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Presentation Skills Training: Sales Conversations Made Simple

Guest post by: Milly Sonneman

Article Overview: Many people seek presentation skills training to learn how to sell to crazy busy buyers. If you want to set yourself apart from these common practices, learn 6 steps for holding a true conversation everyone values.

Presentation Skills Training: Sales Conversations Made Simple

Many people seek presentation skills training to learn how to sell to crazy busy buyers. If you want to set yourself apart from these common practices, learn 6 steps for holding a true conversation everyone values.

What are frazzled customers fed up with? One directional pitches. The ones that sound like the professional is spitting sand. Conversations are the heart of a successful relationship, and a successful sale. If you’ve ever tried to get a point across to a lover or spouse, you know that doing all the talking is the fastest way to lose. The same holds true for talking with target buyers.

Here is a short list of simple steps to hold highly effective conversations that move you toward the close. By following these steps, you will be able to start, hold, and lead conversations with skill and mastery.

Step 1. Set Aside Time

If you’re booking appointments with clients and prospects in a super tight time schedule, you are killing opportunity before it is born. A by the numbers meeting with a client might keep you organized and on schedule, but is it the best way to open up discussion?

Not likely. Set aside time to have conversations. If you have fewer meetings but get more sales…well, you do the math.

Step 2. Be Yourself

While many sales trainings instruct you to become more forceful, extrovert or directive, this may not match your unique strengths. Use your specific personality and core strengths to find your personal style.

In conversations, buyers are looking for clues from the tiniest detail to the most obvious point. They are tracking information intuitively about your body language, tone, pace and presence. It’s a lot to keep track of—if you’re trying to emulate someone else’s style.

But if you’re being authentic, you won’t have to worry. You’re already the best version of you.

Step 3. Ask Key Questions

Rather than relying on a corporate script or a sales training prescription, ask relevant questions. Ask questions that expose the buyer’s core needs, desires and problems.

By asking highly relevant questions, you will find that your clients and prospects get engaged. They want to tell you what’s bothering them. That’s when you must do the all-important next step.

Step 4. Actively Listen

Shocking, right? You must actively listen to what your clients are saying. Otherwise you fall into the vast sea of sales professionals who are just waiting to say their next selling point.

When you listen with full attention and total presence, you will hear your client’s core needs. You’ll be in a much better position to customize solutions on the spots.

Step 5. Personalize

What’s vitally important to your customer or prospect? That you are speaking directly and personally to them. They appreciate that you’re authentic, asking questions and listening. But now they want to see that you’ve been truly paying attention to what they are experiencing.

This step is all about satisfying your client’s desire for personalization. Speak directly to the benefits they’ve told you are important to them. Ditch the order of a ‘say this-do that’ script in favor of responding to the person you are talking with.

Step 6. Open The Zone

Open up the room, space or zone for your client to step into. By this point in the conversation, your target buyer wants to make an intelligent decision. By guiding the conversation with a clear, structured process, you can sell your services without being pushy, ‘salesy’ or unethical.

Keeping with the highest standards of integrity, open up the options. Discuss the merits of your complete solution, tiered approach, or white glove treatment. Open up the room for your client to step into the solution that is best for them.

Follow these 6 steps. Giving awesome presentations and guiding powerful sales conversations just got a whole lot simpler.

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Article Tags: business presentation skills, online presentation skills training, online presentation training, presentation skills, presentation skills online, presentation skills training, total presentation skills training, total training, whiteboard presentation skills online, whiteboard selling, whiteboard selling online



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niche forum categories - I think Kevin just touched on the point that I was going make... and that is developing 'categories' that stick. Sales and Marketing may be too broad for example. However I can almost guarantee you that you would see many more sign-ups if you tailored a category to 'internet marketing' for newbies. I've seen this work on other forums, however, [i:1i903wkn]it can get a little frantic[/i:1i903wkn]... Fine tuning the categories, or expanding the scope should be effective. I think a lot of IM folks are surfing right on by because they're not finding what they're looking for here... Just a few thoughts: Better Blogging Developing Info Products Internet Marketing Presentation Skills More How to's Another point is... a lot of people don't know that they can benefit from participating in forums. The signature links to their site - if they have one - can / should be motivation enough to get more involved. The more internet savvy members that have signatures seem to stick around more... Don't you think?
7 words or less for Structogram - Some "7 words or less" (more or less) for Structogram for your comments: Training to get your message across(6) Secrets to get your message across (6) Training so people will listen to you (7) Helping you get your message across (6) Training to learn to get your message across (8) Communications training for yourself and your team (7)
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: Essential Leadership skills - Vision Values Mission Strategic Thinking Decision Making Communication Team Bonding People Development Coaching / Mentoring / Guiding / Grooming Presentation Thanks Robert


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