Ryan Dohrn advises using slide decks in sales calls because over 70% of people are visual learners. He recommends frequently unsharing and resharing your screen to re-engage participants, and replacing "any questions?" with specific prompts like "How would you like me to dig deeper?"
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here answering your listener questions. Thanks for sending them in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. I love getting in these listener questions. Uh, all right, uh, next one, Rebecca from Albany, New York. I have flown into Albany many times and a cool little hotel right across the street from the Albany, New York airport. All right, Rebecca's, uh, question. My boss is telling us we need a PowerPoint on every sales call. Is that actually accurate? And is it actually needed? So just so I don't get you in trouble, Rebecca from Albany, New York, I'm going to say do what your boss says. Okay? If your boss tells you do a PowerPoint on every sales call, that's what you need to do. You know, you don't get in trouble. So here's, though, my opinion. I have found the visual piece of the sales process is greatly accentuated when you use a slide deck. Now, because so many things we're doing are on Zoom, GoToMeeting, WebEx, et cetera, it's important for me to share a little tidbit with you. More than likely, if you contacted me and I'm selling you what I sell, I'm going to, I'm going to unshare my screen often, but I'm always going to reshare my screen and go back to that slide deck. And the reason is because almost every piece of research that I have found online tells me that greater than 70% of people are visual learners. So if greater than 70% of people are visual learners, I think it's vividly important for me to make sure that I'm using visuals in my sales process. But the real tip here— well, the first is don't get fired, do what your boss says. The second is I do a lot of slide decks. But the real one that I think a lot of you should take away from this: I unshare my screen often. It's re-engaging. There's nothing worse than a call starting and there's these little heads along the top of the screen, and then you see the presentation there, yet we're all trying to talk. Unshare your screen often, and then don't just ask, do you have any questions? Ask things like, hey, what else can I share with you? How would you like me to dig deeper on that? Can I explain that, you know, more? So, you know, honestly, Rebecca, do what you're told and get out there and unshare your screen and just get really comfortable with using PowerPoints. It's not just a Zoom thing or a GoToMeeting thing. I think it's a thing. It's a sales thing. And so I think that's important for you to note as well. Hey, keep those questions coming, friends. I love to get your listener questions. Send them into ryan@ryandohrn.com. Head over to the website, check out the podcast, the blog, and so much more. All right, friends, more listener questions next week. Don't forget, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it. And they're not. We're not crazy. We're the chosen few. We found sales as a career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime, friends. I promise you. All right, we'll see you next week.
