INTRO SERIES
Basics of Dynamic Sales Presentations
An introductory guide to delivering outstanding sales presentations
A Publication of
LANCE TYSON
President and CEO, TYSON GROUP
Table ofContents
Introduction
1. Create An Outline
2. Talk To Your Audience
3. Know Your Subject
4. Being Yourself
5. Control Your “Butterflies”
6. Control Your Mental Focus
7. Control Your Environment
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 2
Public Speaking in Sales
You're standing at the head of a conference table with nothing but your laptop, a projector, and
your sales presentation. Assembled in the room are 20 executives, each with a $5M to $10M
budget. And they all want to know how you’re going to make their professional lives better.
Success is you leaving with a contract in hand. Failure is leaving with nothing more than a
perfunctory, “Thank you for your time, we’ll be in touch.”
What do you feel? Sweaty palms? Dry mouth? A queasy feeling in your gut? Tenseness in your
shoulders and neck?
Congratulations! You’re ready for your first sales presentation.
In conducting post training interviews, our clients have told us that they’ve experienced similar
feelings at numerous points in their careers. However, the majority of sales reps also tell us that
they welcome those feelings. That’s how they know that they ready to get in the game.
These feelings are physical symptoms of your emotional state. They can occur when you step
onto the biggest roller coaster of your life or when you are about to deliver a presentation that
has $500K on the line. The magic is not in eliminating these feelings and their symptoms, but
use them to enhance your performance.
So how do top sales reps turn that public speaking fear and anxiety into enthusiasm and
excitement. More importantly, can you learn to do the same thing? At Tyson Group, we feel that
if one person has learned how to achieve an outcome, others can as well.
Here are 7 activities we use in our coaching programs. These activities insure that all of our
participants start with the same foundation. You can perform these simple exercises yourself to
start gaining control of your next sales presentation.
Increase Your Credibility and Your Bottom Line
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 3
Create An Outline
In the course of your career, some of your sales presentations will involve sizeable deals and
require detailed material. However, you are a sales rep, not the head of state. The fate of a
nation isn’t going to hang on your every word. So, there’s no need to use a teleprompter, or read
from a written script.
When you are presenting the case for your product or services, you need the flexibility to
address questions, issues, and challenges that your prospect may bring up. In addition, you want
to be free to respond to the needs of your audience. To do that, you need to be aware of how the
audience is responding to your presentation in the moment. Don’t box yourself in with restrictive
requirements.
“You want to be free to respond to the
needs of your audience.”
For example, I attended a sales presentation where the sales rep prepared a beautiful proposal
and delivered it to a department manager. She then used it as a crutch and proceeded to read it
as her presentation. The manager stopped her after 2 minutes and said, “Don’t read me the
proposal. I can do that on my own time. Talk to me about this deal.”
Have your ideas outlined on cards, PowerPoint slides, or perhaps even a sales proposal. That
outline gives your presentation and your meeting a framework to present your solutions.
However, don’t use that framework as a restrictive crutch. You want to be free to interact with
your audience and build your relationship.
Use the outline to control the flow of your presentation. Don’t read from a written script unless
you really need the verbal precision. Remain free to address your audience.
Outline Your Sales Presentation
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 4
Talk To Your Audience
When sales reps feel nervous because of the size or nature of their sales deal, they use a variety
of coping mechanisms when delivering their presentation. One of the coping mechanisms I've
seen freshmen sales reps often use is to attempt memorizing their presentation.
“Make your presentation about your
audience, not about you.”
The challenge here is similar to the previous challenge discussed. When you memorize your
presentation, you aren’t free to observe and engage your audience. You’re trapped in your head
reviewing your presentation. When this happens, your presentation becomes about you and not
about your audience.
Again, for the presentations you will deliver, the fate of nations won't hang on the meaning of
your every word. You won't need to read from a written script or recite it from memory. Your
audience will be looking at your authenticity, your ability to engage them, and your passion for
your ideas. You can't do any of this if you are trying to recite your speech from memory.
Structure your speech around your basic ideas. Practice talking about those ideas until you
know them so well that someone can wake you up in the middle of the night and you can still
have a coherent discussion about them.
Trying to memorize your presentation will only increase your level of anxiety as you will be
worried about forgetting something. Know your presentation. Own it. Deliver it.
Talk to Your Audience – Don’t Memorize Your Presentation
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 5
Know Your Subject
As sales reps, one aspect of our job is to have extensive knowledge of our product, our services,
and our company. However, knowing this kind of information is not usually a problem for us.
From our interviewed clients, one of the biggest challenges that sales reps continue to face is
that they don’t listen to the needs or wants of their clients.
As the consultative sales rep, one of your responsibilities is to understand your prospect’s
business, their industry, their environment, their company, and the problems they want to solve.
During your presentation preparation, review every aspect of the proposed solution. This
includes your prospect’s environment, their application of your product or service, and how it will
change their environment. Then spend time judiciously streamlining the presentation to focus on
your call to action, also known as the close, and trim off anything that will divert from that
message.
Your extra preparation will give you confidence in handling any challenges that may arise during
your presentation. That preparation will also help you when you perform your Q&A session.
Develop reserve power for your presentation and you’ll never be caught off guard.
Know More About Your Subject Than You Can Use
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 6
Be Yourself
There are many great professional speakers out there that we can idolize and emulate. Zig
Ziglar, Les Brown, and Patricia Fripp are a few that come to mind. In addition, there’s always one
or two seasoned sales professionals in your company that all other members of your sales team
will try to imitate.
“The best speaker you can emulate is you.”
However, to perform at your peak level, the best speaker you can emulate is you. There are
styles you can copy and tactics you can use. But when you are in front of an audience, your best
strategy is to be yourself. Your audience is there to hear you, your ideas and your solutions.
They want to know what you bring to the relationship. Don’t disappoint them. Give them the best
personal performance of your career.
When you practice your presentation, remember practice makes permanence, not perfection.
Regular practice reinforces activities and turns behaviors into habits. In your practice sessions,
develop your delivery, style, technique, and timing. You don’t want these to be the focus of your
presentation. Instead, these should be the supporting platform for your passion and commitment
to your solution.
Remember, your prospects and clients care more about resolving their challenges, and not so
much about your perfect presentation.
Practice Being Yourself – Don’t Imitate Others
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 7
Control Your “Butterflies”
When delivering a new presentation, many public speakers forget that the manifestations of your
anxiety are physical. If you are experiencing physical symptoms of performance anxiety, such as
sweaty palms and a queasy stomach, you can counteract the effects with more physical activity.
Sometimes simple stretches will work for you. Other times, you'll require something more
strenuous. For example, in one of our training sessions, participants were required to give a
rousing presentation with passion and excitement. The last thing I wanted them thinking about
was their presentation delivery performance.
“Control the physical symptoms of your anxiety by
taking control of your physical activity.”
So, for this session, before each participant delivered their presentation, we had them hunker
down like a linebacker. Then, they had to get past my “blocking” assistants before they could do
their presentation at the front of the room. For 30 to 45 seconds, each participant tried to perform
an end run around their coach, and by the time they got to the front of the room, performance
anxiety was the last thing on their mind. They simply spoke with continuity, passion, and
excitement.
Remember, use physical activity to counteract and control the physical manifestations of your
anxiety and you’ll be better positioned to control the presentation.
Get Control Of Your Physical State
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 8
Control Your Mind
Also, direct your thoughts to support you instead of hindering you. Many first time speakers
focus on the outcomes that they don't want. They visualize events that scare their pants off, or
set themselves up for failure by mentally reciting how badly they will perform.
These are your thoughts, and despite the common mindset, you can control them. Envision a
happy audience standing up and clapping at the end of your presentation. Tell yourself that you
can command the presence of the audience and that you have the experience to speak on the
topic at hand.
The “experts” call it Pollyanna thinking if you visualize a pleasing outcome. They call it realistic
thinking when you think about an unpleasant outcome. However, the process is the
same. Thinking and visualizing your outcome is typically a prerequisite to attaining your
outcome, regardless of what you call it. Rest assured, you will get what you focus your attention
on. The only question you need to ask is which outcome do you want.
Mentally identify the outcome you want and then physically and mentally work towards achieving
that outcome.
Get Control Of Your Mental Focus
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 9
Control The Environment
As with any performance, you need to make sure that your equipment is working. In road racing,
coaches encourage runners not to wear new shoes for a big race. They don't know where the
pressure points are and the shoes haven’t been broken in. Best to put in a few “trial miles” on
the shoes before requiring them to perform in a race where the stakes are higher.
The same concept applies when you are delivering a sales presentation. Batteries go dead,
laptops sometimes lock up and become unresponsive, projector bulbs don’t light, whiteboard
markers go dry... stuff happens. It’s a part of the landscape.
In one session, I had a presenter whose laser pointer suddenly stopped working. The battery in
her pointer just died. She was prepared to go back to standing next to the screen and using her
finger to highlight points on the PowerPoint slide when I made a quick adjustment. I pulled the
battery from her mouse, which she wasn’t using, popped it into the pointer, and she was back in
action.
“Test your equipment before you need it.”
Before you step in front of your audience, make sure that all your equipment is working. You
want to get a feel for how you will use your equipment during that presentation and how your
equipment’s location will work within your presentation. When you are confident your equipment
works and how you will use it, you’ll be free to let your personality come through.
You have enough to worry about with monitoring your audience’s reactions and keeping them
engaged. You don't want to start wondering if your equipment is operational or if you could have
placed it in a more appropriate place.
Test All Equipment For Functionality
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 10
Enjoy The Process
Finally, have fun.
People gravitate towards speakers who are enjoying themselves and their work. No one wants to
be around someone who is always having a bad day. One of the more important questions you
can ask yourself when presenting is, “What’s the worst thing that can happen and can I live with
it”.
If you can answer ‘yes’ to this last question, then you’ll free yourself to perform at your best and
enjoy the process.
People work best not when they are trying to avoid undesirable outcomes, but when they are
reaching for their desired goals.
Know your outcomes and enjoy the experience.
Remember to Have Fun and Enjoy Yourself
© 2020 Tyson Group. All Rights Reserved. 11
Gain the Secrets of
Did you find these basic ideas useful? Do you
want to know how your presentation skills can help
you drive revenue? Then it’s time to take your
skills to the next level. Contact Lauren Snyder
today and discover how we can tailor a suitable
sales presentation program for your team.
LEARN MORE
Professional Speakers
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