation?

Beyond the speech and visuals, there are five core components that elevate a sales presentation from “nay” to “yay.” These five elements include:

1. Doing Your Homework

Knowledge is power, and it’s even more true when it comes to creating a sales presentation that actually closes deals. You need to clearly understand what challenges and pain points concern your prospects. Then, you can tailor your sales presentation to present how your solution adds value and helps them address these issues.

It requires you to do extensive research into your target company and their industry:

• What unique challenges do they face?
• What are some issues they might have to deal with later?
• How can you help them become more competitive?

By digging deep, you can provide a custom solution that can ultimately get them on board.

2. Telling a Story

Use the art of storytelling to your advantage. Stories are a great tool for helping your prospects visualize and internalize how your solution will work for them. Of course, that doesn’t mean you need to be Stephen King – you can rely on anecdotes from real clients.

However, make sure to keep your story concise and focus on the key points. Showing the real-world potential of your offering carries more weight and helps your prospect see its value.

I love this breakdown by Consultant’s Mind:  

3. Highlighting the Value Proposition

Yes, your product has X awesome features and can do this and that. But honestly, your prospect doesn’t care about those. They want to hear what your product can do for them. 

How is it going to solve their problems? How will it make their life easier?

That’s what you want the core of your sales presentation to answer. It doesn’t need to be overly complicated, either. 

You can simply say, “[Product X] will help [Company A] solve [Pain Point 1] and [Pain Point 2] by doing [Benefit 1], [Benefit 2], and [Benefit 3].”

4. Providing Credibility in Your Sales Presentation

Of course, you can’t just say, “X will do Y,” without having proof to back up your claim. That’s where social proof and data come into play.

Leverage past happy clients to give testimonials to show your product/service provides tangible benefits.

You can also use research data such as statistics, quotes from experts, and product comparisons to give your presentation more weight. For example, saying “X can cut downtime by X%” is more actionable than “Y saves you time.”

5. Including a CTA

Finally, your sales presentation needs a call to action. A CTA pushes the prospect to make the next move by telling them what they should do. It can be contacting you for more info, signing up for a demo, making a purchase, and anything similar. 

The goal is to make sure the prospect has a clear idea of what they need to do to move things forward.

13 Effective Sales Presentation Tips & Techniques

Now, let’s move into the meat and potatoes of this article: 13 actionable tips and tricks you can implement into your next sales presentation.

1. Presenting with Confidence in Sales

In the sales world, confidence speaks volumes. No one wants to be stuck dealing with a boring presentation. Plus, when your voice is shaky, and you’re stumbling over words, it puts you and your company in a bad light.

So, how do you deliver your presentation confidently? The key is being well-prepared and knowing your stuff. You need to know your sales material and product like the back of your hand. We recommend practicing your sales presentation as much as you can. 

If you want to test yourself, do your presentation without using any of your slides. If you can do that, then you can be confident you can knock it out of the park when it’s go-time. 

2. The Five-Second Rule

While sales presentations are considerably longer than a typical sales pitch, the five-second rule still applies. In the digital age, where attention is a commodity, you have around five seconds to capture your target’s attention.

That means the first few words of your presentation need to be impactful. Try opening up with a shocking industry stat like, “Did you know X costs businesses like yours millions every year?”

Whatever you do, remember to make it relevant to your prospect and their goals or challenges. Once you have them on the hook, you can then guide them to the key aspects of your presentation and how your offering is the right fit for them.

3. Leverage Technology like SlideDog in Your Sales Presentations

Gone are the days of boring PowerPoints and WordArt. Take advantage of tools like SlideDog to kick your sales presentation into high gear. 

With SlideDog , you can combine all of your sales materials and assets into a powerful, engaging presentation to really wow your prospects.

SlideDog is especially helpful when you need to hop between slides and other assets like your website or SaaS product during the presentation. It’s also great when there are multiple sales reps that need to speak because you can seamlessly swap between their presentation media.

Try SlideDog today for free on Windows and turn your presentations into multimedia experiences!

4. Make Sure You Sound, Look, and Act the Part During Your Sales Presentation

Depending on your prospect, your attire, jargon, and attitude needs to match what your audience will expect.

If you’re dealing with CEOs, CFOs, and other executives, then business wear and a professional tone is probably the right choice. If you’re presenting to tech bros in a more casual environment, then your presentation should reflect that. 

When you take this approach, it builds trust and shows that you truly understand them and their industry.

Of course, you don’t need to do it all yourself. Rely on your teammates and their expertise in different areas to create a presentation that connects with each individual in your audience.

As an added bonus, swapping between presenters keeps things fresh and engaging for the audience. 

5. Learn to Handle Objections

Objection handling is a core skill every salesperson needs to learn. There are common objections that pop up, regardless of what you’re selling. 

Typically, prospects have objections that fall into one of four categories:

• Urgency/time

Your goal is to understand your prospect’s reasons for their objections and respond accordingly. 

By using past objections from clients and a deep understanding of the industry, you can frame your sales presentation to pre-emptively address these concerns. Just check out this example from Smartwriter :

6. Physically Demo Your Product/Service

Actions speak louder than words, and you should apply this principle to your sales presentation. Providing physical demonstrations gives your audience a real-world example of what your product can do, and they can more easily envision themselves using it.

Plus, it adds a bit of interactivity to your presentation. It also gives your audience a chance to ask pertinent questions during the demo. This is also a great place to throw in examples of how your product/service has helped previous and current clients.

If you have a tablet or other devices you can share with your audience, it’s an opportunity for them to get hands-on experience with your offering.

7. Make Your Presentation Flow

Your presentation needs a logical and seamless flow as you transition between slides and key points.

First, verbal transitions are a must – in fact, I just used two examples with “first” and “in fact.”  There are a plethora of transitions you probably learned in school, such as “conversely,” “furthermore,” and “therefore,” to name a few. 

However, more advanced transition strategies involve using your body language, speech cadence, emphasis, visual aids, and questions to make it easier for prospects to follow along and understand how everything connects together.

8. Ensure Key Decision-Makers & Stakeholders are Involved

The last thing you want to hear after giving a kickass presentation is, “Let me speak with the district manager and get back to you.”

Make sure the key stakeholders and the person who can say “yes” are at your sales presentation.

On that same note, you want all of them to get hands-on experience with your product/service. Get them involved because when they can picture in their mind how easy your product is to use or how it resolves their issues, it makes it much easier for them to sign off on it. 

9. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for the Deal

After you’ve given your stellar presentation and the customer understands how and why your product benefits them, simply ask them if they are ready to move forward. 

There are many different approaches you can take when asking for a sale. You can use FOMO or “fear of missing out,” which plays on the prospect’s emotion of missing out on a good deal or letting their competition get ahead.

Or you can use an analytical approach where you lay out the pros and cons of your solution. Another method is sweetening the deal with a now-or-never discount or freebie.

There are a ton of different close tactics you can use, so find one that will work best for this particular prospect.

9. Don’t Take the First No for the Final Answer

The best salespeople know that it takes two, three, or more tries to close a deal. If you’ve tried to close the deal and got hit with an objection (see tip 5), then give a thoughtful response and follow up with your attempt to close the deal again.

You might need to wait a while. In this case, work on building your relationship and rapport with the prospect.

That way, when they are ready to pull the trigger, you and your product will be the first solution that comes to mind.

10. Keep Your Presentation Tight and Concise

You don’t want to waste your audience’s time, especially when speaking to executives. Make sure your presentation gets straight to the point. Every word, slide, and media should have a clear point and reason for being there. Even your pauses need to be impactful and poignant.

That’s where practicing and rehearsing your presentation is paramount. You can better control the tempo when you know your presentation inside and out. Create an outline and write out the key points you want your prospects to understand.

In your initial meeting and setting up the presentation time, take notes so you have a clear understanding of what your prospects need to know.

11. Own Your Presentation

You need to take the lead and exude confidence during your presentation. Yes, that sounds like a no-brainer since you’re the one giving the presentation.

You don’t want to say “sorry” or “I apologize,” even if it’s warranted. 

For example, if your slides aren’t showing properly, don’t say, “I’m sorry for the technical issues.”

Instead, you say, “I will be starting the presentation shortly.” 

Another point to keep in mind is to stay away from the ums and uhs in your speech. Not only is it unprofessional, but it gives the impression that you aren’t confident in what you have to say.

Finally, don’t tell your audience what you “think”; tell them what you know. You know your product will solve their problems. You know what benefits your service has to offer.

12. Leave a Lasting Impression

Make your presentation memorable. That doesn’t mean you should expect your audience to remember every minute detail. However, there are things you can do to make sure the key points stay in their mind long after your presentation is over.

One tactic is to use repetition. The details, benefits, and solutions you want them to retain should be mentioned 3 or more times. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad 2, his presentation repeated the idea of “thinner, faster, lighter.”

Another strategy is the visual aids you use throughout your presentation that revolve around your key points. People hold images in their minds more easily than complex ideas.

Finally, you can use text formatting in your slides to highlight what you want your audience to walk away with. This includes bullet points or bolding and underlining keywords that make those pop out.

13. Expect (and Prepare for) the Unexpected

Lastly, our last tip is to understand that you can’t prepare for every eventuality – but you give yourself a better chance for success by expecting and respecting the unexpected. 

There might be technical issues. You might get asked tough questions you aren’t ready for. However, the best presenters roll with the punch and come out swinging.

If you take to heart all of the previous tips, you will be ready to face any challenges that pop up during your presentation.

Wrapping up

Sales presentations can be difficult to master, but when you get them right, they unlock a treasure trove of opportunity.  Remember, a successful presentation starts well before you’re in the room, with your slides behind you and your prospects in front.

Be confident, do your research, and take advantage of tools like SlideDog to elevate your presentation to the next level.

And with these tips and techniques in your arsenal, you’re ready to have a successful and fruitful quarter. Happy presenting!

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11 Essential Sales Presentation Tips To Close The Deal Faster

The truth is, to sell a large quantity of  any  product, there is a set of steps everyone needs to follow. This process is familiar to many, including street vendors who use it easily.

Yet, it often goes unnoticed by many of us sales professionals, despite its potential to significantly impact sales success! To secure bigger and better deals, learning effective sales presentation techniques is essential. These skills can help you close deals quickly and with more confidence. For guidance on enhancing your presentations, keep reading on for more valuable strategies.

What is a Sales Presentation?

Sales presentations vs sales pitches: what’s the difference, the importance of effective sales presentations, what makes a good sales presentation, 11 effective sales presentation tips, 7 effective sales presentation skills every sales rep must have.

Understanding what makes a good presentation begins with understanding the sales presentation definition ;

‘a talk giving information about a product or service that you are trying to sell, intended to persuade people to buy it:’. 

A sales presentation is a meeting between an individual salesperson or sales team and a company. They attempt to persuade key stakeholders to close the deal by displaying the offerings’ capabilities, benefits, and features . They must align with your prospective client’s needs to achieve the desired outcome, which usually requires extensive planning and preparation.

A sales presentation is kind of like a more complex version of a sales pitch. They are comprehensive and tailored for significant deals that require in-depth discussions among multiple decision-makers. They play a crucial role in scenarios where the stakes are high and collective decision-making is essential.

Sales presentations are more detailed than a quick sales pitch. They’re part of a longer sales cycle, usually for significant deals. These presentations often require demonstrating the product or reviewing the sales proposal in detail. They often demand a higher budget. This covers not only the presentation, which often lasts an hour, but also the necessary preparation, scheduling, and rehearsals. Moreover, sales presentations often involve a team, not just one person. Everyone needs to work together as a team to understand and execute the plan.

Navigating the landscape of sales pitches can be transformative for your sales strategy. Choosing the right pitch type can make all the difference, whether it’s a brief chat or a formal meeting.

Here’s a deeper dive into the nuances of each pitch type and discover examples and templates that bring them to life.

Read more here.

The elevator pitch is often mistaken for a regular sales pitch, but it’s actually different. A sales pitch is a formal type of sales presentation, usually used in long buying cycles. It can take multiple times until a deal has closed. Whereas an elevator sales pitch quickly introduces your work to potential clients in a casual setting. You position yourself as the go-to solution they need, aiming to pique their interest and pave the way for a sale.

Crafting an effective elevator sales pitch is an essential skill for any professional. The right pitch can open doors and create opportunities during a brief encounter. An elevator pitch stands out from a regular sales pitch because it’s brief and gets to the point immediately. You have a short moment to grab someone’s attention and convey your message.

If you want to improve your ability to deliver a sharp elevator pitch, our guide is just what you need. It lays out the steps clearly and provides examples to help you craft your effective pitch quickly.

Craft your effective pitch now.

• Using Stories to Demonstrate Value
• The Ultimate Guide To Selling To The C-Suite

A sales presentation helps salespeople build connections with prospective customers. It allows them to differentiate their offering from competitors – with the end goal of closing a deal. Sales presentations are crucial for shaping future interactions in the sales process. They serve as a vital tool to convince prospects that your offering meets their needs perfectly.

Also read: How to Run Effective Remote & Virtual Sales Presentations

An effective sales presentation speaks directly to your audience’s needs, challenges and desires. A sales presentation grabs attention with an engaging story and a clear value proposition. It includes a strong call to action that tells the prospect exactly why your solution is the right choice.

Let’s break down the five essentials of a good sales presentation and the common structure many companies use. This approach helps ensure your presentation is effective:

What are the 5 Core Elements of Every Sales Presentation?

1. research.

You’re giving a sales presentation because you can solve a prospect’s problem. However, you mustn’t start the sales presentation with the solution. Rather, start on the problem itself and the subsequent challenges and pain points your prospect experiences because of it.

Prospects don’t see solutions or features; they see the value that comes with a suitable solution. That’s why you need to research prospects to understand what motivates them thoroughly. Understanding your customers’ challenges is key. As you learn more about their operations, you can customize their experience to offer solutions that truly add value.

2. Storytelling

Stories help prospects visualize the value of your offering . That’s why choosing a few stories to use in your sales presentations can resonate with your prospects. This approach is effective when you’ve thoroughly researched and understood their unique requirements.

3. A Value-Proposition

“What’s really in it for me?” – that’s what every prospect wants to know. Every prospect is looking to understand the benefits they’ll gain. They want to know why your product or service is worth their investment.

Suppose you can’t convince someone else that your product or service offers better value than your competitors. In that case, there is no point in wasting any more time trying to sell your solution. You’ll only ever hear, “We’ll be in touch.”

Always ensure you arrive prepared with a value proposition . It should explicitly state how your company’s product or service benefits prospects. For example, you can always follow the “value proposition formula.” To get started: [Company name] helps [target audience] with [services] so you can [benefits].

Prospects are more likely to move on to the next step when they see proof that others have gained from your solution. To achieve this, ensure you have plenty of social proof available from the get-go when meeting with your prospect. Overall, any proof of your effective solution helps answer the “how can I believe you” question from prospects. To do so successfully, consider sharing evidence such as:

• Client testimonials:  Enhance your credibility impact with reasons other customers love doing business with you. 
• Research data:  Use industry expert quotes to create bridge statements from your features and benefits. 
• Product comparisons against key competitors:  Tell them why your solution is better. 

5. A Call to Action

Last but not least, an effective sales presentation requires a strong call to action at the end to compel prospects to take action. Tell prospects what their next step should be, whether buying, taking internal steps, or trying a free trial.

Crafting a sales slide deck that connects with your audience and clearly presents your value is crucial for a winning sales strategy. It should spotlight your product’s benefits and features while telling a story that matches your prospects’ needs and challenges.

Learn how to create a sales slide deck that supports your pitch effectively and helps you close more deals, leading to more satisfied customers. It has a presentation template outline you can easily follow for your next sales deck.

Create your winning slide deck now.

Mastering the right sales presentation techniques can guide you through meetings and help you close more sales. Check out these methods below to boost your success:

1. Use the “Five-Second Rule”

Prospects have less and less time in this competitive and busy digital world. Capturing a prospect’s attention is hard, but holding onto it is an even harder! Keep the 5-second rule in mind: you have just fifteen to twenty words to capture your prospect’s attention. Ensure your overall opening statement is strong and directly relates to your audience.

2. Talk like an executive

Ideally, prospects will understand your sales presentation after the first minute. That’s why you need to use the appropriate language to address your audience. Not only does it help decision-makers connect with your solution quicker, but it also shows you’re prepared to respect their time.

3. Involve key stakeholders

Use your showmanship abilities and have the prospective decision-makers interact with the product you are selling. Encourage prospects to experience the product firsthand to appreciate its ease of use, softness, or the enjoyment it brings. Focus on its standout feature or benefit. When the customer gets involved, they can imagine themselves using the product, making it easier for them to buy.

4. Present solutions to painful challenges

Begin your sales presentation by focusing on the main issue that your prospect is struggling with. Describe how your product or service solves this specific problem they’re dealing with. Doing so shows them a way out of their current situation and the opportunities they could gain from closing the deal.

5. Make it memorable

When you give a  presentation , people will not retain everything you say. Often, we leave it up to chance what our prospects remember from our presentations. By adding certain elements to your pitch, you can guide what sticks in their memory. Keep it simple and direct, ensuring the key points are memorable and impactful.

• Visuals : The first element is to help them visualize. Use a visual on the screen that emphasizes one of my key messages. Aim to have no more than three key messages that you want somebody to walk away with. But use visuals to emphasize key points.
• Text : Also, put text on the screen, almost like underlining essential words in documents. Use text to highlight important points you want them to remember.
• Story : To get your  prospect  to remember your presentation, include a  story  highlighting your 3 key points. Wrap them in a story that touches on their emotions and can help them visualize how your solution will help them.
• Repetition : By using stories, text, and visuals and repeating your key points, your presentation will stick with the audience. They’ll especially remember the three main messages you want to highlight. Steve Jobs captivated his audience with his effective presentation style. He often used rhetorical techniques and focused on three main points to clarify his message. His presentations always typically emphasized products being thinner, faster, and lighter.

So remember to influence what people remember from your presentation. Use visuals, text, story and repetition.

Engaging presentation principles apply universally, whether delivered live or virtually. Spencer Waldron from Prezi offers insights on keeping your audience engaged. His advice is practical across all types of presentations. His strategies work for any presentation scenario, making sure people hear your message and remember it.

Get the summary here.

6. Prepare valuable insights

Another effective sales presentation technique is to prepare insights ahead of time for your prospects. Insights are accurate understandings of your prospect, your prospect’s business or your industry. These insights come from research, experience, and analyzing data and metrics. They aim to strengthen the relationship with prospects by offering them new ways to enhance and grow their business.

7. Don’t lead with your differentiators. Lead to them!

Suppose you lead by explaining your solution’s differentiating factors. In that case, you risk not hitting the mark and resonating with prospects about why this is so important. That’s why you should introduce your key differentiators only after the prospect clearly understands your backstory. View your key differentiators as clues you leave for prospects, helping them piece together the overall benefits.

8. Master the art of trial closes

Instead of expecting commitment from a single sales pitch, guide your prospect through a series of smaller steps that lead to the final commitment. A commitment is an obligation or a promise; an incremental commitment would be small, bite-sized pieces or portions. For example, you could ask your prospects to commit to:

• Meeting with you again.
• Reviewing your proposal.
• Introducing you to another decision-maker.
• Scheduling a conference call with key stakeholders.
• Forwarding a survey to their staff to understand their needs before you propose something.

Overall, the key is to secure a small, easy commitment from your prospect. When followed by consistent small commitments, this initial step gradually leads you to finalize those extensive, intricate deals.

9. Ask for feedback

The easiest way to lose the engagement of any audience is to drone on for long periods. While your words might be compelling, how you deliver them is crucial. That’s why you should start your presentation by inviting decision-makers to ask questions at any point. This open dialogue lets your sales reps gauge if they’re on target or need to adjust their strategy.

10. Ask for the sale

After the prospect understands the product, how it can benefit them, and how easy it will be to implement , ask for the sale . Consider the approach of the sidewalk seller’s case, who asks, “We have it in red, blue, green and yellow. What color would you like?” Determine what closes work best for you.

Also read: 15 Top Sales Closing Techniques To Increase Close Rates

11. Ask Again

If the customer poses an objection, overcome their objection and ask again. Persist even after an initial rejection. Reflect on the sidewalk seller’s tactic when he asks, “What else can you get in Singapore for $10?”. Salespeople often close most sales on the second or third attempt.

You don’t have to sit on a sidewalk with a loudspeaker blasting your every word to employ these techniques. You just need to demonstrate how your product makes life better for your customers. So find a way to get in front of your prospects, and make sure to follow these steps to maximize results.

We’ve already explored effective sales presentation techniques. Let’s recap the sales presentation skills every sales rep needs to close more deals. Discover each skill in detail below:

Research & Solution-Based Questioning

The first stage of preparing for a sales presentation is thoroughly researching your prospect. Skipping this preparation will likely result in the rejection of your ideas. That’s why all salespeople must be keen researchers of their ideal customers. Gather answers and insights about your prospect’s challenges with  typical solution-selling questions  such as:

• What are their most pressing needs?
• Do they know their most significant challenges?
• What are their aspirations?
• What’s stopping them from currently reaching these goals?
• What do their customers and stakeholders need and want?
• How could your solution help to negate these issues they’re experiencing?
• In what way will your solution position your prospect with a market advantage?
• How can you accurately communicate the benefits without solely discussing the solution to influence prospects to take action? 

The importance of Solution Selling vs. product Selling for effective sales presentations

What does  solution selling vs product selling  have to do with sales presentations? In product selling, the goal is to convince customers that it outshines the competition. This is why salespeople often detail features and prices to uninterested prospects. This approach focuses heavily on the product’s attributes during sales presentations. 

On the other hand, solution selling requires an alternative way of making a sale. Pinpointing your customer’s real-world problem is key. You can then demonstrate how your product is the right solution to solve their problem.

A compelling sales demo goes beyond showcasing features. This is a pivotal moment when the prospect truly sees what the product can do for them. Delivering a sales demo that informs, persuades, and excites is a skill that significantly impacts the sale’s outcome. This skill is vital for turning prospects into customers.

Our guide provides detailed steps for planning and executing a sales demo that will captivate and sway your audience.

Get the full detailed steps here.

Active Listening

You must be willing to listen to your prospects first so that they will pay attention to what you say. This involves more than just allowing your prospects to speak; it’s about actively listening to their concerns and feedback.

Sales professionals should be  listening 80% of the time and only talking 20% of the time . Allocate half of that 20% to asking questions, leaving just 10% for presenting and explaining your product.

To craft an offering that resonates with your prospect, pay close attention to the details they share about their problem. This tailored approach increases the likelihood of a purchase. Rather than spending time preparing an unappealing one-size-fits-all type of deal. 

Overall, effective sales presentations hinge on your body language. Show your prospect that you’re actively listening—through subtle head nods and comments demonstrating understanding and agreement.

Also read: 6 Personality Traits of a Good Salesperson Vs. a Bad Salesperson

Storytelling

Case studies have shown that  people are more receptive to stories  than almost any other type of communication. Our brains not only naturally crave stories, but we remember them and pass on the meaningful ones to others. That’s why incorporating storytelling into asking for the sale is so effective.

Create a hero with a clear name and personality, facing a practical problem they must resolve. However, you must take great care when deciding how to reflect your intended message. When crafting stories for your customers, ensure your storytelling speaks directly to your customers. Include the same hopes, ambitions, fears, regrets, and disappointments they too possess so they see their own stories reflected in yours.

Ultimately, prospects need to perceive you as self-assured to want to work with you. That’s why all sales reps should be confident in themselves and the solution they are selling. To achieve this, all skilled salespeople must rehearse and fine-tune their sales presentations well before it’s time to present. They practice to ensure that the delivery is articulate and compelling. Alongside employing body language techniques such as:

• Eye contact:  Shows prospects you’re interested in what they have to say.
• Standing/sitting straight:  Opens your posture, making your body language warmer and authoritative. 
• A firm handshake:  Always offer a firm but friendly handshake to make a good first impression.
• Smile:  An effective sales presentation technique for keeping prospects at ease when used naturally as not forced. 

Objection Handling

All sales reps should be able to list common past objections and grasp the reasoning behind each one. By doing this, reps can positively frame each response to each objection and practice it for the sales presentation. Continue reading to  learn common sales objections  and how to overcome them. 

Interpersonal & Rapport Building

Interpersonal skills are subtle yet impactful behaviors that help build rapport with prospects. They’re the key to transforming successful sales presentations into lasting, trusted relationships. As the saying goes, ‘People do business with people they know, like and trust.’ So, of course, you need to build rapport – and quickly.

One of the most effective ways to do this is to use your customer’s name and know how to pronounce it correctly. It helps to foster a sense of connection with them because they feel heard. People also kind of love the sound of their names—it’s a simple yet effective way to engage with them.

However, make sure to use their name naturally in the conversation – otherwise, you’ll come off as indigenous. Other types of interpersonal skills include:

• Communication style flexing:  Different prospects have unique ways in which they prefer to communicate based on their communication style. They typically fall into  one of four communication styles  based on two factors. Understanding the different communication styles and how to handle each individually can drastically improve your relationship and ability to connect with other people.  Furthermore, after fully identifying your prospective executive’s communication style, focus on understanding their decision-making approach. How do you do this? Ask yourself and the prospective executive  these questions . 
• Courtesy:  If good manners cost nothing, courtesy is critical for making prospects feel welcome and comfortable. 
• Understanding the prospect’s viewpoint : This can significantly impact our understanding of their motivations for buying—or not buying.

Engaging with prospects effectively is key to sales success. Doing so will allow you to close more deals and forge stronger business relationships. Building rapport, understanding communication styles, and demonstrating courtesy are just a few interpersonal skills that can significantly impact your interactions with prospects. 

Learn the subtle yet powerful strategies that can transform your sales approach and help you connect with prospects on a deeper level.

Discover the strategies here.

Master the art of closing deals remotely

Selling virtually is not a matter of just doing the same old sales pitch but online. You have to be highly organized and have tightly planned out presentations so you don’t leave your prospect bored and disconnected.

Check out our brand new  Virtual Selling course  to take your remote selling skills to the next level. The course includes 5 checklists, cheat sheets, and guides, and 15+ on-demand virtual selling lessons.

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Sales 101: A Comprehensive Guide for Success

Casey O'Connor

Understanding the Sales Process

Know your buyer, leveraging technology in sales, have a system, effective communication skills, leverage scripts and email templates, be curious and ask the right questions, overcoming sales objections, sell benefits, not features, close the sale, nurturing customer relationships, analyzing sales data for improvement, staying adaptable in a dynamic market.

Sales can be an exciting and rewarding career, especially for SaaS sales professionals. 

SaaS sales are an entity all of their own; they require a strong foundation of sales skills, as well as careful and specialized relationship-building skills. 

In other words, SaaS sales reps need to be masters of Sales 101 skills: fundamentals, best practices, and mindsets for success. 

The truth is, a lot of sales success is achieved through trial and error. The more that SaaS reps can master the fundamentals of Sales 101, the more opportunity they’ll have to dig deeper into relationships and build the kinds of authentic, trusting bonds that make long-term sales. 

In fact, SaaS sales require a special level of relationship skills, because their customers are signing recurring contracts, rather than a one-time purchase; this is a much bigger commitment for the buyer.

In this article, we’ll go over all things Sales 101, so you can master the foundational skills you need in order to become a top performer. 

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Sales reps and marketers should collaborate to design specific campaigns and strategies for each stage of the sales funnel; these strategies need to be targeted to your unique buyer (more on these concepts later in this article). 

Prospecting

Sales prospecting is one of the most impactful parts of the sales process. The more you can fill your sales pipeline with prospects, the more sales opportunities you can create further down the pipeline.

The most effective prospecting techniques will ultimately depend on the unique needs and preferences of your target buyer, but most successful teams use a combination of inbound and outbound lead generation strategies. 

Yesware’s Prospector gives sales reps access to over 100+ million enriched and verified business profiles that can be added to your database in bulk with a single click, making prospecting fast, fruitful, and easy. 

And with advanced search filters, Yesware allows you to easily identify highly-targeted customer segments for hyper-personalized outreach. Combined with our multi-channel campaigns, this makes personalized outreach at scale easy and effective. 

Over 40% of sales reps report that prospecting is their most challenging part of the sales process; the key to this stage is to leverage simple, easy-to-use technology like Yesware that delivers a high impact with low effort. 

Qualifying Leads

With all that being said, it’s also important to note that lead generation is as much about quality as it is about quantity. 

Sales reps need to refine their lead qualification process so that the best-fit and most interested leads are prioritized, while others get lead nurturing campaigns according to their various stages of readiness. 

In today’s B2B sales landscape, there is no success without a deep understanding of your individual buyer. 

A sales rep’s ability to build a trusting relationship that’s based on credibility depends on their knowledge of the buyer’s wants, needs, communication style, challenges, goals, and more. 

Great buyer personas are built over time through effective research and questioning and strategic post-sale customer relationship management (more on that later in this article). The more you can learn about how your solution solves the pain points of a real-world, well-fit buyer, the more effectively you can refine and leverage this profile throughout the sales process. 

There is no getting around the need for at least a basic tech stack in B2B sales today — that means an email service provider like Gmail or Microsoft365 and a capable customer relationship management (CRM) system.  

Consider adding any of the following sales automation tools to your tech stack as your team masters the fundamentals of Sales 101 and optimizes its performance over time: 

• Sales Engagement Software
• Social Selling Software
• Sales Intelligence Software
• Sales Coaching Software
• Sales Forecasting & Reporting Software
• Content Management Software

Tip: To learn more about choosing the right sales automation platforms for your team, regardless of size or experience level, download our Tech Stack Guide .

With so many moving pieces in the sales process, it’s critical that sales reps master a proven system and stick to it. 

Fortunately, one of the best parts about a career in sales is that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. There are dozens of sales methodologies that can give sales reps a framework for achieving their sales goals. 

In reality, most successful sales reps learn to take bits and pieces from a few approaches, according to what works best with their selling style and their buyers’ preferences. 

Here are a few of the most common and proven successful sales systems. 

SPIN Selling

N.E.A.T. Selling

Conceptual Selling

Conceptual Selling revolves around the idea that customers don’t buy products — they buy the concept of a solution that you present within your offer. 

SNAP Selling

Challenger Sale

The Challenger Sale method was developed by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, who authored a book with the same title. 

The subtitle of the book is Taking Control of the Customer Conversation , which is really the true premise behind Challenger selling.

This idea runs counterintuitive to many of the other popular sales methodologies, which typically favor relationship-building as the hallmark skill of successful sales reps. 

But when Dixon and Adamson dug into the data , they found that nearly 40% of all top-performing sales reps most closely matched the profile of a Challenger. 

In fact, top performers were more than twice as likely to adopt a Challenger approach than any other style of selling. 

The Sandler System

The Sandler System is very straightforward and quite a bit more structured than some of the other approaches in our list. 

Solution Selling

Solution Selling is one sales approach that has truly stood the test of time. Honed in the early days of Xerox, sales reps have been successfully using the Solution Selling approach to solve customers’ problems for nearly a half a century. 

Inbound Selling

But today’s B2B buyer has a tremendous amount of control in the buying process — more than they ever have in the past. Most buyers now prefer to conduct much of their own research independently and will delay making contact with a sales rep until they feel properly armed with education, objections, and questions. 

Inbound sales strategies give sales and marketing teams the opportunity to put themselves in front of buyers in a non-obtrusive way, with content that makes it easy for buyers to keep your brand top of mind as they educate themselves and deliberate when and how to make contact with the sales team. 

Target Account Selling

Target account selling (also sometimes called account-based selling or account-based marketing) is another highly personalized sales 101 approach that requires sales reps to dedicate most of their resources to just a few high-value, specifically targeted prospects. 

In this sales approach , sales and marketing work together to build a list of highly qualified potential buyers; they then collaborate to create completely personalized campaigns built around the unique needs of each of these target accounts. Each decision-making team receives personalized support throughout the buying process and post-purchase. 

Command of the Sale

That being said, it’s a fine line to walk between confident and arrogant — and there’s nothing buyers dislike more than pushy reps. Be sure to put some time into training and coaching if you’re hoping to pursue this method. 

Gap Selling

Tip: Looking for more sales techniques? Grab our data-backed ebook filled with the most successful ones.

Even as recently as a decade ago, personalized communication with buyers was not a standardized approach. But today’s B2B buyer has no problem reserving their purchasing power for brands who make the effort to research their needs and approach them with personalized value. 

What’s more, sales funnels today are longer than they have ever been — meaning your sales team needs to be “on” and delivering targeted, relevant content for a sustained period of time. 

Buyer personas can be particularly helpful when it comes to systemizing your approach to personalizing the sales funnel. 

It’s also important that sales reps have a solid grasp of all kinds of communication, as verbal, nonverbal, and written language all play an important role in the sales process. 

Active Listening

Thinking about communication in sales can be somewhat counterintuitive because the best B2B sales communicators actually do more listening than speaking . 

The more that sales reps can get their prospects talking, the more effectively they can tailor their sales pitch and craft their offer around the prospects’ unique and most pressing needs. 

Sales Pitching

Sales pitching is another area that can feel a bit difficult to grasp, because the truth is that the majority of prospects have absolutely no desire to listen to a traditional sales pitch. 

Today’s successful B2B sales pitch sounds more like a consulting meeting than a presentation . The key is to speak with the prospect, rather than at them, and try to engage with them at their level of expertise. 

Keep the environment value-oriented and low-pressure, and show genuine interest in what they’re sharing. Try to get the prospect to say yes, or answer in the affirmative as often as possible. 

Beyond that, just remember to keep your communication kind and honest; these characteristics are as important as any single remark, facial expression, or presentation tactic. 

Tip: 15 Best Sales Pitch Examples .

This next piece of Sales 101 advice is a bit nuanced, so consider it thoughtfully: sales scripts and email templates can be very helpful and even strategic when leveraged the right way. 

The beauty of templates like cold call scripts and email frameworks is that they allow sales teams to track and measure the performance of their sales language. 

And, as the saying goes, what gets measured gets managed; when you’re paying attention to how prospects respond to your most commonly used words, you can refine your messaging until it resonates perfectly. 

In general, it’s important for sales reps to rehearse what they’re going to say in the first 30 seconds of their call. From there, it’s okay to go with the flow a little bit more — but there should still be a framework in place so that sales reps can guide the conversation as needed. 

To access some of our most successful cold call scripts, check our two posts below:

• Sales Call Scripts
• Cold Calling Scripts

Yesware also allows users to save and track their favorite email templates , so they can easily see which messages are opened and responded to the most frequently. 

The most successful salespeople approach every sales opportunity with a sense of curiosity. The more you allow prospects to share their own experience, without sharing your own opinions or judgements, the better you’ll be able to curate the offer to satisfy their most pressing concerns.

Most sales objections aren’t an outright rejection; they’re usually more of a hesitation that could potentially be assuaged with the right feedback. Great sales reps know how to use sales objections to learn more about a prospect’s needs and tout the benefits of their offer. 

When sales reps pre-frame a sales meeting, they put parameters around how the conversation will proceed. This gives both parties structure and certainty and ensures that everyone is on the same page. Concrete next steps should also be made clear during the pre-frame. 

When all else fails, a solid product demonstration is usually enough to stop most objections in their tracks (assuming, of course, that your product performs the way you promise!). 

Speaking of showing off your cool product features…that’s actually not necessarily best practice for Sales 101. 

While it’s true that a live-action product demo can go a long way in backing up your claims (a picture’s worth a thousand words, after all, and a demo’s worth at least a thousand pictures), a written or spoken list of those same nifty features is a recipe for disaster within a sales conversation . 

A good rule of thumb is to ensure that every interaction concludes with both parties agreeing to tangible next steps. This might mean scheduling a meeting , a phone call, or even a week’s pause to reflect on the offer — the key is to pin down together what to expect in the follow-up. 

Sales reps can also use data to give them a boost when it comes to sending follow-ups when they’re most likely to get noticed. 

Closing the sale is one area where many sales reps don’t feel comfortable, regardless of how well they navigate the rest of the sales process. 

Closing sales does require a distinct set of skills and careful attention to buyer (verbal and non-verbal) communication. Sales reps need to know how to look for and interpret buying signals that indicate readiness to purchase. 

There are additional subtle indicators, like speeding up the sales cycle , asking specific questions about pricing, and replying to your outreach more quickly, that also suggest a buyer is eager to close. 

Direct Close

For those buyers who indicate readiness to buy, a direct close might be appropriate. This is a strategy in which sales reps ask very directly whether the buyer is ready to sign a contract and close the deal. 

They might say something like, “How many months would you like your contract to run, 24 or 60?” or, “I’ll send the contract over by COB today.”

Indirect Close

Indirect closing, on the other hand, is a bit more subtle. This tactic is more often used with buyers who are a bit less outwardly committed, but who likely could be guided to close with the right prompting. 

Questions like, “How does that sound?” and, “What are your thoughts on that timeline?” can help reps gauge a prospect’s readiness a bit more clearly. 

Another closing tactic that’s effective for many sales reps is adding a sense of urgency to the close. Some reps do this by offering limited-time discounts or promotions that encourage the prospect to sign quickly, while others craft a careful opportunity cost message that outlines what the prospect stands to lose or suffer by not purchasing today. 

Regardless of the specific closing strategies that work best for your target market, remember that the B2B sales cycle is long, especially in the SaaS market. By the time all parties are getting ready to close the deal, much has already been discussed and debated. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to include a summary in your closing process so that everyone is on the same page about how the deal is moving forward. 

Although this topic may not be covered in some traditional “Sales 101” playbooks, we believe at Yesware that post-sale customer relationships are one of the most important factors to success in this field. 

Remember that buyers today expect — require, even — high levels of personalization throughout the sales process. And while many reps are willing and able to provide that during the sales cycle, some mistakenly withdraw those efforts once the prospect signs a contract. 

This, in turn, leaves a lot of customers wondering how genuine the connection was in the first place. 

As a general rule of thumb, it’s a good idea for sales reps to follow up with signed customers after one week, one month, every quarter, and a year after signing their contract.

Keep in mind that some customers will expect more than this, while others may indicate a need for less contact — it’s important to “read the room” and use your discretion here. 

Regardless of contact frequency, the sales rep is always responsible for a seamless handoff to the onboarding process and/or customer success team. 

The Benefits

Post-sale customer relationship management isn’t just important for your reputation as an authentic salesperson; it can also have a dramatic impact on your bottom line. Which is why it’s an important Sales 101 tactic to keep in mind.

• It can cost up to 5x more money to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one
• Increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profitability by 25% – 90%
• The success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60% – 70%, while the general success rate for signing new customers is much lower (5% – 20%, depending on your industry)

It’s been said before, but it’s worth repeating: what gets measured gets managed, and that is acutely accurate in sales. 

Sales teams need to have standardized processes in place for collecting, storing, and analyzing their sales data. This adds crucial data to all decision-making processes. 

Now more than ever, sales is an industry that shifts and changes quickly. Everything from the market landscape to competitor challenges to buyer preferences can change on a dime.

And while many sales reps crave this kind of fast-paced, think-on-your-feet environment, it can also present a challenge for those who aren’t proactive about their mindset. 

As you can see from this article, sales is not a simple or slow-paced career. 

The more the sales reps can master the basics of Sales 101, the more they will generate opportunities for career growth and advancement. When sales teams have a solid grasp of the fundamentals of Sales 101, they can dedicate more of their efforts to maintaining the kinds of relationships that long-term SaaS contracts require. 

A readiness to learn and a willingness to try new things will go a long way in achieving success in Sales 101. 

Is there anything you would add to our Sales 101 list? What strategies or tactics helped you the most when you started your sales career?

More Guides for Sales Success:

• Sales Excellence Guide
• 28 Actionable Sales Tips
• How to Improve Sales Performance
• 25 Best Sales Tactics
• Sales Best Practices

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Sales Process: A Step-by-Step Guide With PowerPoint Templates

The term ‘sales process’ may invite several astonished cries from a company that is habitual of selling every product in an informal fashion. And there’s no need to blame these go-getters as well. After all, managing sales demands you to be on your toes at all times. With their ears (and fishnets) at the ready, salespeople have to be on a flight mode to grab every opportunity there is.

But there’s a catch when it comes to how sales materialize today.

You see, today’s consumers are way more skeptical and way more informed than they were at the time when dishwashers had just rolled out. Thanks to the constant deluge of information readily available on mobile devices, convincing customers to buy a product needs more than just a chance email or a cold call.

So what’s the way out of this randomness and guesswork?

It’s time for you to have a formalized sales process for your company. This blog will shed light on why structure beats uncertainty every time while offering you handy PowerPoint templates for each step of your sales process. Also in tow are actionable tips that can help you become a sales whiz. Read on!

What is a sales process?

A sales process is a specialized iterative process that enables a sales representative to convert a potential buyer into a paying customer. It is the customer’s journey from a prospect to a closed deal with your business. A formalized sales process is the standard playbook for every sales rep in the company.

Not to be confused with sales funnel, which is a graphical representation of each customer interaction along the sales pipeline, a sales process is the roadmap that reps need to follow to strike a deal. In other words, a sales funnel is from the customer’s viewpoint, while a sales process is from the sales rep’s viewpoint.

But why have a sales process?

In any company, the very foundation is the sole revenue-generating activity – a sale. But even if the company’s sales managers had just winged it while closing the first deal, the generations of sales reps ahead have their seniors to look up to and learn from. In such a situation, it will not be feasible for a sales manager to teach the tricks of the trade to each newbie as efficiently as desired by the company.

Moreover, learning the ropes without definitive guidelines can lead to a lot of back and forth and time consumption. Besides, guesswork will stall closure rates for those who are not “born with a selling instinct”. Therefore, having a standardized sales process can help keep your sales activities in order besides boosting revenue.

Related read: Top 10 Sales and Operations Planning Templates to Cope With Market Volatility

Don’t take our word for it. Even top industry-specific research says so too!

Take a study by Harvard Business Review, for instance. It says that B2B companies with a well-accounted sales process can witness 28% more revenue than the companies that don't have one.

Another study by the institute indicates that close to half of the high-performing companies have a structured and automated sales process. In contrast, close to half of the under-performing companies had no sales process or were taking the informal selling approach.

These figures indicate that companies would do better to adopt a full-fledged sales process that serves as the blueprint for unlocking growth. Each study gives us an insight into how a well-structured sales process helps enhance revenue and performance. Therefore, establishing a formalized sales process is the hallmark of a business looking to become a customer favorite.

Before, we tour the PPT Templates, are you looking for a comprehensive module to train your sales team and improve their performance? Access our Sales Training Curriculum with content-ready, well-researched slides that will make your training program a terrific success!

Click Here to Download our Comprehensive Curriculum for Sales Training

Steps involved in a sales process

Charting out a comprehensive sales process can be tricky. The reason for that is the uphill climb while figuring out how to map a customer’s buying decisions with your sales process. But if you get your basics right, you can leverage a standardized sales process for all your selling endeavors. Basically, a sales process constitutes seven key steps as depicted below.

Let’s discuss these steps and explore the related PowerPoint templates that you can download and deploy to craft an unbeatable sales process. Each of these PowerPoint templates is designed by experts and researched by industry stalwarts. The formats are fully editable, so feel free to tweak these for maximum output.

1. Prospect

Prospecting kicks off a sales process roadmap as the most crucial part of it. By definition, prospecting involves identifying and research potential clients that will be interested in your product. Additionally, it constitutes a lot of market research and setting qualifying parameters for the prospective buyer.

You can also reach this prospective buyer by asking your existing clientele about their peers. The result is you have a set of leads that fulfill the criteria as per your unique value proposition (UVP). To start smart, here are the templates that will enable seamless prospecting on your end.

Download this template

Grab this template

2. Approach

Once you lock your target, it’s time to make contact. The next step of the sales process involves establishing a connection with the qualified lead via engaging techniques like emails, cold calls, or other digital or print forms of communication. The plan here is to grab some eyeballs by gathering info on what keeps the prospective buyer up at night.

The approach step paves the way for a communication channel between you and your buyers. It also includes generating the lead’s interest in your product by engaging them with your product UVP. Since this is where a sales rep needs to step up their convincing game, the sales process must clearly define the medium to engage the buyer the most. The following PowerPoint templates will help you ace the game every time.

3. Interview

Get down to business. Ask all the right questions. Get to know what keeps the prospect fidgeting for a solution. In the sales interview, the sales rep strikes a conversation that helps them know the prospect better. These right questions come from proper research and brainstorming about the client beforehand.

The interview phase is also a good opportunity for the sales rep to impress the potential buyer with knowledge of their issues. Thus, you can assemble all the crucial info and use it in the following PowerPoint templates.

4. Proposal

The exercise to gather info specific to the customer’s issues gives you the roadmap to a closed deal. In the proposal step of your sales process, you will pitch your product or service as the tailored solution to the customer’s problem. With the pain points in mind, you need to prepare visuals and gather testimonials to support your proposal.

At this point, you are giving the buyer a chance to consider and research your company. So make sure you hit the nail on the head with a spectacular proposal. The following PowerPoint templates will let flexible design be your greatest weapon.

5. Demonstration

It’s time to walk the talk. Once you have had a preliminary discussion with the client and proposed your product or service, you have to demonstrate the customer’s problem getting solved. Your task is to schedule the demonstration and make arrangements as suited to the client.

During the demonstration, you have to hit the critical points while showcasing the advantages that the client will get once they associate with you. A good demonstration also focuses on the unique selling point of the product, which helps make the prospective client an informed choice. The following PowerPoint templates are your best companions for a demonstration.

6. Negotiate

Unless your product or service is one of a kind, you can stay assured that the prospect will be researching for alternatives at this point. Even your product demo at some point may not be able to answer all of their questions. Nevertheless, the client is in the deciding mode and will submit their objections and queries for a precisely tailored product or service.

As a sales rep, your job is to tackle each query at the negotiation step to allow further modifications in the product. The more precise is the solution, the better are the chances of closing the deal. The negotiation phase also gives you a chance to prepare your list of objection resolutions for the future. Download and utilize these PowerPoint templates for liaising the best deal.

Once the negotiations lead to an agreement and contracts are finalized, the prospect makes a purchase, or, in sales vocabulary, the “deal is closed”. After that, the next step of the sales process is support, wherein you tackle all the issues, if any, that the client reports about the product or service. The support phase can also include extensive onboarding and follow-ups to ensure that you are off to a good start.

Support is a crucial part of a sales process as it opens avenues of repeat sales and upsells. Moreover, you can nurture your professional bond with the client and then ask for referrals to grow your client base. The following PowerPoint templates will make sales follow-up a breeze.

Effective tips for leveraging your sales process for faster deals

Whether you have put a solid workable sales process in place already or are working your way towards one, what doesn’t change is the salespeople’s flexibility. While learning and adapting to the changing course of a consumer’s journey, sales reps are responsible for listening and responding at every step of the way.

Therefore, sales representatives need to follow a proactive approach towards each of the seven steps of sales process to close deals. Here are some handy tips that you can use to exceed expectations.

1. Talk to the reps first

Before you devise your sales process, sit down with your team and get to know their sales tactics. How do they approach a prospect that moves them forward in the sales process? What do they do that leads to a sure-shot closed deal? Asking these questions will give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your sales operations. Once you have gathered this knowledge, you can start describing your sales process.

2. Don’t give creativity a go-by

Following a structured approach does not trump creativity. In fact, it acts as the framework to accomplish lucrative deals the right way. This also includes using your gut instinct and creative flair to pose the right queries. Ultimately, selling will depend on how you use your skill and talent to draft your sales communication.

3. Have your customer in mind

Often sales managers think that a sales process is a to-do list for the sales reps. But they couldn’t be more wrong! What works while drafting a sales process is starting from the end result and then working your way to your company. The result here is the purchase decision made by the customer and what you do to make that happen. To ensure that the result is beyond promising, you must define your USP by being in the customer’s shoes. The bottom line is to show how your product or service will enable the customer to be in a better position.

4. Don’t rush it; build a connection

Modern-day consumers anticipate a special treatment of their problems instead of being another number in the sales analytics dashboards. Therefore, sales reps mustn’t rush the customer down the sales process and build a trustworthy relationship instead. Also, sales reps should ideate methods to offer value and a fruitful experience to the prospects. If the customers feel heard, they will be drawn towards your business.

5. Follow-ups are a must

Sure, a closed deal has its charm. But more often than not, sales reps tend to just log the numbers into a software and call it a day. They do not realize that follow-ups are their key to grow those numbers. Right from the point when the deal is closed, sales reps should maintain a balance of communication and assistance with the customer to develop a cordial relationship. This is why a formalized sales process matters as it serves as a key reminder for the sales team.

6. Reinvent your sales process

A well-structured sales process enables better sales forecasting and lead generation. However, over time, your sales team can acquire enough data on how well the sales process performs.

Related read: Top 30 Sales Metrics Templates to Effectively Monitor Your Revenue Streams

Therefore, you should use sales data to reinvent your sales process for better performance. This is possible via consistent feedback loops from the seller as well as the buyer. As you fine-tune the sales process to the highest standard of output, you can use the revised sales process to train your reps better and close more deals.

A sales process is the ultimate tool for any sales manager. It helps them distribute leads, prioritize tasks, and forecast sales figures accurately. Additionally, it helps sales newbies navigate the ups and downs of the sales cycle effortlessly while avoiding mistakes. The overall impact of a sales process generates spectacular revenue while conditioning your business process to thrive. Our sales process templates will definitely be the icing on the cake. So what are you waiting for? Incorporate a sales process into your business today and reap the benefits of a structure that succeeds.

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10-Steps to Your Ultimate Sales Presentation (with Examples)

One of the first things every new salesperson needs to learn, if they are to succeed, is how to develop and deliver a sales presentation. A lot of factors go into developing a sales presentation for a specific situation. However, by following a logical series of steps, it will greatly enhance the chance of making a sale.

A sales presentation is defined as “a talk giving information about a product or service that you are trying to sell, intended to persuade people to buy it.” Historically, sales presentations were delivered one-on-one with the salesperson, presenting directly to a buyer.

However, technology has expanded the traditional in-person sales presentation to include the potential for video conference presentations, telephone presentations, presentations delivered via email, and even long-form presentations delivered via internet web sales pages.

Regardless of the delivery method, a salesperson who follows a logical series of steps will have the greatest chance of making a sale.

The graphic below depicts an outline of the Ultimate 10-Step Sales Presentation:

Each step of the Ultimate Sales Presentation is important and contributes to the likelihood of making a sale. That said, not every step is needed in every selling situation. Sometimes the buyer is ready to buy after Step 4: Presentation. Sometimes the buyer will inject objections immediately as the salesperson begins, Step 3: Approach.

As I said, every salesperson/buyer interaction is different. The relational salesperson is acutely aware of this difference and will flex their presentation to meet the needs of the buyer.

10-Step Ultimate Sales Presentation

So now, let’s take a quick look at each of the 10-Steps of the Ultimate Sales Presentation.

1. Prospecting

Prospecting is the first step in the selling process. A prospect is a buyer who has the potential to buy your product or service. A lead is not the same thing as a prospect! A lead is simply someone for whom the salesperson has contact information. Once the lead has been qualified, they then become a prospect.

A lead becomes a qualified prospect when they exhibit these three characteristics:

• They must have the money to buy.
• They must have the authority to buy.
• They must have a desire to buy.

Prospecting is the lifeblood of many sales roles. Keeping a pipeline full of potential prospects is critical in industries like real estate, insurance, and vehicle sales. Even many retail businesses (like department stores) rely on prospecting to develop new customers.

2. Pre-approach/Planning

Planning is the second step in the selling process. Planning is done after we have identified a qualified prospect, and before we approach the customer.

A plan is a sales presentation strategy designed to achieve a specific end goal. A plan describes what you want to achieve and how you will do it.

The desire of a relational salesperson is to help people. The purpose of meeting with a buyer is to help that person in some way. The purpose of the plan you create is to help the person by selling the right product or service to meet their needs.

Planning is critical to the sales process because it accomplishes four things:

• Planning builds the confidence of the salesperson.
• Planning demonstrates the salesperson’s professionalism.
• Planning often builds goodwill between the salesperson and the buyer because the buyer sees the effort taken by the salesperson to meet their needs.
• Planning increases the probability of making the sale because the salesperson better understands the buyer’s needs.

3. Approach

The approach is the third step in the selling process. It is the period of time between when the salesperson first sees the buyer up until they start to discuss the product. The approach is the first step of the actual sales presentation.

The approach step of the sale presentation process consists of two distinct, yet equally important, parts. First is the rapport building, “small talk.” This is usually the first minute or two of the sales meeting where the salesperson might talk about something you know the buyer is interested in (sports, weather, family, children, etc.).

The second part of the approach step is the planned, formal lead-in to the actual discussion of the product.

The main thing every buyer wants to know is whether the product you’re about to discuss will meet their needs. As a salesperson, your approach to lead-in to the presentation with the buyer must accomplish three things:

• You must capture the buyer’s attention .
• You must stimulate their interest in your product or solution.
• You must then transition smoothly into the presentation.

The approach lead-in might take the form of a statement, a question, or a demonstration. Whichever method you choose (statement, question, or demonstration), you must capture the buyer’s attention, stimulate their interest in the product, and transition into the main body of the presentation.

Approach Example

An example of the statement/question approach is, “What a wonderful picture of your two children! How old are they?… That’s a wonderful age. Mrs. Buyer, the reason I wanted to meet with you today is I have an idea that I think will increase your sales and profit. Is that something you are interested in?”

As soon as you have the buyer’s attention and gained their interest, it’s time to transition directly to the main body of your presentation.

4. Presentation

The presentation is the fourth step in the selling process. The presentation is your persuasive verbal and visual explanation of your selling proposition. The presentation follows the approach.

The presentation takes the buyer through five distinct stages in the buying cycle that build upon one another:

• To provide knowledge in the form of features, advantages, and benefits so that the buyer can make an informed decision.
• This knowledge translates into positive beliefs about you and your product/service.
• The positive beliefs result in the buyer having a desire for the product.
• The desire for the product becomes an attitude that your product is the best product to fulfill the buyer’s need.
• When the buyer realizes you have the best product to meet their needs, they move into the conviction stage. They are now convinced yours is the product they need to buy.

Once the buyer has reached the conviction stage, it is time for a trial close.

5. Trial Close

A trial close is the fifth step in the selling process. The trial close is not asking the buyer to decide to buy. Rather, the trial close asks for the buyer’s opinion regarding what they have heard so far.

The trial close allows the salesperson to determine:

• Whether the buyer likes your product or service.
• Whether you have successfully answered any questions from the buyer.
• Whether any additional questions remain unanswered.
• Whether the buyer is ready for you to close the sale.

The trial close is an important yet often underutilized tool. A trial close can be used:

• After making a significant point in the presentation.
• After answering any questions or objections from the buyer.
• After the close of the main body of the presentation, and before you move to close the sale.

Trial Close Examples

Examples of a simple trial close include,

• “Does that answer your question?”
• “How does that sound to you?”
• “What do you think about what we’ve discussed so far?”

If the trial close results in a positive response from the buyer, jump to Step 9: Close. However, most trial closes will result in some questions or objections from the buyer. It’s time to determine and handle objections.

6. Determine Objections

Determining objections is the sixth step in the selling process. Assuming the trial close has resulted in questions or objections from the buyer, we now must begin the process of discovering those questions and handling those objections.

Some salespeople bristle and get defensive when asked questions or confronted with objections from a buyer. But this is the wrong way to think about objections! Salespeople should be grateful for questions and objections because they indicate the buyer’s interest. They also help the salesperson determine which stage of the buying cycle the buyer is in—attention, interest, desire, or conviction.

If the buyer has raised an objection, the salesperson needs to ensure their understanding of the objection. One easy way to do that is to restate the objection and ask for confirmation.

Determine Objection Example

For example, if the buyer has raised an objection about the expected life of a machine, the salesperson might say, “If I understand you correctly, your main concern with this machine is that it will provide you with trouble-free service for several years. Is that right?”

When the buyer confirms your understanding of the objection its time to move to the next step in the selling process and handle the objection!

7. Handle Objections

Meeting or handling objections is the seventh step in the selling process. Once you have determined you understand the buyer’s objection, you need to handle the objection. Usually, objections should be handled as soon as they are brought up. However, you may want to delay handling the objection if you are just about to talk about the question in your presentation.

There are four important points to consider when handling objections:

• Handle objections when they arise.
• Be positive when responding to objections.
• Listen carefully to the buyer as they state their objection.
• Confirm your understanding of the objection.

Some objections are false, and these can usually be ignored. However, if a buyer brings up an objection a second time, it is most likely a real issue, which needs to be addressed.

Real objections are almost always a request for more information. So, the best way to handle them is to answer the question with the specific relevant information the buyer needs.

Handle Objection Example

Going back to our machine question in the Determine Objection section above, the salesperson might continue, saying, “I certainly understand your concern. Our company has placed over 300 of these machines in companies like yours over the past ten years, and I’m proud to say they have a 99% run rate with no failures!

8. Trial Close

A follow-up trial close is the eighth step in the selling process. Whenever a question or objection is raised and handled, it’s time to try a trial close. As before, the point of the trial close is to ensure you have answered the buyer’s question to their satisfaction. If there is any doubt that the buyer is satisfied with your answer, you need to dig in to discover what other issues the buyer might have.

Trial Close Example

In our machine example, the salesperson might simply say, “Does our machine’s long life and 99% run rate answer your concern for our product’s reliability?”

When the salesperson feels that all the questions and objections have been addressed satisfactorily, it’s time to move on to the Close!

The close is the ninth step in the selling process. Closing is simply the process of helping the buyer make a decision that benefits them. The salesperson should attempt to close the sale when they feel the buyer is in the Conviction stage of the buying process.

Unfortunately, research shows a whopping 64% of salespeople fail to close. They fail to ask for the order! There are several reasons why this is the case, but generally, most of them revert to fear. The salesperson is afraid of failure, of being told “no.” Whereas, relational salespeople who are selling to solve problems and help people should never be afraid to ask for the order!

Good closers plan the close of their sale as carefully as they plan all the rest of their presentation. The close is not something you tack on to the end of the presentation, hoping that the buyer will say “yes.”

Close Example

There are many ways to close, but the simplest way is just to ask for the order and stop talking.

A salesperson might say, “Mr. Buyer, we’ve covered a lot of ground today, and I think you agree this machine will increase your production and improve your sales and profit. I have the order contract ready for your signature.” Then stop talking!

Another form of the close that I personally like is the assumptive option close. The salesperson might say, “Mr. Buyer, we’ve covered a lot of ground today, and I think you agree this machine will increase your production and improve your sales and profit. Would you like to have it delivered and installed next week, or would the following week be better for you?”

10. Follow-Up and Service

Finally, follow-up and service after the sale is the tenth step in the selling process. Sales are not about you. It’s about you taking care of your customers, and that happens after the buyer says “yes.”

What you do after the sale to provide follow-up and service to the customer is critical. It makes the difference between making a sale to a customer one time and making a sale to the same loyal customer many times year after year!

A salesperson who is diligent about providing follow-up and service after the sale will outperform the salesperson who does not perform that service. This maxim holds true simply because it is always easier to sell more to a current happy customer than find new customers. Happy, satisfied customers tell others and provide a flow of new business leads to the salesperson.

There are six steps the salesperson should take after the sale:

• Focus on improving account penetration. Get to know as many people in the account as you can. Look for needs or problems that you might be able to solve.
• Continue regular contact with the customer. Make sure every promise made in the presentation is kept.
• Handle any issues or customer complaints immediately. Things will go wrong, and the speed at which you handle even a minor issue demonstrates your commitment to the customer.
• Always keep your promises. Nothing destroys a developing relationship, like not keeping your promises. Stay true to your word. The customer placed their faith in you when they bought your product. You need to respect that faith by keeping your word.
• Become the customer’s business advisor. Do what you can to shift from the role of the salesperson to that of the trusted advisor by providing helpful industry insights, new information, or problem-solving solutions. Become a valued partner in the business!
• Show your appreciation. Showing your appreciation is a simple way to demonstrate you are thinking about the customer. Never underestimate how much a handwritten thank-you note, a congratulatory phone call, or a birthday card will mean to a buyer!

There you have it, a quick overview of the Ultimate 10-Step Sales Presentation Model!

The Ultimate 10-Step Sales Presentation Series

I hope what I shared with you here has helped you understand and appreciate the power of the Ultimate 10-Step Sales Presentation model. But I’ve just scratched this surface here! Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing more detail about each step of the model with more examples.

If you want to learn more about the Ultimate 10-Step Sales Presentation model, you can subscribe to the series here. That way you won’t miss any of this valuable information!

Join the Conversation

As always, questions and comments are welcome. What questions do you have about the Ultimate 10-Step Sales Presentation model? Are there any steps you think are more or less important than others?

I’d love your help. This blog is read primarily because of people like you who share it with friends. Would you be kind enough to share it by pressing the share button?

Category: Salespeople

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How to Leverage the Trial Close in Your Ultimate Sales Presentation

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Sales 101: The Essential Skills Every Successful Salesperson Needs to Know

Are you new to sales and looking to build a successful career in this field? Or perhaps you’re an experienced sales professional who wants to refresh their skills and take their game to the next level. Either way, this blog post is for you! In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s essential to have a solid foundation of sales skills to stand out from the crowd and achieve success. Here are some essential skills that every successful salesperson needs to know.

Introduction to Sales 101

Let’s start with the basics. What is sales, exactly? At its core, sales is about building relationships with potential customers and helping them find solutions to their problems by offering products or services that meet their needs. It involves identifying prospects, qualifying leads, making presentations, negotiating deals, and closing sales. But more than anything else, sales is about understanding your customer’s needs and delivering value to them.

The Importance of Building Relationships in Sales

One of the most important aspects of sales is building strong relationships with your customers. This means taking the time to get to know them on a personal level, understanding their business goals and challenges, and providing them with solutions that address their specific needs. By building trust and rapport, you can create long-lasting partnerships that result in repeat business and referrals.

Understanding the Buying Process and How to Navigate It

Another critical skill for successful salespeople is understanding the buying process and how to navigate it effectively. This includes identifying the key decision makers, understanding their pain points and motivators, creating compelling proposals, and overcoming objections. It also means being able to adapt to different buying styles and preferences, such as those of Millennials versus Baby Boomers.

Developing a Strong Value Proposition

A strong value proposition is essential for standing out from the competition and winning business. This means clearly communicating what makes your product or service unique and valuable to your customers. To develop a strong value proposition, you need to understand your target audience, differentiate yourself from your competitors, and communicate your message effectively.

Learning Effective Communication Skills

Effective communication skills are crucial for successful sales professionals. This includes being able to listen actively, ask probing questions, articulate your message clearly and persuasively, and use nonverbal cues to convey confidence and credibility. It also means knowing when to push for a sale and when to back off and wait for the right opportunity.

Mastering the Art of Negotiation

Negotiating is an essential part of sales, and mastering this skill can help you close more deals and increase your earnings. This involves understanding your customer’s priorities, setting realistic expectations, creating multiple options for both parties to choose from, and finding common ground to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.

Managing Your Time and Prioritizing Your Activities

Time management is another critical skill for successful sales professionals. With so many demands on your time, including prospecting, following up with clients, attending meetings, and completing administrative tasks, it’s essential to prioritize your activities and focus on high-value activities that will generate revenue. This means setting clear goals, creating a daily plan, avoiding distractions, and staying organized.

Overcoming Objections and Handling Rejection

Rejection is a natural part of sales, but successful sales professionals know how to handle it gracefully and turn it into an opportunity. This involves anticipating objections before they arise, responding confidently and positively, asking clarifying questions, and offering alternative solutions. It also means not taking rejection personally and moving on quickly to the next prospect.

Closing Deals and Ensuring Customer Satisfaction

Finally, closing deals and ensuring customer satisfaction are two essential components of successful sales. This means understanding the buyer’s decision-making process, crafting compelling proposals, addressing any concerns or objections, and negotiating terms that benefit both parties. Once the deal is closed, it’s equally important to follow up with your customer, ensure their satisfaction, and continue building the relationship for future opportunities.

Conclusion: Putting it All Together

In conclusion, successful sales professionals possess a wide range of skills, including building relationships, navigating the buying process, developing a strong value proposition, effective communication, negotiation, time management, overcoming objections, closing deals, and ensuring customer satisfaction. By mastering these skills and putting them all together, you can become a top performer in the world of sales and achieve lasting success.

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How to Conduct an Effective Sales Strategy Presentation

As a sales professional , you’re used to selling to customers, but selling to stakeholders in your own organization is a different story. When you conduct a sales strategy presentation, that’s exactly what you’re doing: Demonstrating what you expect your team to accomplish to benefit the rest of the organization.

Your sales strategy is written. You’ve got all your numbers in order. Now, all that’s left is to present that strategy to your leadership team. 77% of people have a fear of public speaking, but that’s never applied to you… until now. Conducting a sales strategy presentation can be a lot of pressure.

I’ll give you my top tips for conducting a sales strategy presentation that is guaranteed to align your organization and excite the other stakeholders in your business.

What Is a Sales Strategy Presentation?

Before we provide the steps to conducting an effective sales strategy presentation, let’s first outline what a sales strategy presentation looks like.

A sales strategy presentation is your opportunity to ensure your sales goals and strategies are aligned with the goals and strategies of the other stakeholders in your organization. You will use this time to outline opportunities you see for the business to win new customers, as well as outline your plans to structure, train, and develop your sales strategy presentation team.

RELATED READ: How Long Does It Take to Develop a Modern Sales Force

It is my experience that sales leaders don’t spend enough time or energy teaching, training, and indoctrinating their sales force in their strategy—if they have one at all. This is one of the reasons that sales managers find themselves continually telling certain salespeople they are not allowed to match their competitor’s pricing or offering some concession that would break the strategy.

There are three groups that should be included in a sales strategy presentation. First, your senior sales leaders should be included in the strategy and the presentation. Second, your marketing team should also participate, as it will be important to acquire their help with things like market research and positioning, as well as the content the sales force will need. Third, and finally, the sales force needs to understand what their strategy requires of them.

Your strategy is a tool to create alignment within your sales plan presentation  force and your organization. It provides a structure that keeps everyone on the same page and helps you reach revenue growth goals. It’s a mistake not to use it for this purpose.

Start With Goals and KPIs

Your first step in conducting an effective sales strategy presentation is to nail down goals and KPIs . In your presentation, discuss performance over the past period. In a modern sales approach, we tend to spend a lot of time working on helping our clients answer, “why should I change now?” In this case, you are going to ask and answer this question yourself.

When you introduce your strategy or an update, data around your past performance helps to make the case for change, something John Kotter of Harvard describes as “a burning platform.” By answering “why change” first and enlightening your audience with the data that proves you not only capture their attention but also provide a justification for what comes next.

Establish goals your team will be shooting for over the next period. Even if you have to make a conservative estimate of the better results you are going to create in the first quarter you use your strategy, start with the goals and the KPIs you will be tracking.

Outline Your Market Strategy

What markets will you be targeting? Sometimes it makes sense to target a single vertical, but in many more cases, your strategy should be targeted to address the needs of customers in multiple markets, increasing the number of customers that will benefit from what you sell and how you deliver customer value.

When it is possible to identify the companies that spend the most in your category, putting forth the time and effort to pursue them will create greater net new revenue, speeding your results, provided you get your strategy right and your team properly trained and enabled.

How did you establish this? You want to help your leadership team, your marketing team, and your sales plan presentation force to understand why you made the decisions as to who and why you have chosen these targets and how your strategy is going to improve results.

Present data to support your sales strategy presentation. Presenting the data that is driving your decisions not only helps you inform your team about your choices, but a conversation with your teams can identify other considerations and modifications that make your plan even more powerful.

Describe Training & Development Efforts

Plan for team training and development to hit key metrics. Most sales leaders don’t recognize the connection between their sales force’s effectiveness and their ability to execute the company’s strategy. Without being trained to execute the strategy, you risk failing to execute the strategy well enough for it to produce the results you need. This is critical if your strategy requires a consultative approach, as most salespeople have never been taught to use a modern sales approach.

Our training and development on the Sales Accelerator Platform provides the curriculum to train salespeople to execute your strategy and provide them with a culture shift, one that reinforces your strategy and one with proven results.

Discuss Budgetary Needs

Lastly, a strategy shift comes with expenses. Some of these expenses include training and development, marketing assets and tools, and in some cases, hiring a number of new salespeople who have a track record in executing your chosen strategy. Ensure you’re making your budgetary needs known during your presentation.

An Effective Sales Strategy Presentation is Only the Beginning

Conducting an effective sales strategy presentation is a vital step to aligning your team with the rest of your organization, and securing the budget you need to move your team forward in the next period. Following the steps outlined here, you should have all the tools you need to conduct a sales strategy presentation that everyone can agree upon.

But the sales strategy presentation is just the beginning! To get the results you need and hit those metrics you’ve outlined, you’ll need some help. Our Sales Accelerator can help you level up your team’s skills, giving them the ability to crush the goals in your sales strategy. Check out Sales Accelerator today!

Written and edited by human brains and human hands.

Anthony Iannarino is an American writer. He has published daily at thesalesblog.com for more than 14 years, amassing over 5,300 articles and making this platform a destination for salespeople and sales leaders. Anthony is also the author of four best-selling books documenting modern sales methodologies and a fifth book for sales leaders seeking revenue growth. His latest book for an even wider audience is titled, The Negativity Fast: Proven Techniques to Increase Positivity, Reduce Fear, and Boost Success.

Anthony speaks to sales organizations worldwide, delivering cutting-edge sales strategies and tactics that work in this ever-evolving B2B landscape. He also provides workshops and seminars. You can reach Anthony at thesalesblog.com or email [email protected] .

Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn, X or Youtube. You can email Anthony at [email protected]

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Sales 101: Essential Lessons for Aspiring Tech Entrepreneurs

As a full-stack developer with over 15 years of experience launching tech startups, I have seen firsthand the obstacles many novice founders face. While passion and vision are invaluable, building a successful tech company requires specialized skills across business, technology and engineering domains.

This comprehensive guide distills the critical lessons tech entrepreneurs need to thrive that business school never taught me. Backed by research data and hard-won insights from the trenches, these actionable tips set technical founders up to turn world-changing ideas into sustainable enterprises.

The Massive Growth of Tech Entrepreneurship

The barriers to founding a tech startup continue dropping as infrastructure costs plummet and distribution channels expand globally. Cloud computing, open source software, app stores and similar innovations provide startups infinitely scalable infrastructure practically for free early on.

These favorable market dynamics triggered an explosion in tech entrepreneurship over the past decade. According to Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship, the number of new tech business owners in the U.S. soared by 50% from 2010 to 2020. Furthermore, CNBC reported tech comprises over one-third of America‘s $5 trillion startup economy today.

Skyrocketing Venture Funding

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Intensifying Competitive Pressures

While abundant opportunities still exist, the tech landscape grows more competitive by the day. [Research firm] analysis found 78% of developers feel pressure to innovate faster just to survive…

Combined, these trends underscore why sharpening your entrepreneurial strategy is mission critical. By learning from those who have successfully navigated volatile markets, technical founders optimize their odds of product-market fit, funding and exit success.

Build vs Buy Infrastructure Decisions

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Open Source Libraries Accelerate Creation

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Validating Product Market Fit

Transitioning from functional MVP to validated business model is the startup valley of death. To determine true product-market fit…

Hiring Technical Talent

While founders must wear many hats initially, you cannot scale effectively without delegating specialized roles at some point. Here are research-backed best practices on composing your engineering team…

Accounting for Security and Compliance

Increasing high-profile cyber attacks and stringent data regulations demonstrate why startups must prioritize security from day one. Here are cost-effective methods to bootstrap infosec and compliance…

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Exiting on Top

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Embracing Low-Code Innovation

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By taking this bird‘s eye view of the technical landscape, founders optimize crucial upfront decisions to avoid impediments down the road. With user-centric design, full-stack architectural mastery and business model intentionality, developers turn world-changing ideas into profitable and impactful tech companies.

Dr. Alex Mitchell is a dedicated coding instructor with a deep passion for teaching and a wealth of experience in computer science education. As a university professor, Dr. Mitchell has played a pivotal role in shaping the coding skills of countless students, helping them navigate the intricate world of programming languages and software development.

Beyond the classroom, Dr. Mitchell is an active contributor to the freeCodeCamp community, where he regularly shares his expertise through tutorials, code examples, and practical insights. His teaching repertoire includes a wide range of languages and frameworks, such as Python, JavaScript, Next.js, and React, which he presents in an accessible and engaging manner.

Dr. Mitchell’s approach to teaching blends academic rigor with real-world applications, ensuring that his students not only understand the theory but also how to apply it effectively. His commitment to education and his ability to simplify complex topics have made him a respected figure in both the university and online learning communities.

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MoSCoW Prioritization

What is moscow prioritization.

MoSCoW prioritization, also known as the MoSCoW method or MoSCoW analysis, is a popular prioritization technique for managing requirements. 

  The acronym MoSCoW represents four categories of initiatives: must-have, should-have, could-have, and won’t-have, or will not have right now. Some companies also use the “W” in MoSCoW to mean “wish.”

What is the History of the MoSCoW Method?

Software development expert Dai Clegg created the MoSCoW method while working at Oracle. He designed the framework to help his team prioritize tasks during development work on product releases.

You can find a detailed account of using MoSCoW prioritization in the Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM) handbook . But because MoSCoW can prioritize tasks within any time-boxed project, teams have adapted the method for a broad range of uses.

How Does MoSCoW Prioritization Work?

Before running a MoSCoW analysis, a few things need to happen. First, key stakeholders and the product team need to get aligned on objectives and prioritization factors. Then, all participants must agree on which initiatives to prioritize.

At this point, your team should also discuss how they will settle any disagreements in prioritization. If you can establish how to resolve disputes before they come up, you can help prevent those disagreements from holding up progress.

Finally, you’ll also want to reach a consensus on what percentage of resources you’d like to allocate to each category.

With the groundwork complete, you may begin determining which category is most appropriate for each initiative. But, first, let’s further break down each category in the MoSCoW method.

Start prioritizing your roadmap

Moscow prioritization categories.

1. Must-have initiatives

As the name suggests, this category consists of initiatives that are “musts” for your team. They represent non-negotiable needs for the project, product, or release in question. For example, if you’re releasing a healthcare application, a must-have initiative may be security functionalities that help maintain compliance.

The “must-have” category requires the team to complete a mandatory task. If you’re unsure about whether something belongs in this category, ask yourself the following.

If the product won’t work without an initiative, or the release becomes useless without it, the initiative is most likely a “must-have.”

2. Should-have initiatives

Should-have initiatives are just a step below must-haves. They are essential to the product, project, or release, but they are not vital. If left out, the product or project still functions. However, the initiatives may add significant value.

“Should-have” initiatives are different from “must-have” initiatives in that they can get scheduled for a future release without impacting the current one. For example, performance improvements, minor bug fixes, or new functionality may be “should-have” initiatives. Without them, the product still works.

3. Could-have initiatives

Another way of describing “could-have” initiatives is nice-to-haves. “Could-have” initiatives are not necessary to the core function of the product. However, compared with “should-have” initiatives, they have a much smaller impact on the outcome if left out.

So, initiatives placed in the “could-have” category are often the first to be deprioritized if a project in the “should-have” or “must-have” category ends up larger than expected.

4. Will not have (this time)

One benefit of the MoSCoW method is that it places several initiatives in the “will-not-have” category. The category can manage expectations about what the team will not include in a specific release (or another timeframe you’re prioritizing).

Placing initiatives in the “will-not-have” category is one way to help prevent scope creep . If initiatives are in this category, the team knows they are not a priority for this specific time frame. 

Some initiatives in the “will-not-have” group will be prioritized in the future, while others are not likely to happen. Some teams decide to differentiate between those by creating a subcategory within this group.

How Can Development Teams Use MoSCoW?

  Although Dai Clegg developed the approach to help prioritize tasks around his team’s limited time, the MoSCoW method also works when a development team faces limitations other than time. For example: 

Prioritize based on budgetary constraints.

What if a development team’s limiting factor is not a deadline but a tight budget imposed by the company? Working with the product managers, the team can use MoSCoW first to decide on the initiatives that represent must-haves and the should-haves. Then, using the development department’s budget as the guide, the team can figure out which items they can complete. 

Prioritize based on the team’s skillsets.

A cross-functional product team might also find itself constrained by the experience and expertise of its developers. If the product roadmap calls for functionality the team does not have the skills to build, this limiting factor will play into scoring those items in their MoSCoW analysis.

Prioritize based on competing needs at the company.

Cross-functional teams can also find themselves constrained by other company priorities. The team wants to make progress on a new product release, but the executive staff has created tight deadlines for further releases in the same timeframe. In this case, the team can use MoSCoW to determine which aspects of their desired release represent must-haves and temporarily backlog everything else.

What Are the Drawbacks of MoSCoW Prioritization?

  Although many product and development teams have prioritized MoSCoW, the approach has potential pitfalls. Here are a few examples.

1. An inconsistent scoring process can lead to tasks placed in the wrong categories.

  One common criticism against MoSCoW is that it does not include an objective methodology for ranking initiatives against each other. Your team will need to bring this methodology to your analysis. The MoSCoW approach works only to ensure that your team applies a consistent scoring system for all initiatives.

Pro tip: One proven method is weighted scoring, where your team measures each initiative on your backlog against a standard set of cost and benefit criteria. You can use the weighted scoring approach in ProductPlan’s roadmap app .

2. Not including all relevant stakeholders can lead to items placed in the wrong categories.

To know which of your team’s initiatives represent must-haves for your product and which are merely should-haves, you will need as much context as possible.

For example, you might need someone from your sales team to let you know how important (or unimportant) prospective buyers view a proposed new feature.

One pitfall of the MoSCoW method is that you could make poor decisions about where to slot each initiative unless your team receives input from all relevant stakeholders. 

3. Team bias for (or against) initiatives can undermine MoSCoW’s effectiveness.

Because MoSCoW does not include an objective scoring method, your team members can fall victim to their own opinions about certain initiatives. 

One risk of using MoSCoW prioritization is that a team can mistakenly think MoSCoW itself represents an objective way of measuring the items on their list. They discuss an initiative, agree that it is a “should have,” and move on to the next.

But your team will also need an objective and consistent framework for ranking all initiatives. That is the only way to minimize your team’s biases in favor of items or against them.

When Do You Use the MoSCoW Method for Prioritization?

MoSCoW prioritization is effective for teams that want to include representatives from the whole organization in their process. You can capture a broader perspective by involving participants from various functional departments.

Another reason you may want to use MoSCoW prioritization is it allows your team to determine how much effort goes into each category. Therefore, you can ensure you’re delivering a good variety of initiatives in each release.

What Are Best Practices for Using MoSCoW Prioritization?

If you’re considering giving MoSCoW prioritization a try, here are a few steps to keep in mind. Incorporating these into your process will help your team gain more value from the MoSCoW method.

1. Choose an objective ranking or scoring system.

Remember, MoSCoW helps your team group items into the appropriate buckets—from must-have items down to your longer-term wish list. But MoSCoW itself doesn’t help you determine which item belongs in which category.

You will need a separate ranking methodology. You can choose from many, such as:

• Weighted scoring
• Value vs. complexity
• Buy-a-feature
• Opportunity scoring

For help finding the best scoring methodology for your team, check out ProductPlan’s article: 7 strategies to choose the best features for your product .

2. Seek input from all key stakeholders.

To make sure you’re placing each initiative into the right bucket—must-have, should-have, could-have, or won’t-have—your team needs context. 

At the beginning of your MoSCoW method, your team should consider which stakeholders can provide valuable context and insights. Sales? Customer success? The executive staff? Product managers in another area of your business? Include them in your initiative scoring process if you think they can help you see opportunities or threats your team might miss. 

3. Share your MoSCoW process across your organization.

MoSCoW gives your team a tangible way to show your organization prioritizing initiatives for your products or projects. 

The method can help you build company-wide consensus for your work, or at least help you show stakeholders why you made the decisions you did.

Communicating your team’s prioritization strategy also helps you set expectations across the business. When they see your methodology for choosing one initiative over another, stakeholders in other departments will understand that your team has thought through and weighed all decisions you’ve made. 

If any stakeholders have an issue with one of your decisions, they will understand that they can’t simply complain—they’ll need to present you with evidence to alter your course of action.  

Related Terms

2×2 prioritization matrix / Eisenhower matrix / DACI decision-making framework / ICE scoring model / RICE scoring model

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