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Selling Without Slides
By Ian Brodie | May 11, 2008
It’s a scenario played out in millions of sales meetings every year. The eager salesperson has finally managed to get a meeting with one of his A list target customers. The customer meets him at reception, takes him to a meeting room and opens with “tell me a little about your company”.
“I’m glad you asked” says the salesperson as he brings out his pack of slides (or perhaps a glossy brochure, or even worse, his computer) and proceeds to give a thoroughly professional presentation - which unfortunately, does nothing to further the client relationship. After a brief discussion afterwards the client offers to “call you when we need something in your area”, and the two never speak again.
Of course, it’s hardly news that initial meetings with clients need to be about establishing relationships and trying to identify the client’s critical needs. The problem is that far too many salespeople rely on the use of slides or a pre-prepared presentation as a crutch - without realising that the presence of the visual aid radically changes the dynamic of the meeting.
Firstly, the prospect is no longer having a face-to-face dialogue with you - they’re looking at your slides or brochure - or worse still, they’re looking at a screen and you’re not even physically close to them.
Secondly, if you present material, the meeting changes from dialogue to presentation. From a peer-level discussion to a “master-servant”, “I’m trying to impress you” dynamic.
Finally, the most likely outcome of a presentation is that they begin to ask questions about the presentation - when in fact you really need to be questioning them, trying to find out what they’re looking for, what their challenges and problems are.
A far more effective approach is to be able to briefly describe your company in a few sentences, then turn to asking the client about their company, their challenges and what they are hoping to achieve. You can establish your and your company’s credibility far more with intelligent questioning and a few “that’s interesting, we worked with a client who had what looked like a similar issue recently, they…” follow-ups.
If you need to illustrate points, try a “pencil selling” approach. Have a few blank sheets of paper situated between you and the client and sketch out what you want to show them. It’s far more effective and demonstrates your knowledge of the subject rather than just your ability to show slides which could have been prepared by someone else. Better still, you can hand the pencil to the client and get them to share in the process - adding in their thoughts and taking co-ownership of the solution or plan you are creating together.
And without the distraction of slides, brochures, or even worse, a computer to look at; you can begin to establish real human to human rapport. This may be the most crucial aspect of all as a prospect is highly unlikely to begin to open up and tell you about any significant problems they have until you establish a base level of trust and credibility with them. And that’s so hard to do when you are presenting preprepared material.
So why do sales people rely on slides and brochures so much?
Very often it’s because they have neither the confidence, nor have they done the homework needed to allow them to work without their visual aids. They can’t remember all the key points they need to get across, the major benefits to the customer, and their great testimonials. They put their preparation time into creating the presentation - rather than in thinking about how they would present it.
Ironically, they need to know their presentation absolutely off-pat - so that they can then do without it and begin to build a real dialogue with their prospect and stand a much better chance of turning that prospect into a customer.
Onward!
Ian
Topics: Communication, Sales Techniques |
May 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[...] Brodie presents Selling Without Slides posted at Sales [...]
May 18th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Carnival of Sales & Management Success - May 17, 2008…
Welcome to the May 17, 2008 edition of Carnival of Sales & Management Success. This week we had 28 submissions and I cut it down to the best 12 posts. There is some really great stuff here, some from people you are used to seeing almost every week, and…
May 21st, 2008 at 8:26 am
Ian, your post points out a common occurrence in selling. Salespeople should always know what step in the sales process they are in. Are they in the “Identifying Needs” phase, or are they in the “Presentation” phase?
Everyone knows that a salesperson should first identify needs (as you point out), and THEN present product/service solutions that fill that need. It’s utterly basic in selling, but many salespeople flip those two steps so that the initial contact is all about presenting product and company information to the prospect. This TELL focus instead of ASK focus can be have devastating consequences.
Slides can certainly enhance a presentation, but I don’t think slides can do much of anything for a needs assessment.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Ian
Good post, agree with you… walking talking brochures don’t add value.
‘Chalk and talk’ (aka ‘pencil selling’) as we used to say is a much more impressive approach and will show that you have a deep understanding.
The only thing I would add is that you need to do your homework before you go. You need to have a deep understanding of the prospect’s company and their challenges… you shouldn’t ask them, you should already know and therefore craft great questions around their challenges which make them think… the harder the questions the better!
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Ian,
I am a big fan of selling without slides myself. The trick to it is developing a pattern to your conversations that you plan to follow, and then using your open probing questions to “stick to the plan” as best you can. You will never stay directly on track, but if you do a good job of layering questions, and understanding where you are and where you want to get to you will get very good at closing deals while sharing a minimum amount of printed material or PowerPoint.
A closing thought… When I watch a sales person sell me with brochures, I make two assumptions. First, this sales person lacks confidence and needs promotional material to make them look good. Second, The sales person does not know enough about my problems to sell to me with out a brochure to guide the conversation.
-Brad
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Wow - great comments all.
Skip - you’re absolutely right about many salespeople flipping the order and importance of asking vs telling. I think many are thrown off because often the potential customer will ask you to tell them about you and your company first - and they then delve into the full tell pitch. What they need is a brief intro that links neatly into their questioning.
Colin - I had thought of calling the article “pencil selling” - but wondered if anyone else still used the phrase - obviously I’m not alone! And I fully agree - you really need to do your homework. Nowadays you can’t afford to do your research on the customers time - especially not with senior executives.
Brad - I really like your points about how you feel when someone “brochure sells” - I get the same sinking feeling myself. Yet at the same time, I know how easy it is to succumb to “preparing something” and then using it as a crutch.
Ian
June 16th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
[...] a good article on the web by Ian Brodie of Sales Excellence that covers this subject very well… Selling Without Slides… he mentions what he calls the ‘pencil selling’ approach… it’s well worth a read. It’s [...]