Sales training ideas – Use both the push and pull in your sales presentations.

When putting together sales presentations many salespeople overlook a key element which can make their sales presentations much more effective. The key to remember is that peoples’ lives are driven by pleasure and pain, the carrot (reward or pleasure), and the stick (penalty or pain). The benefits of your product or service will help the prospect either to avoid pain or to gain pleasure. Usually it is a combination of the two. Your objective in the sales presentation is to show the prospect how he or she will minimize pain and maximize pleasure by using your product or service. People buy home insurance to avoid the pain of the replacement cost should their house burn down.

People buy the newest sports car for the pleasure it brings them. They may buy a Volvo for pleasure, because they like the car, as well as to avoid the potential pain of being injured in an auto accident. 

Typically, people will do more to prevent pain than they will to gain pleasure. Think about it—would you do more to earn $100,000 or more to prevent someone from taking $100,000 away from you?  

What is the primary objective of your product or service? Does it protect something? Does it enhance something? Come up with as many “carrots” and “sticks” as you can. Having both the carrot (the reward) and the stick (the pain caused by not buying your product) in your sales presentation is important. To be completely effective, you need to include both sides of the equation. You have to talk about both the heaven the prospect will experience as a result of owning your product and the hell he’ll go through without your product. 

Try to think of as many benefits or “carrots” and as much pain or “sticks” as you can and use these in your sales presentations. Tell stories about the pleasure people have gained and the pain they have avoided by purchasing your product or service.  

The bottom line is: you want people to ultimately see all the pleasure they will gain if they own your product and the pain they will receive if they don’t. Your objective is to come up with as many product benefits as you can, and also come up with the pain or dangers of not having your product and then find a way to use all of them in your sales presentation.

Sales training ideas – Don’t forget these two important aspects in sales presentations.

Your sales presentations can be made or broken by two critical ingredients. Most salespeople include only one of these in their sales presentation and completely disregard the other.

2 Ingredients for powerful sales presentations

Your sales presentation should focus on a strong logical argument backed up with strong emotional appeal. These two ingredients, emotion and logic, more than anything, will keep the prospect listening and interested while you pave the way to closing the sale. 

Too many salespeople focus primarily on the facts, figures, and statistics of their product during the sales presentation and fail to get the prospect emotionally involved. People unequivocally do not buy on logic alone. People may look at all the logical reasons to buy and even build a logical case to buy, but ultimately they buy emotionally, using logic to justify their buying decision. In other words, people always buy on emotional logic. Keep this fact in mind when designing your sales presentations. 

Becoming emotionally involved in business might be the equivalent of becoming infatuated with a product’s bells and whistles (features). Once you get the emotional purchase home, logic will begin to enter the equation. Do the bells and whistles work properly? How effective are they at helping you do what you want to do? And when you do have a problem, how quickly can you get it resolved? If it turns out that the bells and whistles work only 50 percent of the time, and when you need service you have to wait much longer than expected, these “logical” problems will ultimately make the “emotional” purchase of this item a poor decision. 

In the short term, emotion sells. In the long term, logic will show whether the decision was a good one. If you start dating someone because he or she is drop-dead gorgeous and makes you laugh, you are buying emotionally. Once the infatuation wears off, you will now be focusing on “logical” factors such as, does this person support you? Is he or she there for you at important times? Can you have meaningful discussions? Can you work out finances equitably? What about shared interests? What about distance? If these “logical” areas are a problem, the relationship probably will not last. 

If someone gives you an emotionally charged sales presentation, but there is no logic to back up that emotion, you will not buy from that person again. If you get sold emotionally on prime rib and it turns out “logically” to be a tough cut, you won’t be back. On the other hand, if you get emotionally sold on prime rib and it turns out logically to be the best prime rib you’ve ever had, you’ll be back again and again. 

Once a decision is made, service after the sale, performance of the product, efficiency and profitability, or lack thereof, will give solid, logical proof as to whether the decision was a good or bad one. 

Keep in mind some of the dynamics that are at work with your prospect. At the corporate level, decision-makers are concerned with how the buying decision will move them up the corporate ladder, earn the company more money, make them look good to peers and/or superiors and, overall, how the decision will give them more power within the organization. 

On the other side of the coin, they are afraid of making a mistake that could do the opposite and decrease their power within the organization. Ultimately, the buyer will weigh the two sides and make an emotional decision based upon a preponderance of evidence and then use the evidence to logically justify the decision to others. 

Most people, when they’re buying for business, desire to look good to others so that they can experience more positive emotions. Will they be seen as intelligent, frugal, tough, and a great negotiator? Or will they be seen as someone who paid too much and got taken advantage of? Remember this when putting together your sales presentation. 

A Potential Emotional and Logical Pitfall 

Many salespeople with a superior product focus their sales presentation solely on the logical reasons to buy, believing that details, statistics, and hard facts will be enough to sell a high-quality product. While logic might be enough to initially arouse interest in a superior product, the salesperson needs to add emotion to the sales presentation to ensure the prospect will pay higher dollars for a higher-quality product. 

On the flip side, salespeople with a weaker product or service will often use an emotionally charged sales presentation, while completely disregarding logic. The salesperson may feel that unless they throw an excess of enthusiasm and emotion at the prospect, they will not have a shot. In this case, the salesperson tends to oversell the emotion. 

The bottom line: as a salesperson, you need to know your product’s strengths and weaknesses, and then sell the strengths with logical enthusiasm in your sales presentation. Stir up strong emotions and justify those emotions with logical reasoning. Sell the steak (logic) and the sizzle (emotion). Sell the logic of prime rib, but paint “juicy” emotional pictures along with it. Conversely, you can sell the butt steak emotionally, but also sell the logic of the great price or “deal” the prospect is getting. 

All products and services have strengths and weaknesses. A lower-quality product or service, or one with fewer options and less flexibility, usually has low price as a strength. On the other hand, a product with a high price as a weakness usually has options, flexibility, superior performance, or other strong features as strengths. 

Whether you have the highest-priced, highest-quality product or the lowest-priced, lesser-quality product, you can always emotionally sell the logical benefits of whatever your product and thus have a powerful sales presentation.

Sales training ideas – An important element in your sales presentations.

When delivering a sales presentation, there is, by far, a sales tool you can use which is far more powerful than any other sales tool out there. It is a tool that many new salespeople have naturally but any of us can use this to propel our sales presentations. 

A powerful tool for sales presentations

We had a situation in the investment business in which a young stockbroker became overwhelmed with emotion and excitement when a company stock he was buying for clients made a surprise announcement regarding a major new contract. The young broker hit the phone like a maniac and all of a sudden his laid-back, logical sales presentation was animated and lively. As a result, he opened three accounts in two hours. Considering he had only opened two accounts in the previous two months, it was obvious that the difference in his ability to open accounts came down to his enthusiasm and conviction. 

A high level of enthusiasm alone made three sales in two hours, while a logical sales presentation alone made two sales in two months. 

Often new salespeople are able to sell purely on enthusiasm. Typically, they have little product knowledge and know very little about the industry. Enthusiasm and excitement are all they have to offer. 

Enthusiasm is perhaps the most powerful sales tool in that it alone can make sales. Put together a powerful sales presentation where you couple enthusiasm with a well-thought-out business case and strong logical appeal and your sales will skyrocket.

Sales training ideas – Add personal information to add emotion to your sales presentation.

During the sales presentation many salespeople focus on general information that applies to everyone and lose sight of the individual. When the sales presentation is focused on information that applies to everyone, as opposed to the individual prospect, the prospect becomes detached and has no emotional involvement in the sales process. 

On the other hand, when we focus on the personal history of individuals and speak to their unique issues, they become emotionally involved in the sales presentation. Thus, you want to focus on the person you are facing and his or her unique situation. One way to do this is to bring the prospect’s family into the sales presentation.  

Think about the following for a moment: A child’s future, a parent being cared for in their later years, the death of a loved one. All of these are events that most of us will deal with in our lifetimes. These subjects create very strong emotional responses in most of us. Some of these, such as a college education, can be positive events; others, such as the death of a loved one or nursing home care, have negative overtones.  

What potential “family” benefits does your product address and how can you work these into your sales presentation? If you sell a product such as life insurance, the “family” impact is immense. Here is an example of bringing family into your sales presentation: “Mr. Prospect, as you know, the objective of this life insurance is to financially protect your family should something happen to you unexpectedly. Obviously, the grief is bad enough without having to worry about finances. Imagine your children going to college, your wife making the house payments, and weddings paid for all because you had the courage and foresight to protect your and your family’s dreams with the right life insurance policy.” 

Adding a statement like the one above will personalize the sales presentation and definitely add some emotion. At the same time, before you use a similar example, you need to know something about your prospect’s family. 

Following is another example of “family” emotion. Although this emotional picture was drawn with regard to an objection, it is a good example of bringing family into the sales presentation. 

One of us used to sell long-term care insurance for future use for nursing homes. A common objection during the sales presentation was: “If I become sick, my son (or daughter, granddaughter, neighbor, etc.) will take care of me so I don’t have to go into a nursing home.” 

This objection was easily handled by asking a few questions and allowing the prospect to draw his or her own conclusions. The first question was: “So if you require twenty-four-hours-a day, seven-days-a-week care, your son is going to care for you?”  

At this point, the prospect’s facial expression would start to change. The follow-up question was: “Let me ask you, with all due respect, do you think it would be fair to your son to ask him to do that?”  

Believe us, it created some emotion quickly! All at once, the prospect visualized the burden this would be on his offspring. 

In reality, people often do not picture the implications of long-term care. They don’t see it as something that might involve their relatives twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They imagine it might involve the relative helping them out of a chair from time to time or fixing a meal or two. They rarely see the real commitment this type of intensive care usually requires. 

Having been asked the right questions, the prospect began to realize the true implications of long-term care, namely, that the caregiver may need to give up his or her life and focus completely on care giving. Once that “emotional” picture hit home, the sales presentation and the sale became much easier. This is an example of educating the prospect, which is one of your jobs as a salesperson. 

Weddings, college, a new home, not to mention family—all have plenty of emotion attached to them. So make your sales presentations personal. Learn about the family and other loved ones involved who will either be using your product or service too, or will otherwise be impacted by it, then talk about that with the prospect during the sales presentation and bring it up again when closing the sale.

Sales training ideas – Adding life to numbers in your sales presentation.

To have the most impact during your sales presentation, you want to back up your logic with emotion. Usually when you are discussing numbers in your sales presentation, you are trying to make a logical case for your product or service. This part of the sales presentation usually tends to be a bit dry. So how can you make your numbers more emotional? 

Giving logical numbers emotion during your sales presentation 

Some numbers are emotional in and of themselves. Extreme numbers can be emotional. For example, an insurance company has an advertisement stating that although they didn’t have any cute animals as mascots, they did have over six hundred billion dollars in assets. Six hundred billion is a number that catches people’s attention. 

In another example, a precision welding company talked about the welding wire they used with a diameter of three-thousandths of an inch, or the diameter of a human hair. In the welding field, that number opens peoples’ eyes. Of course, after you’ve captured the prospect’s attention with the numbers, you need to give the benefit—why the numbers are important to him or her. 

Do you have any examples like the ones above that you could add to your sales presentation? 

You also have to present your numbers the right way during your sales presentation. You want the prospect to have a clear picture of the bottom line. For example, as an investment advisor, instead of telling the prospect she will receive 7 percent on her investment, let her know that with this investment she will receive a quarterly check for $647, or whatever the number happens to be. When you mention a percentage, the prospect has to make all the calculations to get to the bottom line. In the second example, you are giving the prospect the bottom line directly and the number $647 will naturally have more emotion to it than 7 percent. When you give the bottom line number, the prospect doesn’t have to go through any confusing calculations in her head to figure out what 7 percent ultimately means to her. In other words, you want people to get the overall picture, you don’t want them in their heads making calculations.  

The bottom line: during your sales presentation you want to make it easy to understand, and give the final picture as opposed to pieces of the puzzle that need to be put together. Deliver the numbers in a way that they will have the most impact, and deliver them with energy and enthusiasm. 

Note: If you are presenting “cost” numbers, such as how much your product costs to own, you want to break those down to the smallest amount possible, usually the daily investment, so that they have the least impact on the prospect. 

Presented the right way, your numbers can have impact. Use the ideas above and add life to the numbers in your sales presentation.

Sales training ideas – Showing how investing in your product may actually save the prospect money.

First let’s start with a basic sales presentation premise: During your presentation, your objective is to show the prospect that he or she will be better off with your product or service and worse off without it. You want to use both pleasure and pain (carrot and the stick). If you have a prospect who sees a need for what you’re selling, you’re halfway there. If, on the other hand, the prospect does not necessarily see a need for what you’re selling, you have to change his or her perspective. One way to change perspective during the sales presentation is to show the cost (pain) of not owning your product. 

For example, if the prospect believes your product costs too much, you need to change her perspective to the point where she understands that it is costing more not to have your product. If she is spending $1.00 a day for something because she doesn’t have your product and your product costs $100, then after one hundred days she’s making money with your product. Then the point of your sales presentation will be to shift her thinking from up-front cost to long-term cost. 

How about lifestyle? Does your product provide a better way of life? If so, what is it costing mentally and emotionally not to have your product? You simply must work these into your sales presentation. Once you build value to the point where it outweighs cost, you’ve got a sale (assuming the prospect is qualified to buy). 

Here is another way to look at this: Once you shift the cost from the prospect’s “hang on to my money” side of the ledger to the “buy your product and save money” side, the sale is made. In addition to comparing long-term and short-term costs, what other cost factors can you use in your sales presentation? 

1) Cost of labor.

How many working hours, and thus dollars, are being spent—daily, weekly, monthly, annually—by NOT having your product or service? 

2) Cost of maintenance and materials.

If the business has an old copier, how much more expensive is the service contract? How many hours is the machine costing in lost production when it’s down? How many more hours do office personnel spend fixing the current machine? How about the number of ink cartridges and their cost compared with the newer, longer lasting ones? 

3) Longevity.

How long does your machine last compared with the competition’s? If the competition’s machine lasts ten years and yours lasts fifteen, the prospect will have to buy three machines for every two of yours. Point this out. Give the prospect a “per year” price as opposed to a total price, and have numbers ready to support your claim of the lifespan of your machines versus the competition’s. 

Your challenge is to find as many cost factors associated with your product as possible and work them into the sales presentation. Show your prospect what it is costing him or her not to own your product or service and make the evidence so overwhelming that the prospect is compelled to buy. Some of these factors are easier to put into numbers. 

Let’s look at a few examples in which we take some otherwise intangible items and make them tangible. 

Let’s suppose your prospect has an old, outdated piece of equipment. From experience you know that an old machine will require company personnel to spend time repairing, using another machine, waiting for another machine, or working on various other activities as a result of problems with the current machine. The prospect may realize this or he may not, so your first step is to discover whether he is aware of this, and then encourage him to take ownership of these “costs.” 

Your side of the conversation during the sales presentation might go as follows: “Mr. Prospect, obviously your old equipment is costing you man hours as your employees spend time repairing it, using another machine, waiting for another machine, or doing various other activities because of problems with the current machine. Am I correct in that assumption?” 

Once your prospect agrees, present him with the number of manpower hours the old equipment is most likely costing him (based on your experience). Next, have the prospect himself figure out the number of manpower hours the failing equipment is costing him. Say something like following: “Mr. Prospect, in my experience the old equipment is probably costing you about ten man hours per week. But from your end, if you had to guess how many hours it’s actually costing you, what would you guess?”

If the prospect gives you a number, whatever number it is, use that number in your calculations. If the prospect says no, he has no idea how many hours, say, “I’ll tell you what. My experience says it’s probably about ten hours. To be conservative, let’s use half that, or five hours. Will you agree that between repairs, waiting, and other activities it’s taking at least five hours per week?” 

Using whatever number he gave you or, based upon the five hours, do your calculations and put a “cost” on the old machine and then work this into the sales presentation. 

Note: It’s important for your prospect to give you a number—that way he can’t argue with it later. You’ll also need to get the salary in dollars per hour of the employee who is wasting her time. Your prospect may not want to reveal it, but you’ve got to question until you get a ballpark figure that he’s comfortable giving out. 

Now, do the math. Five hours a week at the hourly rate of the person wasting his or her time. Say, “So five hours at $15 an hour is $75 per week, or $750 for ten weeks, or roughly $3,750 per year. Is my math right? So, in personnel hours alone you’re losing $3,750 per year by not having our new machine. In addition, you’re losing the added productivity of that energy, or 250 working hours a year that could be put into doing more profitable work elsewhere—isn’t that correct? But that would be a little difficult to calculate, so we’ll leave it out for now. Just realize that there is some ‘real’ added cost there, okay?” 

Next, jump to the price of a service contract. “Joe, you’re currently paying $800 per year for a service contract on your present equipment correct? The service contract on a new machine is only $550. That equals another $250 per year, so now we’re up to $4,000 per year that the old machine is costing you. Correct?” 

Now, jump to other maintenance and supply issues such as toner cartridges. During your sales presentation, continue to build the “cost” in each area until you have overwhelmingly shown that it is less expensive to buy the new machine than it is to keep the old one. Your ultimate goal it to show that it is much less expensive, but if you can at least show it is less expensive by any amount, and the prospect trusts all your numbers, you’ll be in a good position to close the sale. 

Note: Again, you want to be using the prospect’s numbers. If you help him come up with the numbers, make sure he “owns” them. If you use your numbers, they are open for debate. If you use the prospect’s numbers, they are law. 

You can also work more difficult intangibles such as: quality of life, sick days, safety issues, longer life, less stress, and getting more enjoyment and happiness out of life into your sales presentation. These are more difficult factors to put dollar amounts on, but you want to use them where possible. 

Some companies, including many insurance companies, do put dollar values on these more difficult intangibles. They have numbers on obscure things such as how much one extra year of life is worth or how much an arm or a leg is worth. You may find it helpful to refer to some of their statistics as “evidence” when making your case in the sales presentation. 

In legal disputes, dollar amounts must to be assigned to almost everything, including intangibles. You can gather numbers from court judgments, insurance claims, and so on, or you can build a psychological case and ask the prospect how much factors are really worth. An example: 

“Mr. Prospect, studies have shown that this therapy can add years to your life. Suppose it only added one year, or six months, or even only one month. Would you agree with me that one month would be a conservative number? 

“Mr. Prospect, the insurance companies and other industries can actually put a dollar amount on one extra month of life. But let me ask you, what is one more month of sunsets, one more month with the ones you love, one more month of enjoying life really worth? 

“If someone told you that you had to leave this world today, and let that sit with you for a while, and returned ten minutes later saying, ‘Okay, I’m giving you one more month,’ what would that extra month be worth then?” 

Let the prospect come up with the “priceless” psychological value. In a case such as this, the prospect doesn’t have to put a specific dollar number on it. The psychological number will always be higher. 

Ultimately, you need to build as much real and psychological cost as you can of not owning your product or service into your sales presentation. At the same time, this will build your product’s value. 

Note: In competitive situations, you want to show how it will cost the prospect more money to own the competition’s product than yours. Equate the intangible—headaches, lack of peace of mind—and the tangible issues, such as the documented life of your machines versus the competition’s and the “real” cost involved. We will look at this in depth in the Competition Section. 

Use the ideas above to really hammer home the pain (stick) of not owning your product or service. The more pain you can associate to non-ownership, the more effective you’ll be during your sales presentations.

Sales training ideas – An example of a simple ROI model to use in sales presentations.

When driving home cost during your sales presentation, there are many tools you can use. Probably one of the most effective is a Return on Investment Model. This is perhaps the most direct and effective way of showing the real cost during the sales presentation. 

The following is a simple example of a Return on Investment Model. These models are helpful when presenting a cost–benefit analysis of owning versus not owning your product. For this example, let’s assume that a woman is buying bottled water that costs $1.00 a day versus buying a water filtration system that you sell for $100.00. To show the advantage of owning your system you could work this into your sales presentation in the following manner: 

A simple ROI Model for Sales Presentations 

         &nb sp;                    Initial Cost Day 1        After 100 Days        After 365 Days 

Water @ $1.00 per day      $1.00                                $100.00                $365.00 

Filtration system                $100.00                           $100.00                $100.00   

Conclusion: By buying the water filtration system, the return on the initial investment of $100.00 is a $265.00 savings after one year. You can then extend this out over 2, 3, or more years to increase the impact of the numbers, or the pain of not investing in your product but continuing on the old way. 

Of course, this model is basic and shows only one parameter. You can increase the complexity by introducing several other factors such as the cost of replacement filters. The point is that ROI models are an effective way to drive numbers home with impact during the sales presentation. 

Sales training ideas – 2 thoughts to keep in mind when using technology in your sales presentations.

During sales presentations it is almost a good idea to use technology to help convey your point. At the same time, you want to keep a couple of key ideas in mind when using it. The first point is a little more involved and takes a little more effort whereas the second point is simply a quick warning on something to be aware of. That being said, if you mess up on number 2, it can cost you your professional image and even the sale. Thus, you want to keep both in mind during your sales presentations. 

2 Technology notes to keep in mind in your sales presentations 

1) Always have a backup plan when you are using technology in your sales presentation.

Know your equipment inside and out. This includes setting up the equipment and on-the-spot repairs. If you’re using a projector, have a backup bulb and know how to replace it, or better yet, have a backup projector. It’s also a good idea to have a backup computer. 

Get to the location early so you can set up your equipment and do a test run through your sales presentation before the meeting begins. 

As a final note, make sure you have your sales presentation in hard copy just in case you’re your equipment completely fails. Also, ensure the hard copy is professional and presentable. Use color wherever possible. 

2) Watch What You Use as a Screen Saver

If you use a computer to give your sales presentation, it’s important that your screen saver is in good taste. It’s not a good idea to have scantily clad women (or men) as your screen saver. Company logos and the like are fine. Family pictures and/or pictures of your kids can be good conversation starters. Overall, use your best judgment and realize that, customers and prospects may see your screen saver. You don’t want anything on there that will embarrass you or offend them. 

Keep these two points in mind and you can be sure that things will go smoother during your sales presentations.

Sales training ideas – What to include in your sales presentations based upon where you stand with the account.

When delivering your sales presentation you will be delivering to one of three audiences. Each audience requires a different sales presentation. Let’s begin by defining each audience and then we will go into how to tailor your sales presentation to each. 

3 Different sales audiences 

The three different sales audiences are:

• An Existing, Extremely Loyal Account
• The New Prospect
• The Competitive Account 

Tailoring your sales presentation to each specific sales audience 

In general, here is what your sales presentations should cover in each of the different accounts: 

1) The Existing, Extremely Loyal Account

Established customers will typically need a shorter sales presentation than new prospects and competitive accounts. At the same time, you don’t want to get so lax that you miss or fail to mention important points. Don’t assume that your best customers know everything there is to know about you and your company. You want to end each sales presentation with a “reminder” of the other things your company can provide, things they currently may not be getting from you. 

With established customers, it is unlikely that you’ll spend much time, if any, selling yourself or your company, although you want to give them updates regarding new developments. For the most part, if the company has been doing business with you for a number of years and you are treating them right, they are most likely already sold on you, your product or service, and your company. 

Your sales presentation to an existing, extremely loyal account will typically include:

• A brief introduction with some humor.
• A presentation on the product or service and how it will fill your client’s needs and desires.
• Close.
• New developments or other ways you may be able to help them. 

2) The New Prospect

New prospects need a full-blown sales presentation that includes selling yourself and your company in addition to your product or service. 

Your sales presentation to a new prospect will typically include:

• A brief introduction with some humor.
• A brief history of you and your company.
• A review of the prospect’s needs, desires, goals, and objectives.
• A presentation on your product or service showing how it fills their needs and desires.
• Close.
• Intense follow-up upon returning to your office after after the presentation, whether you close or not. 

3) The Competitive Account

Competitive accounts also need a full-blown sales presentation that includes selling yourself and your company in addition to your product or service. 

With competitive accounts, you’ll also do a competitive comparison between you and the competition. 

Your sales presentation to a competitive account will typically include:

• A brief introduction with some humor.
• A brief history of you and your company.
• A review of the prospect’s needs and desires, goals, and objectives.
• A presentation on your product or service showing how it fills their needs and desires along with your competitive comparison and related items.
• Close.
• Intense follow-up after the presentation whether you close or not. 

Note: By intense, we mean pleasant persistence and doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. We also mean sending thank-you notes and keeping the lines of communication active. 

Keep these points in mind when preparing for your different audiences. While most salespeople are usually on their game for the new prospect and competitive account, it is many times easy to be lax with well established customers, don’t let this happen. Make sure you prepare thoroughly for all and that each gets your best and most thorough sales presentation.

Sales training ideas – An important item to cover in sales presentations.

During your sales presentation, you want to make sure you speak the same language as your target audience. What do we mean by that? All audiences are interested in “what’s in it for them” and all have their own distinct language that they understand. For example, if you are giving a sales presentation to a bunch of high-tech people (“techies”), you need to be talking in terms that are important to them, namely, technology lingo. If you aren’t able to “talk tech,” make sure you have people there who can, otherwise you’ll be at a great disadvantage. 

If you are giving a sales presentation to upper level management for a publicly traded company, your language had better be in their terms. Outline what your product or service will ultimately do for the bottom line and the shareholders, the price of the stock, and how they, the leaders of the company, will be looked upon favorably by the shareholders as a result of having chosen your product or service. 

With private corporations, give your sales presentation in terms of returns to the owners and employees and how your product or service will make their lives easier. 

You will also need a different sales presentation when you talk to an individual. You need to talk in terms of the value she will get for her money and what your product or service will do to improve her life. 

In a nutshell, you need to know the focus of each group and revolve your sales presentation around that focus by speaking in terms that are relevant to them. When presenting to owners or upper level management, you might start with stock price, profits, and the like, but also show how your product will make the employees’ and customers’ lives easier, and how your product is the most technologically advanced. 

Other groups such as the “techies” may not care at all about profits and pricing. Their concerns may focus solely on how their network, bandwidth, or other internal operations that may be affected. 

In any case, even in situations where you cover several areas, you want your sales presentation to be focused on the area most important to the audience you are speaking to. Each group will have one particular area that has overriding importance to them and their business and thus, to be most effective, you must spend most of your time in that area during the sales presentation.

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