There are a lot of components that go into persuasive selling. One component is developing the presentation. I know that presentation development is a strange place to start a training session on selling, but there is a method to my madness.
A sales presentation is an outline in selling. While it helps you present your product or idea to a buyer, the actual outline itself is useful in helping you develop your selling skills. Over the next few weeks you will see how.
Many Companies Use Persuasive Selling
Many years ago, on my first day on the job, my manager picked me up from my house to take me to the office to sign all the necessary paperwork and things that would make me a bonafide employee of Procter and Gamble (P&G). Many of you know that P&G offers some of the best training in the world – in all functions, not just sales. However, back in 1984, on the first day, I didn’t get to experience any of that training. Instead, on the way to the office, my manager pulled in front of a grocery store and the said to me, “Hey, do me a favor. Go inside that store, ask for the grocery manager and sell them this.” She handed me a sell sheet along with a blank order form.
I grudgingly took the paperwork from my boss – being that it was the first day, I didn’t want to create a fuss – and stumbled my way through the door, found who I was looking for, and while trembling, explained my situation to him. “She does this all the time,” he said to me. “She brings new people in here on their first day on the job and they don’t know a damn thing about the business. Worse, she expects them to sell something.” It was some comfort to know that I wasn’t the first to be confronted with this situation. However, that did little to help with my anxiety and the realization that I would fail on my first day on the job. And that pissed me off! I didn’t know how to sell or anything about persuasion.
Always be Prepared to Sell!
The bottom line is that you never know when you will have to present. Therefore, it is advisable that you have an easy to use, brief sales presentation outline, that you can easily adopt in any stressful situation. I learned such a format during my first few weeks on the job . I have never forgotten that selling format and despite having taken many sales courses since then, I’ve found that this brief selling outline has been most effective for me. Why? Because it works.
That doesn’t mean that the others are not useful or that there is anything wrong with the training programs of other companies. It just means that the sales methodology that I learned my first few weeks on the job has always worked best for me.
What I learned was an outline in Persuasive Selling. And it has five simple steps:
- Summarize the situation
- Idea
- How it works
- Benefits
- Next Steps / Close
Understand, this is a selling format – an outline. Basic steps that you follow when presenting to your customer. This doesn’t replace all of the additional pre-work and selling skills needed to successfully close a customer. You’ll still have to know your buyers’ needs and their motivations. Later, we’ll get into those things. But for now, that is the outline. Over the course of this free training, I will explain, in-depth, each component of persuasive selling.
In my next article, I’ll jump into the first step of the persuasive selling – summarizing the situation. Stay tuned!
