Blog
How to make a convincing sales presentation?
What is a sales presentation?
Comme son nom l’indique, une présentation commerciale est une présentation faite par un commercial dont l’objectif est de vendre son produit ou service. Elle englobe le pitch du commercial et son support de vente qui est là pour appuyer son discours auprès de l’acheteur. Que ce soit lors d’une soutenance d’un rendez-vous physique en one to one ou à distance, la présentation commerciale réunit le commercial, l’acheteur quelle que soit sa fonction, et les autres parties impliquées par la solution proposée.
Why make a sales presentation?
Salespeople are faced with a more demanding and autonomous buyer. Buyers carry out 57% of their purchasing process before initiating contact with the supplier they are considering (Accenture), and call on sales at the very end of the purchasing process. When this time comes, the salesperson must be ready! They need to be able to convince and inspire if they hope to sell their product/service. In this sense, the sales presentation is a means of enlightening the buyer, reassuring him, guiding him towards the best options and reinforcing his purchasing decision. To succeed in this mission, the salesperson needs to know the person he or she is talking to, the business he or she is in, the challenges he or she is facing, how to identify his or her expectations or needs, and how to validate them within the framework of an exchange that is as interactive as possible. Of course, they also need to master their offer/service in order to answer the other person's questions, and to demonstrate their expertise through their ability to contextualize what they have to say, backed up by an effective sales presentation.
The different stages of a successful sales presentation
1. Preparing your presentation
80 % de la réussite d’un rendez-vous commercial vient de la qualité de sa préparation. Au-delà de connaître son offre sur le bout des doigts, préparer un rendez-vous, c’est avant tout connaître son prospect, son métier, son actualité, son marché et préparer les questions pertinentes et utiles qui vous permettront de contextualiser au mieux votre approche commerciale et la personnalisation de votre offre. En préparant votre rendez-vous, vous anticiperez également les objections des prospects et votre pitch de vente en sera d’autant plus convaincant. Cette préparation est déterminante pour aborder le rendez-vous de manière efficace et professionnelle.
2. Understanding the buyer's needs
One of the golden rules of sales is active listening, and therefore the ability to ask the right questions as you go along. By strengthening your understanding of your buyer's issues, you'll be able to pinpoint his or her expectations and needs all the better, so you can make the right offer. This greatly increases your chances of closing the sale successfully in the short to medium term.
3. Adapting speech and presentation
To get the buyer's attention, salespeople need to contextualize their approach, personalize their presentation, and create the most interactive sales experience possible, while giving rhythm to the exchange with a precise, controlled discourse.
4. Answering questions: the right argument at the right time
With his expert vision, the salesperson must adopt the role of "sense-maker" in the midst of all the information to which the buyer has been exposed during his purchasing journey. He or she must guide them in a natural way to make an informed decision. At this stage, he or she can reassure the buyer about his or her forthcoming choice, using precise, hard-hitting arguments.
5. Highlight advantages/benefits rather than functionalities
During the presentation, the buyer must perceive the added value of the solution. This added value depends on the salesperson's ability to convey the benefits of the solution. Buyers must really understand what they stand to gain, both for themselves and for their teams.
6. Draw up and submit a customized proposal
The sales proposal is a synthesis of the information presented during the meetings. It includes elements relating to the context, the functional and technical dimensions of your service or product, the implementation schedule or delivery date, and of course a financial component. This proposal must provide a relevant solution to the buyer's needs, and trigger the act of buying.
What content should you include in your sales presentation?
The biggest challenge for B2B buyers is not finding relevant, useful content. There's plenty on offer. What they do struggle with is sorting, organizing and projecting the solution they're looking at into their environment, to ensure they make the best buying decision. The marketing content to be used in your sales presentation must therefore be designed with this in mind, contextualized and support the sales person in a "meaning-making" approach. This content must enable you to contextualize your approach and sales pitch according to the profile of the buyer you have met or are about to meet. Content can take many forms (documents, images, videos, 3D simulations, etc.) and depends on several factors: the type of message to be delivered, thecompany and its sales approach, the buyer's stage in the sales cycle, and the PODs (Points of Differentiation or competitive advantages) to be promoted. You can, for example, use content focusing on the company's missions & values, content highlighting your offer/service and the business sectors in which you operate, your step-by-step support, your customers and your achievements, your commitment to CSR... There are no limits insofar as the Sales Enablement application enables all marketing content, available offline, to be embedded and deposited in intuitive sales paths for the salesperson. The importance of content varies according to the buyer, so there's no need to create a 100-slide sales presentation (made with slide design software) and overwhelm the buyer with too much information. We'll see in the last part of the article that the Sales Enablement application is an excellent way of defining what content to add to your sales presentation.
What tools are used to make a sales presentation, and what are their limits?
Il existe de nombreux outils pour faire une présentation. Le premier à avoir vu le jour est Power Point en 1984. Cette période correspondait à l’essor du Mac, des ordinateurs personnels et des premières interfaces graphiques. Son inventeur Robert Gaskins pensait que l’adoption des ordinateurs personnels entraînerait le besoin de concevoir ses propres présentations. Une intuition qui s’est avérée correcte ! Au fil du temps d’autres outils de conception de slides sont venus compléter le marché. Parmi les plus connus, on peut citer : Keynote (2003), Google Slide (2006), Canva (2012) ou encore Plezi (2015). Bien que ces outils soient adaptés pour des présentations professionnelles ou personnelles, ils ne répondent ni aux enjeux actuels des rendez-vous, ni aux attentes des acheteurs en termes d’expérience client contrairement à une application de Sales Enablement. Peut-on, en effet, s’assurer que le commercial présente le bon contenu au bon interlocuteur et au bon moment ? Est-ce que l’équipe marketing peut tracer les contenus présentés en rendez-vous et mesurer leurs performances ? Est-ce que le commercial peut contextualiser son approche avec des contenus précis et adaptés à chaque type d’acheteur ? Peut-il fournir une expérience client optimale en mode Offline ? … Vous l’aurez compris, l’application de Sales Enablement va bien au-delà de la simple logique de présentation et offre de nombreux avantages aux équipes sales & marketing qui en sont équipées. Avec Salesapps, fini les présentations commerciales où l’on s’endort, non chartées, pas à jour ou peu personnalisées pour l’acheteur. Fini la perte de temps à rechercher des contenus dans un Drive ou à construire des présentations sans fin ou avec des messages inadaptés. Fini le gaspillage d’argent dans des contenus marketing non utilisés par le commercial… Avec Salesapps tout est fait sur mesure pour garantir au commercial une expérience de vente optimale lors de ses rendez-vous.
Sales Enablement for a successful sales presentation
The Sales Enablement application is a powerful tool that supports salespeople in their day-to-day work. It improves their performance at every stage of the sales process, making them better equipped to create a new sales experience with the buyer, enhance the value of their offer and sell more.
1. Speed up the preparation of your sales presentation
Salespeople spend only a third of their time on their core business: selling. A Jeff Ernst study underlines this: 65% of a salesperson's time is not dedicated to sales (meetings, content research, CRM entry, etc.). This trend has been confirmed by a study from Value Selling Associates, which shows that 36% of sales reps 's time is spent preparing for customer meetings (building proposals and researching content). The aim is to free up salespeople's time by eliminating time-consuming or administrative tasks, so that they can devote more time to selling. The Sales Enablement application does just that! By centralizing all marketing content, sales reps can quickly and easily access the marketing content they need to prepare their sales presentation. The result? According to Hervé Carette, Innovation Project Manager at EDF, it saves an estimated 45 minutes in meeting preparation time.
2. Measuring the performance of appointment content
The other strength of the Sales Enablement application lies in its ability to provide marketing teams with statistics on the use of content used during the sales presentation. This is a crucial element, especially in view of the fact that 91% of B2B companies invest in the creation of marketing content, but only 35% of them measure its ROI (Smart Insight). This bad habit is exacerbated by the lack of functionality offered by the vast majority of presentation tools on the market, which are not designed for appointments sales reps. In contrast, the Sales Enablement application gives marketing teams real visibility over what is presented during a sales meeting, whether face-to-face or remote. The application's administrator can track KPIS such as the sales path used during appointments, the read rate of shared content, the number of presentations created by sales reps, the top 10 most consulted content (documents, images, videos) during appointments... The marketing team thus positions itself in a continuous improvement process by duplicating the sales approach of the best to the entire sales force, and by having the keys to arbitrate its investments in terms of content creation.
3. Improve the effectiveness of your sales reminders
La présentation commerciale est terminée. Dans un monde idéal, vous repartez avec un bon de commande signé mais la plupart du temps va se poser la question du suivi et de savoir « Quel est le meilleur moment pour relancer l’acheteur ? ». Trop tôt, la relance serait inutile, trop souvent, l’acheteur aurait l’impression que vous êtes trop insistant, trop tard, il aura peut-être déjà avancé avec votre concurrent ! Le bon timing de vos relances est donc une clé de votre réussite. Pour éviter ce genre de situation, l’application de Sales Enablement permet de tracer l’ensemble des contenus partagés avec l’acheteur : quels contenus l’acheteur a-t-il consulté ou non ? combien de fois ? Les ‘a-t-il partagé avec d’autres personnes ? Combien de jours après la présentation commerciale cela s’est-il produit ? Ces informations permettent au commercial d’avoir des informations précises sur le meilleur moment d’organiser ses relances et surtout sur le type message sur lequel il va pouvoir s’appuyer. Le commercial pourra ainsi augmenter son taux de transformation et vendre plus.
Découvrez aussi notre article sur le Sales Enablement et la présentation commerciale à distance.
FAQ
Qu’est-ce qu’une présentation commerciale ?
Une présentation commerciale est une présentation avec un support de vente dans lequel le commercial pitch son produit ou service auprès d’un acheteur dans le but de lui vendre la solution idéale.
How to make a successful sales presentation?
Preparation is a key element in the success of a sales presentation. Other important elements such as the sales support used, the sales pitch, the experience conveyed during the meeting and the ability to personalize your approach are all essential to the success of your sales meeting. Turn your prospects into customers with Sales Enablement.
How to make a good sales presentation?
Don't just make a good presentation, aim to achieve your goal on the day. Preparation is key, and so are the questions you ask to understand the buyer's needs. Help them to make the right decision. Personalizing your presentation and using high-impact marketing content(visuals, etc.) also play a key role in its success.
What tools are needed for a successful sales presentation?
Many tools (PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slide, Canva, Plezi) are designed for presentation purposes, but are by no means suitable for sales meetings. The Sales Enablement application Salesapps is one of the best tools available today to meet this challenge, enabling sales reps to make effective presentations during sales meetings. As an example, you can use PowerPoint as an essential tool for creating your marketing content, and then deposit this content into intuitive sales paths using the Sales Enablement application.
What content should be included at the end of a sales presentation?
Avoid content whose sole purpose is to say thank you. Instead, use this content to summarize the key points raised during the sales presentation. Opt for personalized or downloadable content, complementary to what has been discussed, to deepen the B2B buyer's understanding of the subject.
