12 Sales Presentation Mistakes to Avoid

1. UNCLEAR THINKING. If you can't describe the objective of your interaction in one sentence, you may be guilty of fuzzy focus— trying to say too much at once. You'll confuse your listener and that doesn't make the sale. Decide exactly what you want and need to accomplish in this contact. What would be a positive outcome? For example, imagine that a busy executive says, "You have exactly ten minutes of my time to tell me what you want me to know about your company. In one sentence, tell me how I should describe your benefits when I talk to my managers tomorrow." At any stage of the sales process, you should know in advance why you are interacting, what benefits you are offering your prospect or client, and what you'd like the next step to be.
2. NO CLEAR STRUCTURE. Make it easy for your prospect to follow what you are saying—whether in a casual conversation or a formal presentation of information and ideas. They'll remember it better—and you will too. Otherwise, you may forget to make a key point. If you waffle or ramble, you lose your listeners. Even for a conversation, mentally outline your objectives. What key "Points of Wisdom" do you want the prospect to remember? How will you illustrate each point? What colorful examples will your prospect be able to repeat three days later? What phrases or slogans do you want to guarantee they will repeat afterwards? You speak to be remembered and repeated.
3. TALKING TOO MUCH. Salespeople often talk too much about themselves and their service or product. They make a speech rather than having an exchange or interaction—otherwise known as conversation. The key to connecting with a client is conversation. The secret of client conversation is to ask questions and the quality of client information received depends on the quality of the questions asked. The bigger secret is waiting for, and listening to, the answers! In fact, a successful encounter early in the sales process should probably be mostly open-ended questions—the kind that require essay answers rather than just "yes" and "no." And don't rush on with preprogrammed questions that pay no attention to the answer you've just received. Learn to listen...even pausing to wait for further comments. Silence draws people out.
4. NO MEMORABLE STORIES. People rarely remember your exact words. Instead, they remember the mental images your words inspire. Support your key points with vivid, relevant stories. Help them "make the movie" in their minds by using memorable characters, exciting situations, intriguing dialogue, suspense, and humor. Telling stories of satisfied clients and painting a picture of how this client’s condition will be improved with your product or service are appropriate.
5. NO THIRD-PERSON ENDORSEMENTS. There's a limit to how many bold claims you can make about your company and product results, but there is no limit to the words of praise you can put in the mouths of your delighted clients. Use case histories of your clients' success stories about the benefits they received from your service or product. When you are using their actual dialogue, you can say much more glowing things about yourself and your company than you could if the words were your own. Your endorsement stories should use the same ingredients as a good Hollywood movie: create memorable characters, use vivid dialogue, and provide a dramatic lesson learned.
   
   The dramatic lesson learned in your Hollywood story will be the benefits of doing business with you. Choose characters that your prospects can connect with. It helps if the star of your story holds a similar position to your prospect. You can't say, "Do business with me, and you'll get promoted," but you can give a specific example of someone who phoned, e-mailed, or wrote you that this happened to them. "Just last week," you might say, "I heard from Mary Smith. She's the Payroll Manager at Amalgamated Systems. She said that changing their payroll system to our company not only made them more efficient, but they cut their costs 10%. She told me, 'You made me look good in the eyes of management. Thanks to you, I received a promotion!'" That's an emotional connection.
6. NO EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. The most powerful communication combines both intellectual and emotional connections. Intellectual means appealing to educated self-interest with data and reasoned arguments. Emotion comes from engaging the listeners' imaginations, involving them in your illustrative stories by frequent use of the word "you" and from answering their unspoken question, "What's in this for me?" Obviously, a customer is going to justify doing business with you for specific analytical reasons. What gives you the edge—what I like to call the "unfair advantage"—is creating an emotional connection too. Build this emotional connection by using stories with characters that they can relate to and by providing a high I/You ratio, using the word "you" as often as possible and talking from their point of view.
   
   My recommendation is that you make telephone appointments with your happiest clients. Tell them you would like to use their stories about working with you as an endorsement, and ask permission to tape record your conversation. Then just let them talk. The more they say, encouraged now and then by a question from you, the better their stories and quotes will be. Finally, select the best quotes from what they've said.
7. WRONG LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION. Are you providing the big picture and generalities when your listeners are hungry for details, facts, and specific how-to's? Or, are you drowning them in data when they need to position themselves with an overview and find out why they should care? Get on the same wavelength with your prospects. For first contacts with executives, describe what your company can do for them in broad generalities. With middle managers, discuss exactly how you can work together, a medium level of abstraction. If you are dealing with IT professionals, use the lowest level of abstraction, lots of facts and figures. Don't discuss aspects or details of what you're offering that your audience has no interest in.
8. NO PAUSES. Few sales presentations have enough pauses. Good music and good communication both contain changes of pace, pauses, and full rests. This is when listeners think about important points you've just made. If you rush on at full speed to crowd in as much information as possible, chances are you've left your prospects back at the station. Give them enough time to ask a question or even time to think over what has been said. Pauses allow pondering and understanding.
9. IRRITATING NON-WORDS. Hmm--ah--er--you know what I mean. One presenter I heard began each new thought with "Now!" as he scanned his notes to figure out what came next. This might be okay occasionally, but not every 30 seconds. Practice in front of your sales manager or colleagues, giving them permission to call out whenever you hem or ah. Or video or digitally record yourself, and note any digressions.
10. STEPPING ON THE PUNCH-WORD. The most important word in a sentence is the punch-word. Usually, this is the final word: "Take my wife—PLEASE." But if you drop your voice or add, "Right?" or "See?" or "You know?" or "Okay?," you've killed the impact of your message. Another popular punch-line killer is the word "today." Avoid saying, "Let's look at the recommendations we have for you today." Obviously, you're talking "today." The punch word in this sentence should be "recommendations."
    
    Comedian Jerry Seinfeld says, "I'll spend an hour reducing an eight-word sentence to five words because the joke will be funnier." I train sales teams to do the same thing with their key phrases because their presentations will be more powerful. We go through their sentences, looking for the "$10 words." Not every word or phrase is, or should be, of equal importance. Emphasize the action words and phrases or those that make an emotional connection. "And"-"it"-"in" are no-dollar words.
    
    One recommendation I make to sales teams is to come up with what I call "$100 phrases." My clients get excited and call out, "Wow, that's SO good!" whenever someone uses an especially potent phrase. Often it is a succinct term for a hard-to-describe benefit. Such a phrase can be priceless. For example, a company offering a complex process might explain, "We're like a security guard that keeps the bad guys out and lets the good guys in."
    
    To find $100 phrases for your company, I suggest this process: Imagine you are trying to explain what you do to your 82-year-old great aunt. How you describe it should be part of your conversational sales presentation. This is an especially good technique to use for executive overviews. If your $100 phrase is "visual enough," your prospects and clients will repeat it later.
11. NOT HAVING A STRONG OPENING AND CLOSING. Engage your audience immediately with a powerful, relevant opening that includes them. For example, "You have an awesome responsibility." Then fill in what it is: increasing sales, reducing errors, cutting overhead, whatever your product can help your prospect do. Another excellent strategy is to do some research. Then you can say, "Congratulations on your company's recent success," and describe it. Or "I love your new commercials." Most salespeople start by talking about their company. Talk about your prospect instead.
    
    Whenever I give a speech for a company, I check out their web site, corporate reports, or press releases to find something their Chairman of the Board or CEO has said that I can quote. You can do this too, making it almost sound as if their CEO is recommending your company. For example, "Our core values are..." and match them to your own. Or "We subscribe to Best Practices and all our preferred vendors do as well." That's you!
    
    To close, pick the one sentence that you absolutely want embedded in their minds, even if you don't get the appointment or the sale. Leave them with a strong, positive message. They might say, "We're happy with our present vendor." You reply, "I appreciate your LOYALTY [a $10 word.] If you ever want a SECOND vendor [$10 word] or for any reason they DISSATISFY [$10 word] you, you need to do business with a company that will be around LONG-TERM [$10 word.] Please remember, we've been PROFITABLE [$10 word] for the last 167 quarters [$10 word.]"
    
    In the search for $100 phrases, don't just add up $10 words. A $100 phrase stands alone. It is a repetitive refrain that is so valuable to your company that every salesperson needs to be trained to use it in every presentation.
12. MISUSING TECHNOLOGY. Too many salespeople rely too much on their Power Point and flip charts and not enough on making an emotional connection. My friend, Charles H. Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor, writes about four advertising agencies who were given an opportunity to bid for a large account. Each group had two hours. The last team walked in and said, "We're ready to do exactly what the other three competing agencies have done. We can give you the 'Dance of a Thousand Slides', but you have is a choice. You can pretend you already hired us and for the next two hours we can start brainstorming on your account. If you hire us, you've received two free hours consultation...and if you don't, you've still had two hours free." They proved they could think on their feet and be flexible. This won them a very profitable account. They showed they could use the latest technology, but, more importantly, that they didn't need it. "Whenever you're being considered for a job," says Charlie "act as if you already have it. Most people want to think that the quality of their work speaks for itself. It doesn't. Beat your competition by getting to work for your prospect immediately. Demonstrate how it will feel to be working together." All four agencies could have done a fine job. The one that landed the account had enough confidence in their presentation skills to use technology or not. The client was exhilarated by their work session, impressed by the agency's flexibility, and confident this agency would and could do a great job. Many sales teams couldn't communicate with a prospect for two hours without the help of a suitcase full of charts, slides, and electronic equipment. Bottom line: Make technology a support, not a crutch.

(Taken from Go-To-Market Strategies website )

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Ideas for business promotion for SMEs

Borrowed from Neil Patel 
 

Comment on blogs : Leave comments on blogs that are related to your website and the comments you leave have to be insightful. Then people will not only read you but also head to your website.

Leverage message boards : There are millions of message boards on the net and if you give people good advice, it can drive a lot of traffic to your website.

Optimize your website for search engines : Through search engine optimization you can get more visitors to your website. You employ a search marketing firm or do it yourself by  reading the Beginner’s Guide to SEO and by following these link building tactics .

Start a blog : If you are going to create a blog for your company, host it on your domain name, write a good content and don’t constantly pitch your company in your posts. Create a community by responding to each blog comment.

Google local :  I decided to claim the Hyatt Hotel in Seattle (I live there) as my business location and when you search for the Hyatt Hotel in Seattle, my business comes up.

Leverage Social Networks : By sharing good content that you find while surfing the web and participating on the social web, you’ll quickly be able to build up your profiles. The key is to be patient as it can take 6 months to a year before your social profiles really become popular.

Become a guest author :  Write guest blog posts on other blogs. All of these blogs want is more content. If you write guest blog posts you will not only get traffic but also branding and the  links will help your SEO efforts.

Case Studies : If you already have happy customers, why not get a case study from them? Get them to talk about your product or service, how they used it, and the results they got.Case studies can help build credibility for your company, and get you new customers.

Write Beginner’s Guides : Do you remember when companies used to write White Papers? Although they are still effective, the new version of them are “beginner’s guides”. These guides vary in length, but the one thing they have in common is that they are thorough. By writing good content and giving it away for free, not only will you get a ton of traffic, but you’ll also get a lot of links.

Speak at conferences :  All you have to do is find these events and apply to speak.

Start an affiliate program : If you don’t have the money to spend on marketing, you can always get people to market for you for free. The only thing you have to do is pay people for each sale they bring to you. Think of it as performance based marketing.

Answer questions :  From forums to question and answer sites, people need help. If you can answer questions related to the products and services your company provides, you can get new customers. You can find these potential customers on forums on question and answer sites like Yahoo Answers.

Go to networking events : Some of the people you will meet will be useless, but a small percentage of the people you meet will turn into business relationships and friendships.

Talk shit :  The good part about having a blog is that it gives you an audience that you can communicate with. And when you tell them something, it will start spreading virally on the web.With my first company ACS, we provided marketing services. And when I saw companies that could use our help, I wouldn’t just reach out to them, but I would write a blog post on how they are messing up.

Give away the farm:  email companies and tell them in a step by step format of everything they need to change. Don’t be afraid to email companies and potential customers that you think you can help. What’s the worst thing that they can do… ignore your email?

Ask for referrals : Do you already have customers? If so, have you asked them for referrals? It’s a pretty effective approach as long as your current customers are happy with you. You’ll be shocked, only a very small percentage of your customers will not be willing to make an introduction. If a large portion tell you no, it means that you could be doing a better job making them happy.

Leverage You Tube : Not only do videos now appear in search results, but you also can use them to show how good your products actually are.

Offer steep discounts : A buddy of mine launched a concept called Tomato Battle, in which thousands of people get together and throw tomatoes at each other. When he launched the event he was charging 59 dollars for a ticket and his goal was to get a bit more than 2000 attendees. Within days he sold over 1000 tickets on these group buying sites and after the deal closed the people who bought tickets told their friends and those friends went directly to the Tomato Battle site and bought more tickets at the regular price. If you can come up with a price point that benefits you as well as the group buying companies, you can make a lot of money and gain access to a whole new set of customers.

Have exceptionally great customer service: One of the easiest ways to increase the lifetime value of your customers is to offer exceptionally great customer service. For example, Zappos will automatically upgrade your shipping to next day air every once in a while. And they also offer a 1 year return policy with little to no questions asked. By providing exceptionally great customer service, customers will not only be happy with you, but they’ll continue to come back. In the short run this may end up costing your company a bit more money, but in the long run you’ll see the benefit because each customer will not only spend more money with you, but they’ll tell their friends about the great experience they had with your company.

Get press : The more people that talk about your company in a positive way, the more people will come to your website and check out what you are offering. The hard part about press is that it’s not easy to get the attention of the major news outlets. But it is easy to get the attention of blogs. One way that I like to get press is to email bloggers asking if they would like to interview me. Although that sounds silly, a small percentage of the bloggers you email will say yes.Don’t be shy; ask bloggers if they would be interested in interviewing you. What’s the worse thing that can happen… they’ll say no?

Pay with a tweet : If you want more customers, then entice people to promote your company. Simply Measured does a great job of this by letting you signup for free if you tweet about their product. And as more people tweet, more people come to their website and signup. And once you are in their system, they get you hooked onto their software and they upsell you into paid plans. Start thinking outside of the box. Free users can market your company for you with a tweet, a plug on Facebook or any other social site. You just have to be willing to ask them for a plug on these social sites or else you won’t receive them.