New Sales. Simplified.

CHAPTER 13

I Thought I Was Supposed to Make a Presentation

From my earliest days in sales, I’ve viewed selling as a dialogical exercise. Sales calls, no matter how big or important, are intended to be a two-way conversation. They might take place in the buyer’s office, a meeting room, or possibly even the gigantic boardroom. But there’s never any thought of standing. Why would anyone stand to have a conversation with a person who’s seated? This is supposed to be a sales call, right? A meeting where a buyer and seller discuss relevant topics to determine if it makes mutual sense to do business (or more business) together.

In the mid to late 1990s, concurrent with the rapid proliferation of Microsoft PowerPoint, I began working with more “sophisticated” ...