Biggest Mistakes in Sales Presentations

Same Side Selling Academy > Captivate Podcasts > Biggest Mistakes in Sales Presentations

Ian Altman discusses common mistakes in sales presentations, emphasizing that clients often view them as a time to rest rather than a valuable interaction. He suggests setting expectations in advance, focusing on understanding the client’s needs, and using a “Jeopardy board” approach to tailor the presentation to their specific issues. Altman advocates for a consultative approach, where the salesperson aims to solve the client’s problems rather than just presenting their products or services. He highlights the importance of shifting the focus from price to results to achieve better outcomes

Biggest Mistakes

  • Walking into a meeting with no expectations set in advance.
  • Giving a presentation that focuses on your company, products, and services rather than the client’s needs.
  • Including irrelevant information like pictures of your building or number of employees.
  • Leaving the PowerPoint presentation up the entire time, encouraging the client to lose focus.

Best Practices

  • Set expectations before the meeting, explaining that you’ll spend time asking questions to learn about their situation.
  • Use a “Jeopardy board” approach with PowerPoint, only showing relevant slides when topics come up.
  • Focus on the client’s problems and how you can solve them, rather than talking about your company.
  • Show up as someone who is there to solve, not sell.
Transcript
Ian Altman:

Ian, welcome to the same side selling podcast. I am

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your host. Ian Altman, one of the most common questions I get

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has to do with sales presentations. And people ask

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me, What should I include when I go to meet with a prospect, what

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should be my PowerPoint presentation? That's what we're

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going to talk about on today's episode. You're all set, you're

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ready to go to your meeting. You show up, and you have your

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PowerPoint presentation. Maybe you're really advanced using

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Keynote. Maybe instead of keynote, you're using some other

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AI driven tool, using beautiful.ai using pick it. It

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doesn't matter what tool you're using, but nonetheless, you walk

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into the meeting and you're ready to give the presentation

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of your life. Here's the problem, your customer isn't

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thinking, Oh, wow, I'm about to see the best presentation ever.

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Your customer, on the other hand, is thinking, Oh, great,

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there's an HDMI cable, there's a projector or a screen in our

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room. And this person's about to speak, I'm going to catch up on

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some much needed sleep right now, because it's nap time, I

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can get a good rest right now, and this is going to be

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fantastic. In fact, this is probably the best rest I'm going

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to get all week. I hope my Fitbit is dialed in with this,

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and I'm hoping the presentation goes at least three hours, so I

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get a good score on my Fitbit. It counts. It counts towards my

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sleep. Big mistake. So part of our challenge is that we walk

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into a meeting and we've set no expectations in advance. So the

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client is thinking, Oh, you're going to give us a presentation.

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The problem is, when we leave that meeting, the client doesn't

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think, wow, they really understood us. The client

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instead is thinking, wow, they covered a lot of stuff in that

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meeting. And I don't know whether or not they can help us,

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but they certainly spend a lot of time on their slides. Because

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what's in a typical presentation where a typical company's

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presentation includes five or six slides about your company,

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it may even include a picture of the building that you work in,

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like anybody cares. Maybe if you had animation of the building

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being constructed, it might be interesting, but otherwise,

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there's really no reason to talk about your building. Then

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there'll be a bunch of slides that talk about your products

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and services. We have this product. We have that product.

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Maybe there's something that talks about how many employees

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you have. You may as well talk about how many memory cards you

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have, or how many spare HDMI cables you have around the

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office, or what kind of mouse you use. It's all irrelevant to

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the client. They don't really care about any of that stuff. So

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you've got that presentation, and then maybe you have a case

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study or two. And a case study usually says, here's this

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client, and here's why we were so brilliant in helping them. So

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I've now given a presentation that talks about me and my

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company, maybe talks about our buildings and number of people

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and how many widgets we have somewhere. Then we talk about

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the different products that we have, and then we give some case

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study examples. At that point, our client has probably slipped

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into a coma, and maybe the hope is we convince them to buy some

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of our stuff. What should we do instead? If you want to get top

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results for your team, take a look at these same side selling

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Academy. Just visit same sideselling.com to learn more.

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Well, instead of taking this approach of talking about

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yourself, first thing you want to do is you want to set an

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expectation about the meeting that says, hey, we're going to

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be out there next Tuesday from nine to 10. I don't yet know

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that we can help you. I'm going to spend at least the first half

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of the meeting asking questions, to learn about your situation,

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to see if we can even help. How does that sound? Oh, it sounds

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great. Okay, by the end of the meeting, you and I will either

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conclude we don't have a fit looks like we might. We'll add

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our next steps together. How's that sound? That sounds great.

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So now I've just set an expectation that says I'm not

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coming to give a presentation, I'm coming to learn about them.

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It allows us to navigate through the same side quadrants that we

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teach in same side selling. It's in chapter four. It's on page

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76, of the actual paperback and hardback of the book. And it

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talks about us getting information about the client,

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about what they're trying to solve, why they need to solve

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it. How important is to solve that, what results or success

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looks like, and who else needs to be involved. That way, we

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have all the information they need to build a business case to

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make an informed decision. If you want to have a PowerPoint,

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what you can do is you can do what I call the Jeopardy board.

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So the Jeopardy board is similar to the board game. Jeopardy.

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People get to pick a tile. You can create a grid on the page

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with different topics, and then when the client brings up a

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topic, what you can say to them is you can have the screen blank

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the whole time and say, look, I've got some slides. If you

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mention a topic that I have something relevant to share with

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you, I'll turn the screen on. I'll show you that, and then

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we'll go back to our conversation. Has that sound

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great in that. Example, what you want to do is then be able to

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say to them, so here's someone else who was having a similar

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problem. Here's what that problem was costing them, here's

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why it was important for them to solve it. Here's what they were

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looking for in terms of an outcome. Fortunately, we were

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able to help them. And here's the outcome that they had. They

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ended up with this great outcome that's really almost utopian.

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How similar or different Do you think that would be to your

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situation? Now I turn off the screen, and now I'm back to a

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conversation. And in PowerPoint, you could just hit the letter B

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and it'll blank the screen, and they'll just get a black screen.

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And once that happens, the customer says, oh, now I'm back

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to this conversation, if I leave the PowerPoint up. The whole

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time. We've been taught since we were in kindergarten that it's

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nap time, and now I can catch some z's. Remember when you're

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going out to speak with people, it's not about you, it's about

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them. You can either show up as someone who is there to sell

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something, or someone who is there to solve something. We

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want to make sure we're showing up as someone who is there to

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solve, not sell. If you look, sound and act like a

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stereotypical salesperson, you're likely to get the

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response, no thanks just looking. If instead, I show up

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as someone who's there to solve. If I navigate the conversation

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so that we're having a discussion about what the

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client's trying to solve and how we might be able to help them,

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that's how we shorten sales cycles. Shift the focus from

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price to results and achieve better outcomes across the

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board, there are topics you'd like me to address. Just drop me

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a note to Ian at Ian altman.com and I will see you next time on

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the same side, selling podcast. So long you

B2B organizations call on Ian Altman when they want to accelerate revenue growth with integrity.
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