Are You Giving Customer Focused Sales Presentations?

The average attention span of the average adult is 12-14 seconds. If your sales presentation lasts more than 1 minute, dont flatter yourself thinking that most prospects hear or remember what you say.

In a recent sales survey, it was discovered that most salespeople cover 5-7 features during their presentation. When asked what the prospect remembered 24 hours later, they mentioned only one of the features. Guess which one? Not the first one, or the last one, but the one that related to their need, want, problem, desire or concern.

So what is the key to an effective sales presentation? Only cover the features and corresponding benefits of the issues that are of interest to the prospect. People buy for their reasons, not yours. They buy emotionally, and then justify their decision logically. Therefore a powerful presentation does the following:

1. It comes from the prospects perspective.
2. It is interactive.
3. It is a conversation with an agenda.
4. It blends a balance of emotional appeal and logical reasons.
5. It is brief.
6. It lets the prospect tell you what he wants and/or needs.
7. It qualifies interest in the features as you move along.
8. It tests the prospects interest along the way with trial closing questions.
9. It adjusts to the prospects personality style.
10. It is customized and tailored to each prospect.

Most salespeople go into what I call a feature dump. One of the biggest mistakes salespeople make is that THEY TALK TOO MUCH. How about you? Are you giving more information than you are getting?

Most good prospects are ready to buy before they tell you. Just give them a chance, and they will help you sell them.

Tim Connor, CSP is an internationally renowned sales, management and leadership speaker, trainer and best selling author. Since 1981 he has given over 3500 presentations in 21 countries on a variety of sales, management, leadership and relationship topics. He is the best selling author of over 60 books including; Soft Sell, Thats Life, Peace Of Mind, 91 Challenges Managers Face Today and Your First Year In Sales. He can be reached at tim@timconnor.com, 704-895-1230 or visit his website at http://www.timconnor.com.

Business Financial English - Financial Presentations in English
Are you nervous when giving presentations? Do you need more confidencer giving financial information? Well, read this article...

Assuming Anything In Sales Is To Invite Failure
One of the biggest mistakes many salespeople make is to assume. To believe that something is true without any verification, ...

Do Your Salespeople Have Walk-Away Power?
Sooner or later, you will have to walk away from a prospect or a client relationship that is no longer worth your time, energ...

A Profitable Growth Formula for Sales Managers
Sales organizations that successfully achieve profitable revenue growth do so through a sales system encompassing sales focus...

Tips On Becoming A Better Sales Department Leader
Successful sales department leaders understand the products they are selling and recruit only those who are able to sell bene...

Tracking Your Sales; The Sales Managers Most Valuable Tool
If you are a sales manager you need to have the company and the front line workers always ask customers who come in and buy; ...

How to Develop a High Performance Sales Team
The basic elements of sales have remained the same for decades, for example prospects still buy on emotion, they may use logi...

Candy Sales VS Car Wash Fundraisers
Are you the coach, the youth pastor or adult advisor for a nonprofit kids soccer team, Little League team, cheerleading squad...

Game, Set and Match
There is one question I want to ask you today, does your current customer and prospect list qualify to be on your customer li...

In A Slump?
Sooner or later, every salesperson experiences a down period of sales results. These periods, where your continued activity s...

Tough-Love Sales Management
Sales managers are far too deferential, way to easygoing.Let me rephrase that, if I may.Many of them, despite their tough, ta...

The Second Step in Sales
This second step in sales is about the immortal on-liner: the offer you can not refuse.There are two or more views on sales. ...

Why Not Take The Sales Quiz To see How You Are Doing?
Sales QuizWhy not give the following sales quiz to your sales staff. It will give you an idea of their understanding and app...

The Traits of Great Sales Leaders
The key to sales performance is the quality of an organizations salespeople. That includes, and starts with, having a great ...

The Need Of Sales Force Automation
We do business in an age of high competition, where most of our competitors have adopted to up-to-date technology and tools. ...

Sales Coaching - How To Successfully Follow Up
When I accompany sales people on their appointments in my capacity as a sales coach, I very rarely see the follow up used as ...

Sales & Marketing Plan Strategies
Design and Implementation of a new Sales & Marketing campaign must be carefully thought through from the beginning. What mess...

How to Increase Your Sales - Part II
Or "Why Joan isnt seeing the rewards for her effort!"One of the reasons people arent successful in building their business is...

The Miraculous, Curative Power of Selling!
Jims dad died when he was just 15, and he had a stay-at-home mom who didnt have marketable skills.So he dropped out of high s...

The Urgent Factor
The sense of urgency is the supreme motivator for anyone wanting to get something done. You can consider urgency a tool, you...