Here are six sales presentation tips.

1. Spend time with the prospect where you can ask questions before the presentation.
The first tip on the list of sales presentation tips actually takes place before the delivery of the presentation and it is to meet with your prospect where you will have an opportunity to ask questions. You will want to do this for two different reasons.

First, you will want to ask some probing sales questions to identify if the prospect is qualified enough for you to spend your valuable time delivering (and putting together) a presentation. You will also want to ask some questions to gather information from the prospect in order to prepare and tailor your presentation.

2. Tailor your presentation to what the prospect needs and wants to see.
Some of the sales presentation tips are interconnected, and as you gather information from the prospect in the first tip, you should gain a better idea of what they need and what they want to see. This should enable you to tailor what you present.

3. Don’t have an “all about me” sales pitch.
Here is an outline of talking points that salespeople often structure their presentations around:

  1. Our company (history, office locations, key facts)
  2. Our products
  3. What our products do
  4. Our pricing
  5. Close attempt

If there is only one thing that you take from these sales presentation tips, we want you to stay away from this flow and structure. One thing wrong with this type of sales pitch is that it is an “all about me” impression for the salesperson to make.

The prospect does not care about your stuff. They care about THEIR stuff. What you need to do is connect how your stuff can help improve the things that they care about (their stuff).

4. Start out the presentation focusing more on the prospect.
In order to be more about the prospect in your pitch, start out the presentation focused solely on the prospect. You can have slides that are titled “Our Findings” or “Your Challenges”.

On these slides, outline what you know about the prospect and what you found out in your discovery discussion. Not only does this make your pitch more about the prospect, but it shows that you have been listening and that you understand them.

5. Trial close periodically during your presentation.
Trial closing is a test close where you check in with the prospect and see what they are thinking and if you are going in the right direction. To improve your presentation, you can trial close at many different points in the presentation.

Trial close at the beginning of the presentation after you share the focus for the meeting to see if that is in line with their expectations. Trial close after you share your findings about the prospect to make sure they are correct. Trial close midway through the presentation to make sure the meeting is on track with what the prospect wanted to see.

6. Map out the next steps.
At the end of the presentation, you can identify if the prospect would like to move forward with discussions. If they do, the last of the sales presentation tips is to map out some of the main steps that you and the prospect need to go through up until the closing of the transaction and implementation.