Sales Presentations Training

I was recently speaking with a mutual fund wholesaler who asked for advice. First, a definition, a mutual fund wholesaler is responsible for convincing brokers, financial planners, etc…to sell their mutual funds to clients. Typically, the wholesalers offer to buy lunch to advisors and make the case for their funds-wholesalers have a ton of competition, just like in your businesses!

His comment was this: It’s extremely hard to get people to come to a free lunch and watch a PowerPoint presentation. The same can be said for advisors trying to sell to clients! Your business may not be a mutual fund wholesaler but we can all face the same problems. Here are the suggestions I offered the wholesaler:

1. Quit offering free lunches-make it more exclusive.

2. Work with advisors who already believe in his product.

3. Forget the PowerPoint canned presentations and offer more Presentation coaching tips to producers.

4. These coaching tips could be success stories, critiquing their public sales presentations, helping make hand outs more informative and persuasive.

5. Offering input on how advisors can put together a great feedback sheet from their audiences. Audiences will tell you what they did and did not like about your sales presentations-you have to know how to ask for their input.

6. When the wholesaler does get in front of advisors for a luncheon meeting I gave him some presentation tips that will enhance his presentation and yet not be too stiff.

He was initially surprised at the advice-However, he is a good presenter and since the advisors he works with already have product knowledge he can offer valid presentation skill tips to help increase product sales. I reminded him that all sales people are in the communications business and the more eloquent and persuasive we are, the better our chances for conversions!

Steve Mertz

Coaching for Increased Sales

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