In my previous article about presenting, I was talking about how we can’t all be at our best every day or every hour.
But if you get your best possible presentation down on paper and then firmly entrench it in the back of your head, you’ll be certain to make a better average presentation than you ever have before. It will also give you confidence during off days.
Now, knowing what you do about your own proposition, if you were in your prospect’s shoes you’d want it, wouldn’t you? Well then your task is simple; you have only to make your prospect feel the same way about it that you do yourself and the order is yours.
And how are you going to do this?
By conveying to your prospect the very things that have made you feel the way you do. You can hardly expect the prospect to view matters the way you do in the first place. If they did, their orders would be coming in through the Internet or the mail.
That’s what you are there for – to make them feel the way you do and arouse their desire.
Fear – Haste – Uncertainty
* Fear is a dangerous four-letter word – an emotional response to impending or imagined danger that is tied to anxiety. They’re all enemies of the successful presentation. Why should you fear? The worst that can happen to you is not to get the order. And you can’t lose anything that you haven’t got.
* Haste, why should you hurry?
You must make your listener understand in order to get the order. You certainly can’t make them understand by rattling off your presentation as if you were paid by the number of words you got out per minute. Listen and record yourself sometime. Are you interesting to listen to? Are you clear and with a voice of different tones?
* Uncertainty?
You can’t be uncertain. You know too much of the merit of what you’re selling to waver one second from the absolute knowledge that you are there to benefit the person you’re talking to.
You’re too strong to let fear, haste, or uncertainty wrecks your plans. Leave them to the weaker ones.
I’ve seen lots of salespeople who the minute they encounter opposition put themselves on the defensive, and take the attitude of trying to prove that they are not liars. They’re predestined to failure. You are the captain of your presentation.
You know what you are going to say. You know how you are going to say it. You know that what you are going to say and the way you say it are going to direct your prospect’s mind to the final point of desire for what you sell.
So let your facts come as gospel. State them as undeniable, irrefutable truths. Let your deep sincerity and positive statements head off objections and overcome arguments before they are raised. Assume that your listener believes you; give them facts they can believe, and in the majority of cases they will.
Simply make it easier for them to believe than not to.
Avoid the pitfalls of long words and small superfluous arguments. Remember that the salesperson, to be effective, must get it across in the quickest, most convincing sort of way. Long words and so-called “clever talking” defeat their very object; they are offensive instead of impressive. And those little, good-for-nothing arguments don’t get the orders. Stick to the big points of your proposition: the points that count – the tried and true order-getters. You know them. Use them.
Whenever you open your mouth to make a presentation forget that you ever made one before, or that you’re ever going to make one again. There is just one person in the world to be sold, and that is the person you are talking to. You can’t sell that person by thinking of the person you sold yesterday or the one you are going to sell this afternoon. The person is before you; concentrate on that one.
Remember, no matter how old your arguments are to you, they ring fresh in that person’s ears. And the same points that sold your proposition last year and the same ones that will sell it next year will sell it this very minute to the person you’re talking to.
Leave no possible questions unanswered in your prospect’s mind. Some people have a tendency verbally to say, “Yes,” without really being convinced, just to be agreeable or avoid argument. Instead of trying to get a mere verbal assent, bend your endeavors toward making a prospect’s mind completely and absolutely convinced of the truth of what you are saying.
In this way, step-by-step, as you go through your presentation you will gain a general approval on every point you make. Then – when you return to the net result of getting the order – your prospect cannot raise a point, and go back and disagree with you.