Create a presentation for your customers

A business presentation is vital to hook new customers. It is the way you excite the consumer about your products or services. You must present your offerings in an attractive and well-structured way that calls customers to action.

A sales presentation is a presentation, with or without slides, with the objective of selling a product or service. There are different ways in which presentations can be made. A sales presentation should not become a business report presenting data on the company's sales volume. You should think of the presentation as a prelude to the sale, with the report following the sale once it is completed.

Guidelines for making a sales presentation

Sales presentations are one of the most widely used tools for business owners and sales specialists. There are many types of presentations, and it is not enough that they look attractive, they must have a group of characteristics to be effective. You must take into account some steps or guidelines, well defined by scientific studies. I will explain them below.

Focus on the customer's needs

It may seem an effective idea to start presentations with a historical tour of the company from its beginnings, to denote the experience acquired and the achievements of the business. Even use graphs and tables in this part to expose the piece of the market covered by the company. But from now on I tell you that you should not do this. All this data is about you and your company, and you may lose the customer's attention if you waste too much time on this kind of strategy.

In some particular cases, this kind of information can be useful to achieve your objectives, but most of the time it will not be very useful, since it is focused on you and not on the customer, who is the important one in this equation.

It is for this reason that before you prepare your presentation, and include all this data about the current state of the market and the company's place in it, you must first ask yourself:

• Is this information important to my client's needs?

• Is it useful to demonstrate the advantages of my company?

If the answer is no, then you should remove it from the presentation.

Focus on the advantages of your product or service.

Using the same principle as the previous point, you must understand that the interest of potential customers usually focuses on the benefits of your product or service. They are not usually concerned about the particular features of the product or service, whether it is a new way of manufacturing or a new implementation technique.

What they are really interested in is whether the product or service will satisfy needs that competitors cannot solve or will do it better. Imagine for example that you are going to sell razors. It is not important that they are made of stainless steel, but that they have more durability and cost less money.

The brevity of the sales presentation is one of the defining aspects of the sales presentation. You should use the time effectively to foreground the benefits of your product or service. After the sale is complete, you can send them all that detailed information.

Use graphs

Filling a presentation with numerical data and percentages will confuse any potential customer too much, which will not make it easy for them to get the idea of the information you are giving them.

To make it easier for the information to reach the customer, it is much better to use visual information in the form of graphs, of any kind. In order for these graphics to be useful for the sales effort, I advise you to follow the following guidelines when making them:

• Don't overdo it. Use as few graphics as possible to convey all the necessary information.

• Focus only on the data that are useful for the sale. Not everything needs to be included.

• Try to use only 2D graphics, avoid 3D graphics. You may think that 3D graphics are more appealing, but in practice they are counterproductive. Three-dimensional graphics require the brain to over-process information and divert attention from what is really important. Two-dimensional graphics are simpler and more effective in conveying information quickly.

Use storytelling

Storytelling is a means of conveying information used in almost all forms of human communication since the beginning of time. Storytelling is used in speeches, literature, movies and even video games. For this reason this technique has become one of the most used in marketing. Some research estimates that customer retention increases up to 26% when storytelling is used.

To use this technique in your sales presentation, the best way is through your success stories. Use your satisfied customers, and tell their stories of how you helped them. Tell the story in detail, use names, places, and pictures. If possible let your own customer tell the story. That is, never make up a story, it will eventually come out if you do.

Make the customer imagine the product or service.

Explaining the quality and benefits of the service or product is not enough to complete the sale. During the presentation you must get the customer to visualize using your product or service. Let them see further into the future. He has fulfilled all his objectives as a result of the collaboration with your company, he has experienced a remarkable improvement in multiple aspects. You must show everything they can achieve thanks to you and your business.

To this end you are going to use visual media. Show it with images, vignettes, visual metaphors, among many others.