Ryan Dohrn advises a salesman stuck with a weak company sales deck to unshare the screen often during calls to maintain eye contact, use annotation tools to draw on slides, and frame requests for changes positively by offering to add enhancements and report results.
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. Do you ever have one of those things that you absolutely love to do at your job? This is one of those things. I love answering your sales questions. All right, Trevor from Texas. And his question is, Ryan, I'm being forced, in all capital letters, I'm being forced to use a sales deck that just sucks. I've been there, Trevor. What should I do? I don't think it's effective. I don't think that it's working. Looking for any advice. Any advice is appreciated. So Trevor from Texas, been there before, my friend. So there's a couple things to think about. Number one, you know, you really need to do what you're told to do. It's a surefire way to get yourself put out in the street is just— is not doing what you're told. But recognize that when you're on a sales call, it's not as much about the sales deck as it is what you do with that deck. Okay, so let me explain. Most of the time, a lot of us are selling on Zoom, just like you're watching videos Of me doing these tips or listening to the podcast. One of the things that I highly recommend— so Trevor, I think you're gonna like this— I highly recommend is you unshare your sales deck a lot. There's nothing worse than being on a sales call and then they're like, hey Ryan, how you doing? And then boom, they share their screen. We get put in these little boxes, you know, kind of along the top of the video, and then they never unshare their screen. Recognizing that you don't like the deck but you're being asked to use the deck use the deck but unshare your screen a lot so that you can ask questions, you can get as much eye contact and face-to-face, you know, with that customer. Now, there are other things you can do though. If you are using the deck, get really great in Zoom or Teams or whatever with using your marker tool or your pencil. So a lot of times what I'll do is I'll draw on the slides when I'm on a sales call. So it allows me to take a deck that might be bad and make it great by using the deck to be able to draw my diagrams. Like I do my sales triangle diagram, I'll draw on it and you can divert the attention from the slides you don't like to a graphic or something else that's really there. The next thing though is you could potentially go to your boss and make kind of a suggestion. Don't say, I think the sales deck sucks. Instead it would be, hey, I really want to— this is the conversation. I really want to support you in using the sales deck, but there's a couple of things I would love to add to the deck that I think just could really enhance the experience So I wonder if you'd allow me just add a couple of things to the deck. I still am gonna use the primary, add a couple of things to the deck, and just kind of see what kind of rolls from that, see if some sales come from that. And then I'll report back to you and see if it kind of worked, because if it did, maybe other members of the team might want to do it. I think it's not what you say— is that what your grandmother said? It's not what you say, it's how you say it, Trevor. And in some circumstances, you just need to basically turn, you know, that, that lemon into lemonade and make it the best that you can. I'm not a big fan of confrontation. I mean, I'm not afraid of confrontation, but I'm not a big fan of confronting people about the negative. Instead, go in with the positive and figure out how you can enhance it. And Trevor, I think that's gonna help you be successful all along your sales career. So make sure you also though do what you're told. Okay, just Ryan, Uncle Ryan, make sure Trevor, you do exactly what you're told as well. All right, keep those questions coming to ryan@ryandohrn.com. Love to come to your office. Love to train your sales team. Love to speak at your national sales conference. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com.
