In this segment of the IT sales training series, the presenter walks through step three of a five‑step sales process: presenting proposals. He explains various proposal delivery methods—live demos, PDF one‑sheet contracts, and electronic signing tools—and stresses the need for a simple, frictionless buying path. The speaker highlights that overly complex contracts often kill deals and recommends using a proven, streamlined template. A major focus is the distinction between merely talking to a prospect and truly educating them; effective education uses visuals, interactive questions, and varied media rather than static PowerPoint lectures. He argues that the education process must be completed before asking for commitment, as uneducated prospects will not buy. The presenter also outlines three critical sales dimensions to verify with any prospect: the problem they need solved, their budget to address it, and a retention strategy to keep them long‑term. Finally, he advises reviewing the proposal step‑by‑step with the prospect to ensure clarity.
Chapters
All right, guys, we're making really good progress. We're moving on to step number 3, and step number 3 in our 5-part process for IT sales training success. Step number 3 is all about presenting proposals. Now, you might present— each company does this differently. The proposals that you present might be in the form of a demo that they might sign up for online. Maybe you actually do have the ability to present one-sheets to the customer. And the reason that I like one-sheets as a contract is because a lot of times when you're dealing with somebody on the phone, you're very disconnected from them and you really haven't had a chance to build a really great relationship with them, and so that's really, really tough. We'll talk about that later in more detail. But if I can actually create a PDF one-sheet that actually is the contract, or if I'm able to do that online through DocuSign, DigiSign, whatever, then I'm really trying to do what we talked about in our last video, which was Create a very simple path for them to buy from us. So once they've completed a demo, what I wanna do is actually take them online or give them a one-sheet that they can actually sign very, very easily. I will share this with you, and it's a big point of contention with myself and many, many companies in the sales process, is that oftentimes your contracts kill the deal. Now, I know that lawyers can do it better. I know that lawyers can make it shorter. So what you really need to focus on is, you know, do you have a winning template? I mean, do you have something that has worked for you time and time and time again that's proven to create that path of least resistance, to make presenting the proposal or the demo easy and then making them— giving them the ability to sign the contract, making that really, really easy? But I wanna pause for a second and have you guys think about something for a second. Now, I've been in the media sales IT space since 1996. And all the way along, one of the things that I've noticed is that we as salespeople, we have a failure to educate. And so because we don't educate correctly— see, we often confuse talking to a customer with educating them. That's not how it works. Because if that was the case, in school, we wouldn't need books, we wouldn't need an overhead projector, etc. All the teacher would do is lecture and talk. Now, think back, okay? Go with me on this, okay? Think back to college or school when you went and sat in a class that was lecture-based. Did you actually enjoy it? Does anybody enjoy being lectured to? I mean, that's why when I'm doing these training videos, I try to be funny and zany and like get loud and then get soft because I know this kind of stuff can be so unbelievably boring. But you need to ask yourself, have you just been talking or have you actually been educating? You know, using visuals, using colors, asking questions, sending emails, popping to various websites back and forth. See, a lot of you get so burdened in a PowerPoint presentation. Oh my gosh, these PowerPoint presentations about put me to sleep. I just want to grab a popsicle stick and stab myself in the neck. They're horrible. And guess what? If you think they're horrible, just imagine how your potential customers feel. Remember something, guys. You need to complete the education process, ask all the questions before you present the contract to them or for them to sign on the dotted line. You know, you need to ask yourself this: are you trying to get them to commit too soon? Because once someone is fully educated, they will either buy from you or they won't. See, if they're not fully educated— follow me on this, guys— if they're not fully Fully educated, guess what? They're not gonna buy because people don't buy what they don't understand. They don't. Confusion equals no. So if you've not completed the education process, all you've done is a demo and you think that's it, that's not it. It's a lot of questions to be asked, a lot of questions to be asked. Remember something, there's really 3 dimensions to the sales, you know, when you're talking to somebody on the phone. It's very, very simple. Number 1, what is the problem that your software or your service or product is supposed to solve for them? Do they have that problem? It's the first thing to identify. Secondly, do they have a budget to fix that problem? So the problem is they can't keep track of their 3,000 customers. When you ask them, hey, our software service is $499 a month, and they think that's too much, well, what are you doing to keep track of those customers? You just told me you have a problem with that. So how much money do you have to fix that problem? The third thing though is retention. What is it that you as a company or you as a salesperson are going to do to keep that customer for a lifetime? Oh, we're going to keep upgrading the product. Oh man, upgrades is not what keeps customers. Great customer service is what keeps customers. So what is, what is your advertiser retention plan? Now, when it comes to the proposal, did you review it with them step by step? Because remember something.
