Sales Pitch / Presentation

Delivering your sales pitch or making your sales presentation is key to answering a prospect’s questions and convincing them to buy from you. These posts can help you achieve that.

Prospects and customers want different things

by Ken Dooley

“The best way to sell prospects is to treat them the same way you treat your customers now.” Some salespeople hear that message so frequently they consider it a basic selling rule. But it’s a major mistake.

Recent research shows that salespeople who treat prospects the same way they treat existing customers are committing a major sales sin.

About 70% of prospects taking part in the study said they wanted different things than existing customers look for. The survey also reported that what salespeople do to please prospects may not work for existing customers.

Bottom line: Salespeople who deliver the same presentation to prospects and customers are missing their targets.

Listen up: These two costly mistakes can end your selling career

by Ken Dooley

The single biggest complaint of professional purchasers is that salespeople talk too much and don’t listen enough.

That’s according to the Purchasing Manager’s Association of America’s annual survey.

Poor-performing salespeople dominate the talking, while top salespeople dominate the listening. It’s possible for a salesperson to talk too much, but it’s rarely possible to listen too much. When salespeople are excellent listeners, prospects and customers feel comfortable and secure with them. They then buy more readily and more often.

The second biggest mistake made by salespeople is their failure to ask enough good questions or phrase them properly. The key to understanding customers has more to do with questions salespeople ask rather than the answers they provide.

The 2 most damaging sales mistakes – and how to avoid them

by Ken Dooley

Of all the possible sales mistakes one can make, two are more damaging than all others combined.

The first is assuming that prospects know about your company and its products.

The second is not having a value concept.

What the name of a business or product stands for is critical for separating it from the competition. Without that essential differentiation, prospects will seldom buy, particularly when they are satisfied with a present supplier.

Some salespeople think the way to displace a competitor is to talk about themselves. They forget that prospects are already satisfied with their present supplier.

The key is to determine what customers value most that they might not be getting from the current supplier.

6 keys to building salespeople’s confidence and winning more sales

by Ken Dooley

Have you ever watched a sporting event live or on television and seen the impact of confidence? A team of lower skill can defeat a team of greater skill if its confidence is significantly higher.

Confidence is even more critical in sales. The sales professionals who have the most confidence will often walk out the winners in a competitive bidding situation, even if their price is higher or their product is not superior.

The opposite is also true. They may have the best product in the world, but if they approach their prospects with low confidence, the sale may die.

4 key questions that will help you close more sales

by Ken Dooley

Prospects who have a problem don’t always think that they have one. It’s a good idea to keep asking questions about the prospect’s wants, needs, desires and goals until a clear problem is visible. Then try to focus on your products or services that will solve the problem.

Create a sales proposal that sparks movement: 5 must-haves

by Ken Dooley

Keep it as brief as possible. Weighty proposals don’t move prospects. Summarize or eliminate anything that slows the flow. Try to get rid of it if you can or put it in an appendix.

Rules for developing winning presentations to close the deal

by Ken Dooley

Rule No. 1: Most presentations are won in preparation, not in the interview.
Winning salespeople spend enormous amounts of time and effort finding out what prospects want. They want to know their prospects’ needs better than the prospects themselves.

Try to uncover facts about what the prospect needs and not just about what your product or service can do for them. Facts about your prospect’s specific situation will always be more persuasive than facts about your product or service.

Stop customers from sleeping through your sales presentations

by Ken Dooley

Millions of sales presentations will be given this year. Many will establish a positive connection with customers. Others will be met with yawns.

It’s harder than ever to locate qualified prospects, so when you finally get in front of a potential buyer you need to think and plan strategically.

Here are five ways to get your presentation off to the right start:

3 ways to turn objections into sales

by Ken Dooley

Because prospects are pressed to do more with less, they’re more determined than ever to get good value for their purchases. And to make the best purchasing decisions, they may ask more questions and raise more objections. When that happens, salespeople can turn the situation to their advantage.

Here are three reactions that will help your salespeople turn objections into selling opportunities, courtesy of Stephan Schiffman, author of The Career Salesperson:

12 things questions posed to a potential customer should have

by Ken Dooley

Every question a salesperson poses to a potential customer should meet at least one of these 12 criteria.

These come from sales trainer Tom Reilly:

Sales Pitch / Presentation

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