How do you prepare and practice for your sales presentation?

How do you prepare and practice for your sales presentation? Own it! Begin by understanding your audience and tailoring your key points to address their specific needs. Know your presentation by heart—when it becomes a story, you can present it with confidence and ease. Ensure every point answers the question, “What’s in it for them?” Focus on delivering value. Make it interactive. Encourage dialogue, ask questions, and involve your audience throughout to keep them engaged and invested in your message.

Always begin by thoroughly researching audience and understanding their needs and pain points. This way you'll tailor messages accordingly, highlighting how your solution addresses their specific challenges. Based on this, you can craft a compelling storyline with clear objectives and key messages. In mu experience, practicing the presentation multiple times helps me refine my delivery, ensuring a confident performance. Also, try to anticipate potential questions and objections, preparing concise and persuasive responses. Finally, don't forget about interaction - visual aids and incorporating interactive elements keep the audience engaged.

Have a laser guided conversation instead of carpet bombing. - Focus on customer's pain point and engage client in on co creating a solution for customer's customer rather showing your entire marketing pitch deck. - Depending upon the target audience, decide how much nuanced your presentation would be. Research about your TG & company using Linkedin, you tube, analyst reports etc. - It helps if you're able to take take your technical, product / marketing, commercial and legal team. It helps to answer objections in the meeting and builds credibility. Please ask client team to also bring in legal team along. It helps reduce no. of follow up meetings.

Having a clear idea of how you want to end the presentation and then working backwards can also be a useful approach. This can help to ensure that the points you make throughout the presentation are leading toward the ultimate end point.

La clave es la preparacio?n. Primero, conociendo bien tu producto, pero tambie?n el perfil de tu cliente y sus necesidades. Investiga a fondo, personaliza tu presentacio?n y practica frente a un espejo o con un compan?ero. La confianza viene de conocer todos los detalles. Adema?s, prepa?rate para las preguntas difi?ciles. Anticipa objeciones y ten respuestas listas. Recuerda, una presentacio?n de ventas no es solo hablar, tambie?n es escuchar. Deja espacio para la interaccio?n, y ajusta tu enfoque segu?n las sen?ales que recibas. ?La pra?ctica constante hara? que todo fluya!

Presentation deck should talk about client's paint points and solutions - Start with contextualizing the client's problem statement and propose a solution (or part solution if it needs further refinement with client) - Share how it would help in servicing client's customer in a better way, if it makes sense. Project business impact, if any it is going to bring to client's top line. - Talk about case studies of solutions you / team built for other clients. Use testimonials as far as possible but ensure you have their authorization. - Its helpful if you're able to send the deck at least a day in advance. - Its helpful if you are able to identify a coach in the client organization and take his guidance on draft presentation.

First Slide Your company logo and prospect company logo Catchy line from your discovery Second Slide Prospect Company Research followed by problems that need solutions Third Slide What are the consequences of not fixing the problem Fourth Slide Proposed Solution followed by tailored demo Fifth Slide Trust/Social validation from customers and their quotes Sixth Slide Case studies quotes from same similar industry if any Seventh Slide Questions if any Eight Slide Financials and Implementation plan associated with it Ninth Slide Expectations from the prospect - IT time, setup, etc Timeline for deployment Tenth Slide Cover any remaining questions from a sales methodology you are following - BANT/SPIN/MEDDIC/SNAP/etc. Elicit Next steps

A few tips from me: - Use templates from Canva or PowerPoint to ensure a polished look and save time. - Stick to a consistent color scheme and font style. Adobe Color can help you choose complementary color palettes. - Replace long paragraphs with visuals where possible. Use Unsplash or Pexels for high-quality, free images. - Follow the 10-20-30 rule: no more than 10 slides, 20 minutes, and 30-point font.

When I'm preparing for a sales presentation, designing my slides is a key part of the process. I focus on keeping them clean, simple, and visually appealing - less is more. Each slide should support my narrative, not distract from it. Using minimal text and powerful images complements what I'm saying rather than repeats it. I think about the flow of the presentation, making sure each slide transitions smoothly to the next. I also practice delivering my slides to make sure they flow well and support my narrative effectively.

- It helps if you're able to share the deck at least a day in advance. That way you could use the meetings to sit around the table and have a conversation; using the deck simply as a guide. - Always insist on a physical meeting. And in case, if some of the people have joined over video or on the phone, pay extra attention to them. Sometimes we tend to forget those people on remote. - Always involve them in exercises like polls, activity etc. - It helps if you get the marketing collaterals customized for the presentation

1. Start with something very personal about the prospect - maybe the post on LinkedIn that you liked or a common friend from school, work, etc. Weather, sports, pets - anything goes. Make it personal and show that you have done research 2. Ask if they want to know anything specific covered during this meeting. Ask if you can start the presentation. 3. Give enough pauses, ask if they have questions, and the accuracy of what is captured (when talking about the problems identified during discovery). 4. Involve them during solutioning. Confirm if it aligns with their thought process and understanding. Provide demo. confirm if the provided solution is acceptable. 5. Get all the answers you need 6. Leave the meeting with clear next steps.

Focus on engaging with your audience right from the start. Confidence and clarity must be your best friends in this matter. A major part of delivery is what happens before, so I rehearse thoroughly to become comfortable with the flow and timing of my slides. During the presentation, I use body language to emphasize key points and engage with the audience, inviting questions and encouraging interaction. I also stay adaptable, ready to adjust based on audience feedback or questions. Lastly, I conclude with a strong summary and a clear call to action. Oh, and always have a joke or two up your sleeve!

It helps if you are able to identify a coach within client organization. He can help you with some of the questions you can anticipate. Be sincere in answering the query. Its always better to say that " I am not 100% confirmed on my answer so will get back to you after thorough research" rather then giving a half baked answer.

The balance between being open to questions during a presentation and allowing them to potentially derail the presentation is a delicate one. As the presenter, do your best to control when you allow questions. If someone asks a question that you know will be addresses later in the presentation don’t feel obligated to answer it early. Acknowledge the question and let the audience member know that you will be addressing the topic soon. Also let them know that if after that point they don’t feel the answer was sufficient that you will be happy to address it then.

Questions - be honest and answer. If you don't know, please make a note and tell the person you will get back to them. Do get back to them. Objections are to be handled objectively. Price, Budget constraints, and Authority Objections - Show the value. Ask what their budget is and who the decision maker is if you have yet to learn. Tell them you will get back. Timing and urgency Objections - Show them the ROI, how much they will save, and justify the cost of not taking action. Product/Service Fit Objections: - You can ask if they are willing to pay if you built it for them. That way you can get a commitment. Trust/Credibility/Risk Objections - You can offer to introduce existing customers for discussion

Handling questions and objections during a presentation is crucial for maintaining credibility and engagement. I make sure to listen carefully to each question or objection, acknowledging the concern before addressing it. I respond with clear, concise answers and support my points with data or examples whenever possible. If I don't have an immediate answer, I acknowledge that and offer to follow up after the presentation. I also sometimes show the presentation to colleagues to form a list of possible questions the audience might have. Obviously, you'll never know all the questions in advance, but this way you can work on some areas at least.

1. The most recommended approach is to create a task in CRM for a 3-day follow-up. It could be a call, email, or LinkedIn message. 2. If you have a sponsor/decision maker in the loop, send on Friday a 'Just update, no action required' mail to him/her, updating what is complete, what is expected in the coming week, and action items. 3. If there is a long pause between communications, send a mail with something that happened at the prospect's company like a new hire or LinkedIn post or news. If nothing, send some updates from your company, like asking them to check some blog posts from your website, new customers onboarded, or new features launched. Enterprise and mid-market deals take time. Keeping communication open is important.

Make it a habit to send a personalized thank-you note or email to each attendee, summarizing the key points discussed and providing any additional information or resources they requested. This is also an opportunity to address any unanswered questions or objections that came up. I make sure to keep the lines of communication open, offering to schedule follow-up meetings or calls if needed.