Welcome to SALES with ASLAN, a weekly podcast hosted by ASLAN Co-founders Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris, geared at helping sales professionals and sales leaders eliminate the hard sell. At the end of the day, we believe that selling is serving. ASLAN helps sellers make the shift from a ‘typical’ sales approach, to one that makes us more influential because we embrace the truth that the customer’s receptivity is more important than your value prop or message.
The goal of these interviews is to spotlight various experts in the world of sales and sales leadership – sharing informational stories, techniques, and expert interviews on the sales topics you care about.
The following are notes from Ep. 156 – How to Nail Your Next Sales Presentation – Part 2
In this episode, Tom and Tab continue their discussion from last week’s episode on how to nail your next sales presentation. What can we do to set ourselves up for success? What can we do to minimize failure?
Our hosts unpack items 3, 4, and 5 on their pre-presentation checklist, continuing to offer up tangible tactics for how to master your presentation, manage your time, and advance the opportunity that’s on the line.
Listen to the conversation here:
Resources:
- Check out our blog post on how to Master Your Sales Presentation with 3 Easy Steps
- Or better yet, make sure you’re prepared to present virtually with our e-book Delivering the Perfect Virtual Presentation
Transcript:
00:03
Tom Stanfill
Welcome back Tab and our listeners to another episode of SALES with ASLAN. I’m so glad to see you my friend. Hope all our listeners are having a wonderful day. Love to be back in the studio with you and talking about out this topic of how to prep for a presentation. Before we dive into content, Tab, how are you doing? Are you doing okay today? You look fantastic.
00:31
Tab Norris
I feel really good. I feel really good. I feel strong. Feel faster than normal. I don’t know why.
00:42
Tom Stanfill
You did bench pressing a lot.
00:46
Tab Norris
For a 57 year old guy, I feel fast and strong.
00:52
Tom Stanfill
I don’t know if I feel fast but yeah, I’m glad to here, excited, I’m getting fired up. I’ve had a good day. Met with one of our clients today. It was exciting to get out in the fields to see people out there trying to make it happen because, Tab, our purpose is to equip, encourage and elevate. I love to do those three things, equip, encourage and elevate. Today we’re kind of focused on the equip thing.
01:18
Tab Norris
Yeah we’re picking up here we left off, right.
01:19
Tom Stanfill
Let’s pick it up. To win a presentation. I don’t know what percentage I’d say 80% of it is what happens before the presentation versus what happens during the presentation. I think that’s where a lot of people lose their presentations. What happened prior to the presentation. The checklist that we’ve been going through on how to prep is not just for a presentation. It could be for just an important critical meeting. And you know what? This could be a meeting that we’re having with a loved one. I didn’t think about that last time. Now you’re going like it could even be for I’m having a conversation with one of my sons or daughters or spouse. I have a spouse, mine happens to be a wife. It could be even bigger than just a business meeting. So you’ll be in a presentation, a critical meeting. We talked about the first question: what’s our purpose?
02:12
Tom Stanfill
If you missed that last week’s episode, go back and listen. We talked about defining what your purpose is because that really determines it kind of settles you and gets you reoriented around what you’re really there to accomplish. It’s either really ultimately about you or about the person you’re meeting with. Question number two is you will win.
02:31
Tab Norris
Can I say something for you number one, because I wanted to hit this. Okay, what is my purpose? You said something that I want to remind our listeners. Here’s what you said. What have I learned that can help me help them make the best decision to solve their problem? You know what I mean? Like, what have I learned in my career, in my past to help them make the right decision to solve this problem? And I really like that. That’s a good kind of way to kind of sum that one up.
03:03
Tom Stanfill
I like to start a presentation… again, if it’s one of those where I’m feeling the tension, I feel like there’s either sometimes because the clients are putting pressure on me, hey, this has got to go well, or I’m putting pressure on myself because a lot of people are staring at me like, dance. You’re one of five people going to be walking through the room, and what do you have? Like, I’m a comedian and everything, and I feel that tension, and I like to break the ice, which it’s really more for me probably at the beginning, but I like to break and say, okay, I just want to tell you this is my purpose today. I’m going to share with you whether you choose me or you don’t choose me. My goal today is to share with you what I’ve learned in doing this for X number of years.
03:47
Tom Stanfill
If you don’t have a lot of experience, you can say what we’ve learned. You can leverage the experience of all of your organization, what we’ve learned, to help customers like you solve this problem. That’s what I’m going to do today. I’m going to share what I’ve learned. Out of that, you’re going to determine what to do. You may determine I’m the right fit. You may determine I’m not the right fit. But that’s my goal today. It’s not necessarily win your business good. And that calms me. Question two tab we said is really more about your overall position, is we will win if yes. Right. I will be successful. Maybe a better way to say it. I will be successful or achieve my objective if I communicate this. We’ve got to make a decision about ultimately what’s most important about what you want to accomplish in the meeting, because you don’t have time.
04:40
Tab Norris
Yeah, I like how you said that, too. You got to pick a lane. Pick your top. One, two, three. You got to pick yeah.
04:48
Tom Stanfill
One of the things I’ll say to somebody if I’m kind of working with them or coaching them or I’ll say this to myself, how long? Or another way to say better way to say how much time would be required if I needed to share everything about my solution that was important to the customer, how much time would I need or how much time would you need to do that? I mean, for me, it’s probably 3 hours. If you gave me three to 4 hours, I probably could really talk about everything, but I’m usually limited to 45 minutes, right?
05:26
Tab Norris
Yeah, you give me 3 hours, we’re good.
05:32
Tom Stanfill
Sometimes they’ll ask one or two questions, and then you like, we’re not moving forward. Like, there’s a preliminary meeting. It could be one. You have to know what is the one or two things or three things or four things you’re going to say that you’re going to bet on it’s your bet because you got to make a bet. If you try to cover everything that you need to cover in 3 hours and 45 minutes, it’s just going to be a fire hose.
05:56
Tab Norris
Yeah. All right, so one and two. So give us number three.
06:00
Tom Stanfill
Number three. Number three. Drumrolling with you. This is where all the prep occurs to me. This is where I spend most of my time in my prep is where do I need to begin the sentence with because you in other words, where do I need to start with explaining their point of view to set up what I’m about to talk about? Because when I begin the sentence with because you they are immediately interested in what follows. It means that I’m talking about something that’s super important to them and I can connect what I’m going to present to them. Like, for example, the introduction. I mean, that’s the most powerful part of the meeting. I’m going to introduce it. If I can begin to sentence with because you want to do this, and I can say that passionately, and they’re like, yes. Therefore, for that to happen, here are the three or four critical things that I’m going to share with you.
06:56
Tom Stanfill
Because you want to, or because your organization is expanding, or because you’re struggling with this, or because you have this in place. That’s really where I need to really nail down how I’m going to tee up those points. Because what I say next is probably something I’ve said a million times. It’s the beginning part. It’s like I can talk about me all day, but where I struggle is where am I going to provide context? I typically think of there’s probably five slides or five key points that I’m going to make that I really need to be able to talk about them first, describe their world, and then connect it to what I’m about to share. Which, by the way, those five points or five slides that you need to nail down is going to come from the answer to the question number two.
07:47
Tab Norris
Yeah, I like it.
07:53
Tom Stanfill
Tab. That’s why it takes me still, even though I’ve been selling our solution for what, 27 years now. Yeah, that’s where all my time and my prep is. That’s where I spend my time because everybody’s unique. Everybody I’m working with. That because you statement, because you’re a global organization or because you have veterans, or because you have this in place, or because this person does this, whatever it is. By the way, when I can do that, man, I am confident.
08:29
Tab Norris
Yeah. It really is such a big differentiator I mean, I think sales people get lazy.
08:35
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
08:36
Tab Norris
You get kind of comfortable and you just kind of well, I put everybody in these four boxes, but the really good ones, everybody is unique, and they’ve done extra prep. They’re coming at it from a different angle. I know you brought this up last time, but that whole American Airlines was such a good example of that.
08:56
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Prepping. It’s so tempting. To your point, tab is I pull up the slide. I could say, Well, I’ve talked about this slide. It was just a hundred times. I have my talking points, and I could say the same thing every time, and I hope it resonates with them. Or I can come up with that slide and I can say, what do I say about them as I tee up this slide? Okay, we’re now going to talk about this. Let me tell you why this is important to you. You’ve got X number of people, or you face this challenge, or you just required whatever that statement is, and they’re leaning in because every time I’m talking about them, I’ve got their attention. Anytime somebody describes me like, well, Tom, you are currently doing this, and this, or you just wrote a book, or you just hired this person, or you guys just rolled this out and you’re currently in Korea, or whatever, I’m like, I’m not going to go, this is boring.
10:03
Tab Norris
You never disconnect. No.
10:07
Tom Stanfill
You can even say because your team is virtual. Yeah, right. Everybody right now is trying to sell me certain marketing services. It just seems to be the thing. They all say the same thing about them. None of them say anything about me. By the way, this is also super critical when you’re prospecting.
10:24
Tab Norris
Yeah. You’re not going to believe the new thing we have. Our new approach is life changing. You’re going to go, and what about me?
10:35
Tom Stanfill
Well, and it may be a service that I need, but it’s like I get six or seven of those emails a week from the same company, and they offer the same services. I just go I can’t sift through seven companies every week to figure out if one of them are right. What you end up doing is you work with companies that are referred to you because you can’t even though you might need the service. If they said something about me first, I would go, you just went to the top of the box.
10:57
Tab Norris
Yeah.
11:00
Tom Stanfill
Sometimes people play little games and they’ll pick up something on the Internet and they’ll put it in the email, and it’s just a teaser. The rest of the emails canned and ignore it. It’s just like they’ll leverage the book. They’ll say something about the book, and then they’ll say something else about it. Wrote enjoying your book unreceptive. Anyway, do you need it? Services?
11:26
Tab Norris
They only listen to half of the podcast.
11:28
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right.
11:30
Tab Norris
I got a couple of ideas there. I kind of stopped short.
11:33
Tom Stanfill
It’s good. I like to use the statement because you even though you may not use those words, because it just as a way of reminding yourself to prep in a way or provide context in a way that ensures how to nail this key point. Can you describe their point of view? Let me tell you another way you could say this. Let me tell you why this matters to you. Again, it’s not a benefit. It’s just describing why it’s relevant. If I were going to sit down with my daughter when she’s 13 years old and I would start the sentence with, you need to do your homework, she’s going to go, no, I don’t. If I can start off going, you want this? Do you want to be in a sorority or do you want to do this or do you want to blah, blah? If I can start the sentence with that, even if it’s any personal relationship that I have, that means I’m ready to have the conversation.
12:39
Tab Norris
Yeah, that’s good. Yes. Love it. Where do I need to begin the sentence with? Because you that’s question number three, and.
12:50
Tom Stanfill
You make that decision by answering question number two.
12:54
Tab Norris
Yeah, because you can’t do three, you.
12:57
Tom Stanfill
Will win if, therefore, that decision leads you to, okay, now these three slides or these five points or these ten slides are critical because this is where I’m betting on presenting this information, that this is where it’s going to determine whether they choose me or not.
13:18
Tab Norris
Well, and the thing I like about that, too, like we talked about, because if two is really tight, this becomes a lot easier because if you really know it like it’s tight and you’ve got that question to two answered, you really don’t have to. It may be an hour and a half to prep instead of 3 hours, but a lot of times there may be a couple like we talked about. That could be you have to be prepared for a couple of them because then you got to get to as you start the meeting, you’re going to have to facilitate to because you but you’re prepared because you got three routes you can go down.
13:56
Tom Stanfill
We’re going to get to that in the fifth question tab.
13:59
Tab Norris
I like it.
13:59
Tom Stanfill
As part of that god.
14:01
Tab Norris
Jumping ahead. I’m sorry.
14:03
Tom Stanfill
No, but that’s good. That’s what I’m saying. We’re going to talk about being prepared, and I think it’s really important to distinguish between the critical points you’re going to win if points to the check your box points, there is content or information you need to share, but it’s more about checking the box. Those aren’t why you win, but you just have to check those boxes. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on those. Like, do you have global capabilities? Yes. Then you’re like, fine.
14:37
Tab Norris
You don’t have a whole big launch into it. Let me break down.
14:40
Tom Stanfill
We’re going to win because we’re going to demonstrate our global capability. But it’s just answer. Have you worked in our vertical? Yes. Check the box. You don’t need to prepare you need to be prepared to answer the question, and you need to be able to but it’s not unless it is a why you win slide. So that’s where it’s different. It’s like, this is your ability to communicate these killer per point is why you win. That’s when you need to figure out.
15:08
Tab Norris
Because you statements, all right, I like it. So what’s question number four?
15:15
Tom Stanfill
Question number four is how much content can I share?
15:20
Tab Norris
This is where I fall apart.
15:22
Tom Stanfill
My biggest nemesis for me Tab, is not being able to be calmly unpacked points because I’ve chosen too much to share. I race, and when I race, I lose my audience. I can’t punctuate my points. They can’t ask questions or I don’t allow room for that because I got to get through the slides and I get all fired up and I start talking. I don’t know, I don’t know how many with the miles per hour does my mouth, but it’s fast. It’s fast. My mouth can move fast.
15:58
Tab Norris
Or you can make the mistake like I do. I know I can’t get those, but I’m going to have a lot of slides and I’m just going to pop around and only hit the ones if you got them.
16:11
Tom Stanfill
If you show them, then you’re confused. You’re like, Well, I can’t really unpack this. You’ll see a lot of words on this slide.
16:20
Tab Norris
That’s what I do. It’s like, yeah, I’m going to hit these next 17 slides really fast. I just want you to see that we have a lot of words.
16:28
Tom Stanfill
There’s a lot of words on these slides and we’re not going to read them and I’m not going to be able to talk about them. You’re going to see that these are slides, right? It’s okay to show complicated either technology or if you’re face to face and you show a product and you can show it, but you have to be prepared to say, this is just a show, it’s not a tell. Yeah, I want you to know we have it, but I’m not going to unpack it. Like, you could have a picture of all your warehouses, but it just shows. Like, you can see all of we have warehouses, but we’re not going to go into this. It’s a check the box kind of thing.
17:05
Tab Norris
I like it when it’s that way. It’s almost like you take a bunch of stuff and you make it into a graphic, like a singular graphic. It communicates a lot of plot factor, but you can’t really read it. It’s almost too small to even try to read.
17:24
Tom Stanfill
I give myself 30 seconds to a minute, depending on what I’m showing. For those, like I’m just showing you, it’s an example of what it could be. We’re not going to pack it. We have this thing, for example, what are your global sticking with that? What’s your global capabilities? You show a map and it highlights everything. That’s where you are. Yeah, that’s it. That’s a minute. The reason it’s in a minute is because you need to allow time for them to say, well, what about you have people, they could ask questions and you don’t want to go, well, you can’t ask me a question because I only allocated 30 seconds for this slide.
18:03
Tab Norris
Right. Well, your slide just opened up a whole lot of questions.
18:07
Tom Stanfill
Yes. Again, if you made a decision that it’s not a critical slide, so therefore you can’t choose to give it five minutes. You give it 1 minute, but that makes sure that in some slides there will be 5 seconds. They’ll go, thank you, and you move on. Or some slides, they’ll unpack it. I found for me, those type of slides where I’m just giving them an example, showing them something, maybe even an orientation slide. This is where we’re going and this is where we are. Those are typically a minute. The key slides, again, I’m saying slides, it could be key points, you could be demoing a product. Key points, I give myself seven minutes. If I have five key slides or five key points, that’s 35 minutes. If I’ve got a 45 minutes presentation and they’re going to be late and we’re going to do introductions and all that stuff, I probably can have five, six slides.
19:10
Tab Norris
Yeah. Because then you got to build in questions and answers and then you’re going to have the set up and the farewell and whatever. Yes.
19:20
Tom Stanfill
You might be able that’s me, right? That’s us. You might be able to shave it down to five. The point is, you have to have a formula. You have to be able to say, I have 20 slides, or I’m going to show them 20 things. It takes me this long to show them or demo the product or whatever I’m going to have to do. I look at the time allocated and I go, that doesn’t work.
19:43
Tab Norris
Yeah.
19:44
Tom Stanfill
That does not work. So therefore I’ve got to cut something.
19:51
Tab Norris
Yeah, no, that’s good.
19:53
Tom Stanfill
If you don’t have a formula, you’ll just kind of guess.
19:57
Tab Norris
Well, yeah, I was going to ask your opinion on this, too, because we’re talking about content. What is your philosophy? You’ve been doing this a long time around images versus words. Do you have a formula for that? I mean, not just the amount of content or number of slides, but does that come into play for you?
20:24
Tom Stanfill
It does to me. One of my rules is if there’s words on this page, either they’re going to read it or I’m going to read it.
20:32
Tab Norris
Okay.
20:33
Tom Stanfill
In other words, you can’t just show words on a page. I like to have labels and not sentences. Now, people like to put sentences on a slide because it gives them comfort that if they forget what to say, they can read it.
20:49
Tab Norris
Yeah.
20:50
Tom Stanfill
I say sometimes that’s okay because the audience again, it’s certain meetings you’re more comfortable, and that seems a little you can be informal about it and bounce around, but if it’s an intense situation where a lot of people looking at you, what’s going to happen is you either got to read it or they’re going to read it. Right. That feels a little formulaic, formal, and I don’t feel like it’s not the best way to deliver content. I’d rather talk about it with a word. And the word keeps them organized. And keeps you organized.
21:26
Tab Norris
Yeah, that’s good.
21:27
Tom Stanfill
I like a picture with a couple of words, and you can control how they see that, and then you tell the story. Again, if they want more information, you can then pop up a picture of something that they can’t read. Yeah, right. So, like, it showed you. I’m just coming up with let’s see what it was, like a product or something that had the diagram of all the things the product does. You could show a picture, but it’s like they can’t quite read it, but they see what it you see this thing that looks really complicated. We have that. Yeah, but I just explained what it is, so it kind of scratches the itch of it. What is it? Does it have more? Yeah, like, a lot of times we have to show content that comes from our training program. Well, the content is complex, like role plays.
22:11
Tom Stanfill
We say we build custom role plays, so we show pictures of what the role plays look like. They certainly can’t read them, but it has an impact. Wow. It leaves them with this feeling. Oh, that’s detailed. That’s impressive. That’s customized. At least we hope it does.
22:27
Tab Norris
Excellent. All right, so I’ve gotten connected. Where do I need to begin the sentence? Because you which comes from the answer to two. Right. Which leads me to four. Now I got to go. Okay, well, how much content can I share? I’m pregame? Now I’m bringing home going to the finale here.
22:50
Tom Stanfill
The finale is what’s the worst thing that could happen in the presentation? What is the question you hate for them to ask? What is the thing you don’t want to happen and figure that out? Like the worst thing I remember I flew to London, and I’m meeting with the decision maker for the first time, because you meet with the evaluator, they prep you. You do the best you can to meet with the decision maker prior, but sometimes you just can’t. It’s worth flying to London to meet with the decision maker. I think you remember this opportunity.
23:28
Tab Norris
Oh, yeah.
23:31
Tom Stanfill
It’s one of the final presentations, and you only got this much time, and you start off as you said, I start off with what I call the bridge slide, where I describe this is what you want, and if that’s what you want, this is what has to happen for you to reach your desired destination. And that’s where I make my bet. I say, this is the key to this drives everything that I’m going to talk about. And we’re off base here. What follows, it’s just not relevant. The worst thing that can happen is for that decision maker, who I haven’t met, to say, that’s not true, and I have to allocate for that because I was told that was true by the person who’s prepping me for the presentation. There’s no other option I have but other than I have to say, this is what I’ve been told.
24:18
Tom Stanfill
I have to prepare for them to say, that’s not correct. Now what am I going to do? I can’t be thrown by that. I have to my other options. I’m going to plow through a presentation that’s not relevant. Well, that’s stupid. I’ve seen that happen multiple times in my life where if people get stuck and I go, well, I guess I’ll just keep going, well, I hate.
24:41
Tab Norris
To say that I’ve done that. I’ve been a visual aid of that. And it’s so awful. You don’t even know what to do if you didn’t prep properly. You’re almost like, I’m just going to keep swimming. I don’t know what to do. I’ve lost them.
24:57
Tom Stanfill
But you’ve already paid to be right. Well, the thing is, you can recover. You just have to have a plan.
25:07
Tab Norris
That is exactly right. It’s okay to stop in the middle and go, I think I lost you guys. Whatever, it’s okay. But you got to be prepared. What are you going to do?
25:18
Tom Stanfill
This has happened to me twice in my career where I’m meeting with somebody, and the right response is you close your computer potentially. It depends on if you have a backup plan and it’s in your PowerPoint, or you can visually show it to them, then fine, you can continue on. You just redirect. If it’s not anything you can address, like you can’t redirect and show them something different. For example, use of stupid analogies. Like you sell motorcycles, but you don’t have any in the showroom. All you have is cars. I mean, it’s just you can’t start, it’s like you close your computer and say, great, okay, we missed it. Let’s start with what’s important to you. What should we be talking about? That’s your only opportunity. Or again, you can flex. Sometimes it’s just simple questions like, who have you worked with? The tough questions.
26:20
Tom Stanfill
What? You lack expertise in a certain area, so you know that they say, well, when have you worked with software firms? Or when have you worked with companies in Australia? Or when have you done this? You need to be able to prepare for that question because that’s where you are weak. How can you prove it? The answer is no. Can you prove this new solution? That you’re rolling out. Can you give us an example of a use case of temple where you’ve done this for somebody else and the answer is no. What are you going to say? Yeah, what if you have your answer to that? Another way to say this is to be paranoid. Just be paranoid. Where can this go wrong and know what your response is. I’ll tell you man, that makes me really comfortable. I have a thing I do this when I prep on the right side of the page and I use an iPad and I’ve got notes on the right side.
27:15
Tom Stanfill
I write down the answers to those questions like I have my little thing where I write it down. It’s right there for me of what I’m going to my answers to the tough questions. Most of the time they don’t even ask them.
Well, Tab, I think that probably wraps us up for today.
27:42
Tab Norris
No, I think it’s great. Five great questions. I’m going to practice. I got a big presentation in two weeks. I’m putting it into play well.
27:53
Tom Stanfill
I need to do the same thing. I’ve got one next week where I’ve got to go through the same and I will say, Tab, the one thing I think it’s important for our listeners we talked about, you got 45 minutes. I also think it’s important to fight for the time to communicate what communicate. Hey, let me say it this way. If the decision maker needs to know ten things about your solution, then tell them it’s going to take 2 hours. Right? In other words, don’t let them orchestrate or own how you set it up. The presentation that I’ve got next week is for 2 hours because they need to know more about our solution than a 45 minutes will allow. I say, based on what you’re telling me is important to you and I agree that’s important to you, then let’s spend more time and so that we can adequately address your questions because this is important and you don’t want to make the wrong decision.
29:02
Tom Stanfill
And so then they agree to that. If you need more time, tell them to be able to communicate that right. Which goes back to question number four. If how much time it’s going to take to unpack key points, you come back in and say, look, this is going to take an hour and a half and by the time we do Q and A introduction, we’ve lost 30 minutes.
29:23
Tab Norris
Right.
29:24
Tom Stanfill
Say that with boldness and people will follow your lead. If they say, I want 45 minutes, you just go, okay.
29:34
Tab Norris
Yeah.
29:36
Tom Stanfill
Hopefully this has been helpful and love for if people want to reach out to us, we have a white paper. I just thought about this, Tab. I wasn’t prepared to think about it. We have a white paper that I wrote. I don’t guess. It’s really more of an article. It’s kind of an ebook on how to prep for a presentation. It’s part of that. I think. There’s also a chapter in the book, but a very specific section of that ebook is on. A lot of what we talked about is how to kind of get set up for making an effective and I think most of it was written around making a virtual presentation, which is one of the most difficult presentations you can make. That could be so let us know if you want. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or it’s probably just visit our website.
30:23
Tom Stanfill
I think you can find how to deliver an effective virtual presentation. I think some of this information is in there, but we’d love your feedback. Give us comments. Share this like us if you feel like it’s helpful. It will help other people find us on pie and also tells us how we’re doing or how we can get better, Tab. Good to see you, my friend. Thank you for everybody else for joining us for another episode of SALES with ASLAN.
