Better Sales Presentations. Do It Now! www.brightcarbon.

com UK +44 161 883 0225

info@brightcarbon.com USA +1 866 789 2482
Better sales presentations

One major contributor to ‘death by PowerPoint’ is using slides that spell out what you’re trying to say. The
problem is that words you see and words you hear are all processed in a single part of the brain, meaning that
humans just can’t read and listen at the same time. Which leaves your audience confused. Not what you want
in a presentation.
Better sales presentations

The problem is, that people can’t resist trying to understand what’s in front of them, so what happens is:
• The audience tunes out the presenter and reads the text.
• It’s not possible to read and listen at the same time.
• So the speaker can’t make any impact until you’ve finished reading.
Better sales presentations

So the speaker can’t

make any impact until
you’ve finished reading.

Once you’ve read the slide you just want to move on not listen to the presenter talking about it some more.
That means that the presenter is either being ignored, or being very irritating indeed.
Visuals not text

REGIONAL SALES FIGURES.

Sales in region A were up almost 40% from last

year; $138,000

Product C stayed stable at $89,000

Region C also showed an increase in sales, up

22% from last year; $112,000

The answer is to reduce the use of text on the slides, and use pictures, diagrams and graphs that illustrate and
reinforce your messages, but aren’t completely self-explanatory, and need a presenter to explain them.
When the presenter’s narrative synchronizes with the visual sequences, audiences are motivated to pay
attention, it’s easier to understand, more memorable, and more effective. Everyone’s happy.
The right objectives
The right objectives

Before sitting down to write a sales presentation,

its first necessary to understand what kind of a
change you want your prospects to make. To do
this, you need to understand:
• What are they doing now?
• What you are asking them to do instead?
• This involves having an understanding of
your own sales process and the prospects’
buying process:
• Have they decided to change, or do you
need to persuade them?
• Do they know what category of solution they
are looking for, or is that still open?
• Have they got established decision making
criteria, or can you shape their thinking?
• Will they talk to other companies, or could
you win this before anyone else notices?
Key questions

The two key questions that you need to answer for your prospects are ‘Why Change?’ and ‘Why Us?’ ‘Why
Change?’ is used when you’re selling a category of solution in which you need to convince the audience to
change what they are currently doing and to adopt something completely new. ‘Why Us?’ is used when you’re
selling a type of solution, in which the audience has already decided to do something new and you need to
convince them that they should do it with us, rather than the competition.
Action plan

Once you have understood what kind of change you are asking your prospects to make, think about what you
are asking them to do in a more immediate sense. What action do you want them to take as a result of your
sales presentation? What’s your desired outcome? The answer isn’t always as simple as just “buy something”.
There are dozens of things you might want en-route to a sale. Be very clear about what you are trying to
achieve before you write your sales presentation.
Making an impact
Making an impact

The introduction needs to make sure the audience is receptive to the key messages of the presentation – to
make sure their minds are opened. When you start explaining why the prospect should change what they’re
doing, or why they should be considering working with you, the audience has to be interested so they’ll be
willing to follow your argument. The introduction should also make it very clear to them that you know
something about their situation, the problems they’re facing or the issues they need to solve. Openings need to
contain a number of key components:
Making an impact
1 | Challenges
State the problems the customer has, or key issues
they face; if benchmarking data is available, even
better. The aim is to demonstrate that you know of
others with challenges that the prospect will
recognize.
(Blame Someone Else)
People can sometimes get a bit defensive, because
they feel like they’re to blame for not dealing with
these issues already, so give them the opportunity to
blame it on something else.
Making an impact

Countdown

2 | Key insight
Provide a new way of looking at the problem that
explains why current attempts to address it haven’t
worked. Essentially arguing that current approaches
won’t work because they focus on the wrong things
or do things in the wrong way.
7
3 | Implications
Explain how failure to solve the problem has a cost, in
terms of morale, productivity, lost revenue, etc.
Expand upon the challenges and ask “Why does this
matter?”
Making an impact
4 | Story
Tell a story about a customer that had the same
problem, how the problem caused them pain, how
change wasn’t easy, but how it was worth it. This
helps break down rational resistance to change by
targeting an emotional response.
5 | Shape of the solution
Once you’ve persuaded the prospect that they have a
problem you need to agree what capabilities the
solution needs to have. This is about framing the
problem favorably. The shape of the solution you
argue for ought to subtly point the prospect to what
you’re offering.
Making an impact
7 | Solution overview
If presenting a complex solution, consider brief
overview towards the end of the introduction. This
allows the value proposition to be introduced after
the prospect already knows what it is that you are
talking about, which is easier to understand.
8 | Value proposition
Finally, introduce your value proposition. They key
reasons why the prospect should choose over the
competition. This forms the basis of the rest of the
presentation.
Making an impact

Challenges

Implication Benefit
Value
Solution proposition

Key Benefit
insight
Benefit

At the end, what you’re left with is a great structure to make an impact and set up the rest of your presentation.
Once you’ve got through the introduction, you’re into the main body of the presentation, which is built around
the value proposition. If you got the introduction right, you’ll have made it clear why the topic is important,
you’ll have demonstrated that you understand your audience’s situation and their needs, and shaped the way
the prospect sees things, so that they’re receptive to the benefits and advantages that you provide.
Winning value propositions
Winning value propositions

To be successful, a value proposition has to help you sell. It has to be persuasive, and therefore needs to be
relevant – to offer something prospects want, or can be made to want.
It also has to be differentiated, in the sense that it sets your offer apart. That can come from offering something
different, or being able to deliver the same things more convincingly.
Why change? vs Why us?
Why change?
When selling the category, ‘why change?’ the value
proposition will be made up of benefits – ‘increase
turnover’, ‘reduce risk’, or ‘improve efficiency’. Some
of these can expanded upon (e.g. efficiency reduces
your costs), but there’s already no doubt that they are
a good thing.
Why us?
When selling your solution, ‘why us?’ the value
proposition should be made up of advantages, and
even features. Things like ‘lightweight’, or ‘better
predictivity’, ‘or ‘flexible’, or ‘BSI approved’.
Advantages have an inherent positive quality, but
need to be expanded upon if the benefit is to be
understood – so, for example, better predictivity
allows a laboratory to deliver better results to ensure
satisfied customers. Features such as ‘BSI approved’
need to be elaborated upon – the presenter needs to
tie each feature in the value proposition to a strong
benefit verbally – so for example in this case approval
might mean you can reduce insurance premiums to
save money.
Value proposition construction
Value propositions should be comprised of three to
five statements about what your solution offers. Any
more becomes harder to remember. Any less can fail
to structure the presentation content effectively and
memorably. In a short presentation, two statements
can work.
Value proposition statements work best if they are of
similar length and format. The best way to get the
phrasing right is to note a question that the value
proposition answers, and format all items to work
with that question. So, for example ‘you should
change in this way because you’ll get ____’ means you
can complete the statement and relate each of the
benefits or advantages to your audience.
Another approach is to use value propositions which
feature verbs, as this promotes the idea of the
audience benefiting from a specific action that will
help their situation, and so can be more powerful as
they realize the real impact that your value
proposition could have.
What exactly the value proposition should be
depends on what the objectives of the presentation
are. That, in turn, will of course depend on the sales
cycle and the desired next steps. If the aim is to be
invited to respond to some future tender, the value
proposition might be different to if it is to close the
deal immediately.
Compelling Clear Persuasive
Benefit structured presentations
Benefit structured presentations

The introduction ought to

Audience
help your audience realize
something new, and how it
should do that is show: Context & Situation Value Close
• You understand the
prospect’s challenges.
• The standard ways of
meeting these Details
challenges don’t work.
• Prospect needs to do
things differently.

The intro should shape the

prospect’s view of things so
when they think about the Solution
capabilities they’re looking
for, their thinking is aligned
Presenter
to your offering.
Benefit structured presentations

The value proposition slide should be used as an agenda that’s shown as you segue between sections in the
presentation. It should be written to answer the key question around which the presentation revolves – ‘why
change?’ or ‘why us?’
When talking about the category (‘why change?’), it will most likely be benefits.
If answering ‘why us?’ expect to see advantages that are expanded into benefits verbally by the presenter.
Benefit structured presentations

By using the value proposition

as an agenda, the advantages
or benefits are stated early
enough to be noticed, and
ensure the agenda is audience- Compelling Clear Persuasive

focused, not product focused.

Create a clear hierarchy, and

divide your presentation into 3-
5 sections. Not too many to
remember, few enough to
remain persuasive.

The close should summarize

the value proposition, and then
suggest specific next steps and Why Change? Compelling Clear Persuasive
easy actions to take.
Grabbing attention
Grabbing attention

Attention spans are pretty important. They can influence a lot in a presentation. Often, people think that
attention spans are really short, which is why audiences get bored and fall asleep more often that you’d like.
You don’t get many people waving their arms about a whooping, do you?
Grabbing attention

Presentations that start with traditional mega-boring, ‘about us’ first few slides will cause your audience to
switch off. Attention levels will fall as no one cares about this information, nor do they find it useful. Don’t let
your presentation have a ‘boring bit’. If you think it does, you need to tighten the content. The best content in
any presentation is that which has the most meaning and relevance for your audience. Don’t save your best
stuff until the end. The audience might have stopped listening before you ever show it. Keep sections relatively
short and reasonably spaced – to ensure that attention levels don’t drop off too fast. And how long a
presentation should be? Probably “as short as it can be to work”.
Who is your audience? Executives?

Think about who your audience is. High level execs have a pretty short attention span. They’ve trained
themselves into that because they’re really time poor, so they generally like quick and punchy presentations
that allow them to understand what’s important, make a decision, and move on. So, do a quick board room
presentation that gets straight into what’s important and has little else.
Who is your audience? Details people?

If you’re speaking with analysts, or engineers, or accountants, then things are different. These people need lots
of detail. They’re used to spending a long time collecting and reviewing information before acting upon it, and
you can plan accordingly with more content. But even with the longest attention spans, you’ll come up against
a fairly hard limit of around 20 minutes before people can start to switch off.
Who is your audience? Details people?

You can reactivate it by:

• Changing topic, or media, or presenter.
• Asking questions, having a discussion, or looking at something else.
That way people find it easy to reengage and you can have long and fruitful conversations with them, as long
as it’s relevant, enjoyable, or motivating.
Almost there… www.brightcarbon.com
info@brightcarbon.com
UK +44 161 883 0225
USA +1 866 789 2482
Just a few resources and links
 www.brightcarbon.com/PPTTricks
Videos of awesome PowerPoint tricks in action on the BrightCarbon website
 4 Part Online Awesome Weekly Online
PowerPoint Course PowerPoint Tips Master Classes

www.brightcarbon.com/PPTToolkit
Free PPT Toolkit to kickstart your efforts
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www.brightcarbon.com info@brightcarbon.com +1 866 789 2482