In my book, presentation skills and selling skills go hand and hand.   The principles of effective selling will help you to produce powerful persuasive presentation and the principles of great presenting will help you sell much better face to face.

Almost every type of presentation is about persuasion.   You want your audience to do something as a result of your presentation.  So to do this you need to consider the same sort of things you do when planning a sales call.

1. What is your outcome
2. Who is your customer(audience)
3. What are their needs and wants?
4. What is there initial attitude to your message (product)
5. What features of your product or message can you turn into relevant benefits for the audience
6. What are the potential pitfalls of staying with their existing behaviour or supplier and how can you use these to “disturb” the status quo?

The answers to these questions will allow you to develop an effective and tailored sales proposition for your audience which you can then bring to life with great presentation skills.

Remember most of the skills needed to be a great presenter or speaker work whether you are speaking to 1 person or 1000!

1. Establish rapport through mirroring non-verbal signals, tonality, volume and vocabulary
2. Engage with confident eye contact
3. Vary your vocal delivery to maintain interest and build enthusiasm
4. Ensure that your body language and gestures are congruent with your message
5. Use silence effectively to allow your audience time to process your proposals

So if you are just a good salesman, polish your presentation skills and you will become great!

And if you are just a confident presenter, learn how to use the techniques of selling and influencing to supercharge your presentations.

I spent some time in George Best International airport in Belfast recently coming back from a fundraising workshop with the charity Concern Worldwide UK

When I entered the airport departure lounge I saw the usual television screens with departure and arrival information but I also saw something I had never seen before…

Normally, when your flight has not been called, the screens show the message “Please wait in lounge”  but in Belfast airport thy had a different message!   Somebody had clearly thought about the impact of words and had harnessed their knowledge to see if they could increase the amount of money people spend whilst waiting for their flight.

Can you guess what they did?

They changed the message from “Please wait in the lounge” to “Relax and shop”

To me this is a classic example of how changing the words people read can have a major impact on their behaviour.   If you want your audience to do something, then tell them what it is you want them to do!

How could you use this simple lesson to become more persuasive and influential

I’d love to hear your examples or comments!

Today I was phoned by a guy who I have met on a couple of occasions at local networking events.  he works for a company called the disc directory, a local on-line business directory covering Portsmouth and Southampton.

Now I’m pretty hard on tele-sales people but his approach was so refreshing that I just had to post on it.   He called me up, started by saying something like ” Remember the good looking guy who’s been bumping into  you around the local networking scene regularly> – Well that’s not me!  I’m the ugly one and I promised to call you”  – So far so good, he made me laugh and his tone and delivery were congruent.

Then he said”   I’m going to be really direct, it’s Friday afternoon and I’ve got my targets to hit  so I am prepared to offer you a great deal.  Three categories for half price?  How does that sound?”

I paused and he said ” I know you are just wondering which of my arms you are going to bite off to take this great deal.  Well I can tell you that they are both equally tender so it doesn’t have to be difficult.  What do you say?”

Again he made me laugh and I was hooked and after a bit more discussion I agreed.

Now I am not saying that this irreverent and cheeky approach is the one to use all the time but it has it’s place.  He had ready my right and decided to give it ago and it paid off!

What’s the cheekiest sales pitch you have used or had used on you that has worked?

I was running an influencing skills workshop earlier this week and part of the course involved a presentation by me on Prof Robert Cialdini’s six principles of influence.  (NB: If you haven’t read professor Cialdini’s book on Influence, you really should!)

One of the principles is called consensus and it embodies the idea that we are more likely to take an action if we hear, see or read about other people like us doing the recommended action.    During the Q& A one of my delegates asked a great question – could one use this principle to change the culture of an organisation?  In other words, could you use the consensus principle to change the current predominating group consensus?                                

Not immediately knowing an answer, I opened the question up to the group for discussion, and together we decided that yes it probably could.    The trick would be to identify “rebels” “mavericks” and “early adopters” who were already demonstrating some of the principles of the new, desired cultural approach.  Having identified these internal “champions for change” one would need to consistently raise the profile of their activities, especially to people of a similar role or grade.

Over time the idea would be, that by giving repeated attention to the “role models” , the others, who were stuck in the “old approach” would be influenced to change simply because others like them were doing it.   

Do you have any examples of this principle in practice in your businesses?

Whether you are speaking one to one woth a prospective customer or one to many in the form of a group sales presentation you need to learn how to change their state…

By state I mean the the combination of thinking, emotion and physiology that characterises how we are at any given moment of time.  States are often given labels like fearful, sceptical, curious, excited etc.  Every good presenter and influencer, consciously or unconsciously takes their audience on a journey from a starting state to a desired state. 

So for instance if you know that you audience are initially sceptical about your idea, proposal or product, they won’t buy if they remain sceptical throughout the pitch.   You need to get them to a more resourceful state if they are going to say “Yes!”

If you feel that you need to get them from suspicious to enthusiastic before they will buy, that it quite a big change.   The likelyhood is that you may need to lead them through a number of intermediate statges in order to get to enthusiastic.

For example

1. Suspicious (starting state)
2. Curious
3. Interested
4. Open
5. Enthusiastic (desired state)

So far so good but how do you lead them on this journey?  Well there are a number of ways you can change an audiences state.  I’m sure you can think of lots yourself if you set your mind to it but here are a few to get you going.

• Model the state yourself  (if you want them to be curious at a certain point then you need to look and sound curious too)
• Get them to remember a time or a situation when they would naturally have been feeling the state you want them to feel now.  (I’m sure you can remember as a child seeing something interesting for the first time and wondering what it was and how it worked) Have I made you curious?
• Tell a story or give an example where the protagonist in the story demonstrates the state you want your audience to feel now.

Last week I was listening to the radio and I happened to hear an interview with a Dave Alred, a coach who specialises in helping people perform well under pressure. He has studied a wide range of people in many different contexts including world class athletes, rugby players, army personnel and business executives and has coached the England Rugby Squad.  

One of the attributes of the top performers was the ability to cultivate an attitude of inevitability and he illustrated this by talking about a clip from the old Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, A Fistfull of Dollars.   In the film, Clint’s character is walking down the main street en route to a showdown with a group of bad guys.  As he passes the undertaker he tells gives him some  money and tells him to get three coffins ready before continuing on the the gunfight. 

Afterwards, when all the baddies are dead, he walks back to the undertaker, apologises and says, better make that four coffins. In other words, Clint went into the situation as if the outcome where he would win and the bad guys wouldn’t was inevitable. How could you apply this principle to your sales presentations?  What would you need to be thinking?   How would you need to be feeling about that outcome in order to make it inevitable?

Many of my clients say that the hardest part of their job is getting in front of their prospective clients. In this article I’d like to share three tips with you that have worked for me and my clients.

The number one complain I get is about the so called gatekeepers. The Secretaries and PA’s who seemed to be oblivious to the salesman’s charms and who refuse to pass on messages, reply to emails or to “put you through”.

Tip number One:
Change your mental paradigm of these people. Don’t think of them as gatekeepers who’s job is to slam the door in your face. Imagine them as gate openers who’s job is to give you access to your clients when you have something of value for their boss. Just changing this perception of them can make a big difference.

Tip Number Two:
You need a VBR! VBR is the abbreviation coned by a good friend of mine David Festeinstein and it stands for a Valid Business Reason. Your VBR is the key that can unlock access to your prospective client. Lets look at what the phrase actually means.

Your reason for wanting to see them must be valid and business related. Where most salespeople go wrong is that the see the reason as their reason, i.e. to sell the client something. What you need to do is come up with a client reason i.e why the client would want to see you.

Few if any clients ever want to see a salesperson to be sold to. They are however looking for solutions to the business problems they or their team are facing. So ask yourself, “If I was the client? Why would they want to see me?” What problems are they facing now that I could help them with?

If you keep your eyes and ears open and do your homework first, you can probably find a reason. If for instance there has been an article in the press recently saying that your prospect is about to start hiring new staff, and you sell training or HR services they may have a real need for help getting the new staff members up to speed as quickly as possible.

When you have a clear valid business reason, then you can sell that to the PA or secretary.
“I understand that the company is about to start a major expansion plan will be training up a whole new batch of staff.” I’d like to arrange a 10 minute telephone meeting with Mr Smith to discuss how we can help him save money by getting those new staff up to speed as quickly as possible.”

Tip Three:
If you really can’t get past the “gatekeeper” you can always try bypassing him or her altogether.
Many executives I know, get into the office early (before their PA!) and often stay late (after their PA has gone home). Calling outside “normal” hours can often be a successful tactic.

One salesperson I worked with was always complaining that he could never get hold of one of his key clients. As he described the problem he said “I phone him every Tuesday afternoon and he is never in!” When I asked him to think about what he had just said, they penny dropped. When he phoned at a different time, he had no trouble getting hold of the client but it turned out that the client was always in a meeting on a Tuesday afternoon – Doh!

Good luck with these techniques and don’t forget to post your own comments and alternative suggestions too.

How often do we forget to smile. We are so caught up in our thoughts that we miss the opportunity to engage with those around us be they customers, colleagues, clients or complete strangers.

Today, when I arrived at the Business Design Centre in Islington London, the venue for the presentation skills workshop I am running, I was greeted by Derek.

Derek is one of the concierges and he is always on in the morning. But what makes Derek stand out is his smile. It is warm, expansive and genuine. He is the perfect antidote to a stressful commute and in my mind, that smile is worth it’s weight in gold.

How often do you smile! Imagine the impact it could have those you interact with. Even more important imagine the effect it can have on your mood!

It’s the littlest things that make the biggest difference.

Have a great day!

At the weekend, Best selling author and trainer, Peter Thomson and shared a simple tool with me that could seriously increase our wealth.