How to give effective sales presentations - Sales Training Tips and Sales Training Advice

What's going on, friends and fans? Ryan Dohrn here, and we're talking sales. Hope you're having a great week out there in sales land. Hey, thanks so much for watching the YouTube channel and subscribing to the podcast. Be sure to give us a like and a thumbs up and all that kind of stuff. It lets Google and lets YouTube know that we're doing good things really for all of you. This week we're focusing in specifically on really putting some sparkle and putting some shine if you will, on the presentations that you're making to your customers. Now, this really isn't a conversation about slide decks or sales decks or how to Zoom or not to Zoom. It really is more of a focus on what are the 3 or 4 main components, really 3 main components of every sales call that you need to really, really put some polish on. And when you can put some real good polish on, then friends, I think you can really, really shine. So I've made a few notes And want to share that with you because I get asked about, hey Ryan, could I listen to one of your sales calls? Hey Ryan, could I watch one of your sales calls? So we're going to figure out how to maybe do that coming up because I feel like it could be very helpful to all of you. All right, so one of the first things that I'd love for you to consider is every great sales call has an agenda. Now I know that that sounds really simple, so if it's so simple, why out of hundreds of calls, sales calls that I listen to every year, why do I never hear this? It always begins with a bunch of, for lack of a better term, kind of a bunch of baloney like, oh hey Sally, you know the weather's great outside, or, you know, hey Bob, you know, where are you living at these days? You know, that kind of stuff. What I find is that most people, young and old, most buyers young and old are sort of like, let's go, okay, let's go, let's have a good conversation but let's get going. Now If you've known someone for years, absolutely take your time. Hey, how's the dog? How are the kids? You know, how was vacation? But if you don't know somebody, what I have found is they really just kind of want you to— let's go. Come on, buddy. Come on, old man. Let's get to the chase and what it is. So my agendas always have 3 main items to you. So there's 3 main components of every great sales call, and that agenda, okay, is, is going to have 3 items. So here's how it works for me. The first thing on the agenda is success stories. So this is how I'm going to kind of work this. I start out my sales call by saying like, hi Bonnie, thanks for the 20 minutes. Do we still have 20 minutes? She's like, yeah, sure Ryan, that's great. Awesome. If you don't mind, I'd love to cut to the chase as to why I wanted to visit with you today. They're going to say like, that's awesome, keep going. I love your momentum here. So I'd love to cover 3 main things with you today. The first is I'd love to share some success stories with you of other businesses or companies similar to yours that have been very successful with us. The second thing is I've come prepared today with some ideas, some recommendations, and some pricing. I don't want you to feel like I need to leave the conversation to create a quote for you. I'm here ready to go with pricing and with ideas, and I hope that will speed up your process and not only working with me, but also your process in evaluating. So that's the second thing. The third thing is, at the end of our conversation, I'd love for you to say yes, like, Ryan, this is awesome, let's work together. But more than likely, what you're probably gonna say is, Ryan, this is a great idea and I just need to think about it. And guess what? That's okay. It's okay for us to figure out a way so you can evaluate this effectively. And then I suppose there's always a slim chance that you're gonna say no. And guess what? If you say no, it is okay. We'll work together at some point. Okay, so the first step then— it's got 3 steps. The first step of a great polished meeting is to set an agenda and try to keep your agenda to those 3, if you will, kind of primary items. Okay. Now, the second thing that I do to really put some sparkle and some shine on my sales calls is my very first slide is a bunch of logos. So I like to call it logo soup. I know that designers hate it. A lot of sales managers hate it, but I don't talk about my company history right out of the gate. Boom, on the screen, I'm putting up as many logos as makes sense to showcase the customers that we're working with. Now, in some industries, in some cases, you will need permission to put a company's logo in your sales presentation, but I've been doing this 33 years. I have never had an issue. With it. I've never asked for permission. Now keep in mind, I'm always really ethical about what I share. I'll say this is Company A, Company B, Company C. They've been working with us on and off for 4 or 5 years. They love what they're doing. We love them. They love us. I never get into intimate details, but I'm proud of the advertisers that I have. Now there's always certain industries out there where you can't do this, but I would say by and large, 99 point 8% of the time, it's okay. So the first thing I'm going to do to add some shine and some sparkle is going to be make sure I'm setting an agenda, it's respectful, and it makes sense. The second thing is logo soup. Lots of logos on the screen talking very, very candidly but ethically, very positively and passionately about all the companies that we're working with. And then the third thing is I'm I'm always throughout the sales call positioning myself as an advisor, somebody that's there to give advice. The moment that somebody sniffs out— sniffs out that you're a salesperson is the moment they typically are going to put up some type of wall. So I don't want you to say, I'm not in sales. I hate it. I absolutely hate it when someone says, I'm not trying to sell you anything. Okay, baloney. You definitely are trying to sell me something, and quite honestly, that's okay. But instead, I always like to say, I'm here to help. I would love to be an advisor to you on this. I want to give you recommendations based on these clients that we've worked with. Shift from sales over to advisement. I know that it may be semantical to some of you, but it's so much more than that. It's really psychological. How can I help? I'm here to help. These are the companies that we've already helped. I'd love to help you as well. Just help, help, help. Because when people see you as a person that's trying to help them and not just trying to sell them, you'll almost always get further faster. Now, I think you want to be careful. You don't want to be changing your business card to say not in sales, not a salesperson. But I do think that a lot of us are misunderstanding the way the world perceives salespeople. Unfortunately, because of really great movies like The Wolf of Wall Street or Tommy Boy or Boiler Room, which are great sales movies, right? When people see those, they're like, yep, there they are, typical salesperson. Well, friends, I was actually going to write a book called The Less You Sell, the More You'll Sell, but it sounded weird, right? It's like you want to sell a lot. I do believe that though. I think when you position yourself as a helper, as somebody that's an advisor— and remember now, advisors get paid, right? Like a stock advisor or a wealth management advisor. They're providing advice, but it's not free. Well, just remember, if you advise people on what they need to do to be successful, it puts you in a different position with them. It puts you more in a peer-to-peer position with them as opposed to a subservient position, like they're here and you're the salesperson like, oh, please buy something from me. When it comes down to it, adding some sparkle to your presentation is not as much about your slide decks. I mean, those do need to be good, and you need to have a very thorough, well-rehearsed presentation. I believe it's those little things that really matter— setting that agenda, selling with success stories, making sure that you're always focused on help, help, help, advisement, recommendations. Never forget, friends, 70-some percent of sales occur because of recommendations. And I think you'll agree with this. Most people don't mind buying things. They just hate being sold. Are you kind of like that as well? So when you're looking to put some polish on your sales call, take those 3 main things into consideration. And I'd love to help you with even more than that. I've got about 10 steps to every sales call. We've got webinars about that. Love to come and train your team about that. Talk with you about it on Zoom or whatever the circumstance is. To be honest with you, friends, unfortunately, most sales calls are not very good. And the reason they're not very good is because they're based upon a customer needs assessment. And the problem is customer needs assessments today don't always go the way you think they're going to go because most of your customers expect you to be prepared and they don't look forward to an interrogation. Customer needs assessment Assessments normally determine what somebody wants and not what somebody needs. And because of that, it can sometimes put us in a little bit of an awkward or peculiar situation. Never forget, friends, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it. And they're not. We're not crazy, friends. This is a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. Love to come and train your team. Love to come speak at your national sales conference. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. And whether you're listening or you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe down below, give us a big thumbs up, and we sure would appreciate that. Friends, we'll see you next time.