Make It All About Them: Winning Sales Presentations

Introduction: Creating an Experience

We have been boring each other for years during sales presentations.

If you have ever been a member of a buying committee, you surely know what it's like to sit through a page-by-page turn of a presentation that is more easily measured in pounds than ounces.

Perhaps you have heard salespeople drone on about the size of their firm, their clients, and their products. Or watched some poor souls read bullet point after bullet point of detailed information about their company that is of little interest to their audience.

Maybe you've witnessed someone respond to a simple yes-or-no question with a five-minute response that never really seems to answer the initial query. Or you may have even experienced that awkward and uncomfortable moment when a member of the buying committee says to the sales team, “I am sorry, but we are going to have to end now. Your time is up.” Yikes!

These scenarios are abundant in sales presentations. They often come as a result of unstated traditions, myths, and rules that have been so ingrained in corporate America that they have become commonplace.

Let's face it, the bar has been set low—very low.

And because these scenarios are often accepted behavior, people have been successful in spite of it.

Early in my career, I was responsible for the investor, client, and employee communications for a man named Bill Harrison, who was the vice chairman of the Chase Manhattan's Global Bank. It was just after the Chemical—Chase merger, ...