“How many slides are there?”
Once upon a fiscal quarter, there was a sales pro. He was great at PowerPoint and a veteran presenter. But more often than not he’d walk into a client meeting and, mid-handshake, hear, “How many slides are there?”
Anyone who has sat through a sales presentation knows this is a great question. Without proper guidance, sales reps will default to the shotgun approach of building a deck. Let’s throw everyone we can into it and hope something hits home. You might think those rows of customer logos provide validation, but they’re just one more hurdle for a sales rep to jump over before they get to the valuable material prospects are interested in.
A well-designed deck alone won’t win a sale or land you a second meeting. Despite the hordes of dynamic and engaging reps, presentations remain a sore spot for many businesses. Mobile devices like the iPad or Surface have certainly engaged us as consumers, so might it follow they’ll help engage your prospects as well? Not to mention the level of guided, specific support you could provide to reps in the field, e.g., on-brand, winning decks or prospect-specific messaging. Everyone wants smooth and engaging presentations, and mobile is the key to helping both your sales rep presenters and the prospects presentees.
So where do you start?
“Anyone?…”
Unfortunately, when it comes to rolling out mobile devices, most companies focus on tasks like email, inventory and CRM. This satisfies the Efficiency needs of a sales enablement program, but it neglects Engagement. Companies have a lot of opportunity to improve how sales reps are using mobile devices to engage with prospects during presentations. But first, let’s consider the reps giving these presentations, and how their respective skill-sets impact the success of these meetings.
The Don Draper:
This rep knows the prospect, the product and the variables influencing whether or not a purchasing decision is made in their favor. This rep can tell a story. They have no problem aligning marketing collateral with the specific pains of a client, and whip up engaging, informative presentations like a fry cook serves up fried eggs on hash. But there are only so many Don Drapers, so what do you do with the rest of your sales team?
The Goldilocks:
This rep is just right. They know the product and the messaging but they can’t tell a story. The prospect is given no context for the information being served up via PowerPoint, so they zone out or, even worse, multi-task. This rep is losing the majority of their deals to BuzzFeed. Good enough.
Me:
Despite being a Millennial, my PowerPoint abilities are lacking at best. I can tell you a great story about how our products will solve your business pain, but you’ll be too busy critiquing the deck sliding by, bland and out of sync.
Get out of your own way
Our partners at CVI understand presentations better than I ever will (check out a video of Tim Riesterer’s keynote at this year’s BMA conference), but something we can all take away is this: to inspire change, audience MUST connect on an emotional level with your presentation. Allow your passion and understanding of the product to inform the story your share with your prospects.
Prep your sales teams to be engaging from the very beginning. Onboarding is not only a great way to get reps up to speed on your products and sales process, but it’s the perfect opportunity to exercise some quality control over any bad habits picked up from other companies. This is also an excellent time to retrain sales reps on using mobile devices to engage with prospects during sales meetings.
Mobile is the great equalizer. Study your sales process, your marketing collateral and the vision you’re building with prospects. If you can find the most effective alignment between all three, you’ll have the deck you should be delivering to your sales reps and, in turn, your potential clients.
Expert mobile strategy ensures your Don Drapers aren’t going too far off-script in an effort to tell the best (if not entirely true) story for their prospects; provides Goldilocks with something more engaging than the next slide; and keeps Me from botching all of the above – which gives me a fighting chance to actually show some ROI instead of wasting valuable time teaching myself PowerPoint.
Onboard to promote engagement
While it can be an effective guide, PowerPoint won’t do much to help your sales rep engage a prospect (or keep them awake). Introduce tablets and other smart devices early in the onboarding process to ensure your sales reps can successfully differentiate with mobile during presentations.
What is your idea of the perfect sales presentation?
Pierce Smith is a Communications Specialist at SAVO. Email him directly at pierce.smith@savogroup.com. You can find him on LinkedIn or @PierceSAVO.
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