We are frequently asked if we do provide seminars on sales presentations, the answer is yes. We provide public sales presentation seminars as well as in house sales presentation seminars. We have a sales presentations training staff that is second to none. All of our sales trainers have hands on experience. They do not waste (Read on …)
Steve Rubel is a daily read of mine. His blog is called Micro Persuasion and always has great information. His post today is Turn Your iPod into the Ultimate PowerPoint Accessory.
And you were wondering what you would do with your iPod if you won our contest…Operators Still Standing By!
Steve Mertz
iPods and PowerPoint!
Technorati Tags: Steve Rubel, Micro Persuasion, iPod, PowerPoint, Sales Presentations
Last week I was speaking with a potential client who wanted executive speech coaching. He has an important meeting coming up and needs to convey an important shift in corporate culture. He told me: ” I feel I speak pretty well off the cuff.”
Here are some of my top reasons on why you might not want to speak off the cuff when you are delivering a very important public presentation:
1. You will have a tendency to waffle on your opening and not have a killer opening.
2. It’s very easy to forget key points.
3. It’s easy to dilute your message by leaving your key points and speaking completely off topic.
4. You are thinking too much about making your presentation and forget to engage the audience in a meaningful way.
5. By jumping around from point to point without an orderly transition and tie in-your audience becomes confused and then bored!
6. You have a tendency not to anchor key points with memorable stories.
7. You forget the “call to action”
8. You don’t have a strong close for your presentation.
The art of great public speaking is having a fabulous presentation that you have rehearsed until you are blue in the face and having your audience feel that you were speaking “just to me” in a conversational manner!!
Steve Mertz
Public Speaking is an Art!
Tags: Public Speaking, Sales Presentations, Executive Speech Coaching, Speech Coaching.
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Have you ever shown a PowerPoint slide and have your audience gasp-in an awe struck, marvelous way? You know you’ve won the presentation battle at that point. I recently witnessed this very event at The Colorado Capital Conference that I’ve mentioned before. The firm was TheraTogs, Inc and they were presenting to venture capitalists, seeking additional funds for expansion.
They produce medical gear that helps those with neuromotor issues. They showed a slide of child walking without their product followed by a slide with the child wearing their TheraTog product-the audience and venture capitalists gasped at the marked improvement! That one slide could be the one that brings them in millions of dollars of additional funding.
Do you have that million dollar slide in your sales presentation? This could be an excellent area for you and your team to brainstorm on before your next public speaking engagement. Good luck!
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Sales Presentations, PowerPoint, Colorado Capital Conference, TheraTogs, Sales Presentations Training
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Steve Mertz
Leave Your Audince in Awe!
National Speakers Association has always taught us that when we have the platform it is a privilege and should be treated as such. So, as I reviewed Guy Kawasaki’s public speaking presentation I had mixed emotions. As an entrepreneur I found myself jotting notes and smiling. However, as a professional speaker I was cringing. Kawasaki wasted the first seven minutes of his presentation warming up and waffling on the opening. Why would you use offensive language if you know it will offend your audience? Why wouldn’t you respect the audience and meeting planner by adhering to the allotted time?
I’ve been following Kawasaki’s career since he stopped schleping diamonds and became the chief evangelist for the Macintosh-Quite an accompishment in itself! I’ve always known that his ego is bigger than the Grand Canyon-and for an entrepreneur that can be a good thing. I am disappointed that a grown man has to induce an audience into a standing ovation when his material can stand on its own merit. I find all of his other antics to be a distraction. Where do you stand?
Steve Mertz
Great Presentations Stand On Their Own Merit!
Tags: Sales Presentations, Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist, Public Speaking.
The Mystery Shopper (me) was out and about last night. I attended a Public presentation for a new product. The presenter was looking to sign up additional afflilates for this program. The presenter was very good. She was articulate, energetic, sincere and used PowerPoint that actually enhanced her presentation!Near the end of the presentation-the call to action, if you will, she went to a board in the front of the room and proceeded to show the aprticipants how they could make money in this venture-with her back to the audience. My regular readers know how “this drives me to drink!” She is too good of a presenter to make this mistake!
Here is what I would suggest she do in the future:
1. Give the audience a handout where they can fill in the information. This not only includes your audience (more buy in), but they have something tangible they take home.
2. Here is another option. Invite an audience member to the front of the room and have them write the figures on the board while other audience members write on their handout.
3. She did not offer her audience an evaluation form of her presentation-Didn’t we just talk about this? This is a missed opportunity to get great feedback and maybe great suggestions for future sales presentations.
4. She could have also used an overhead for this part of her presentation but I really prefer the handout and the audience interaction.
Would you have had her do this differently? Please feel free to comment!
How do you get your audience to fill out evaluation forms? Tell them to please fill out and pass to the front and put them in a box. Have an audience member draw one out and they win a door prize-a gift card from Starbucks, a free sample etc..
Steve Mertz
Helping Craft Great Sales Presentations!
Technorati Tags:
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Whenever you speak in a public forum or if you do a lot of in house presentations-give your audience a speaker evaluation form that they fill out anonymously. This is one of the most powerful tools you can use to catapult your presentation skills!
A few weeks ago I was speaking with a mutual fund wholesaler-they promote their mutual funds to investment advisors to sell to you, the public. He told me he speaks over 100 times a year and considers himself to be a “very good” speaker. News flash…We all think we are good speakers-that’s why it’s critical to get a second opinion-the audience.
The audience may share some invaluable information with you that maybe you have never considered. They may offer great suggestions for additional topics and they will point out your flaws!
Here’s the rule I use when I’m reviewing audience evaluations. Throw out the most glowing and the most critical. There are those who will tell you that you are the most fabulous speaker ever and there are those who are mad as hell about being at your presentation and they will let you have it-deal with it! It’s imperative to make your evaluation form very easy for the audience to fill out and give you feedback-don’t expect them to write a book or for that matter bother to fill it out.
Sooner or later, you will get great feedback that will help you deliver a more powerful, engaging sales presentation.
If you don’t have an evaluation form and would like to “steal” mine please shoot me an email and I will send it out to you in a word document. I will not share your email address with anyone nor will you receive any spam! Email: smertz@msn.com
Steve Mertz
Evaluation Forms are Critical!
I am starting to add some sales presentation training resources to the site. One that I wanted to feature today is Presentation Zen. This blog is written by Garr Reynolds, the former Manager of Worlwide User Group Relations at Apple Computer-whew! That is a mouthful. Garr has traveled and presented extensively across the world and is very generous in sharing information about what works well in sales presentations. Have you ever been to a presentation and an audience member asks a question and the speaker replies: “I cover that in Chapter 7 of my book.?” Garr is not that way! He has presentation tips and great insights. If you think there are other sites or authors that should be included in the resource section please let me know. You can drop me an email at smertz@msn.com. Have a fabulous week end!
Image courtesy of State of Colorado.
Tags: Sales Presentation Training, Sales Presentations, Sales Resources, Garr Reynolds .
Excellent sales presentations have two things in common: they are memorable and repeatable. I have posted here on tips from David Hornick on how to make your presentation memorable. Hornick made two recommendations that can leave room for exceptions: those are Don’t use a tagline and Don’t sing. When I read that I immediately thought of one of my buddies from National Speakers Association, David Glickman. He’s that good looking guy in the picture. I have seen David in front of audiences and he is an absolute master at taking a corporate message or tagline and incorporating it into a song. Clearly, this is a special gift to be able to put out a compelling message and be able to sing it! It’s been three years since I saw David do this but I can still remember the corporate message being sung to the tune of “Knock Three Times” by Tony Orlando and Dawn. Don’t act like you don’t remember the song…Because now it will be playing in your head for the rest of the day 
If I had a client that this would be appropriate for, I would not hesitate to recommend David and his magic. Otherwise, I agree with David Hornick, don’t try it at your sales presentation.
Steve Mertz
I Can’t Sing!
Tags: Presentation Skills, Memorable Sales Presentations, David Glickman, Tagline .
One of my favorite blogs is called Venture Blog, A Random Walk Down Sand Hill Road. The main contributor is David Hornick, a General Partner at August Capital. David is a Venture Capitalist and has seen thousands of presentations. I thought you might enjoy this post of his from February of 2005 entitled “The Dos and Dont’s of Presenting at DEMO.” DEMO is a yearly event where entrepreneurs are given 6 minutes to present a compelling argument for their product. For those who need a quick read I will give you a summary but do read his article in its entirety before you do your next sales presentation-you will thank David for his excellent advice!
The Dos
1. It’s all about the demo-make your product or service the focus of the presentation.
2. Leave room for spontaneity (or at least appear that you have) Translated, Don’t read your presentation.
3. Have FUN. Even though you may be sick to the stomach, hide it. Your audience will pick up on your insecurities.
4. Have a backup plan. This needs no explanation.
The DONT’S
1. Don’t praise your own product. If your product or service is that great others will sing its praise.
2. Don’t use a tagline. It may look good on paper but it may not speak well. Don’t risk it.
3. Don’t say what you’re looking for at DEMO. The VC’s will find you if you have presented a compelling presentation. For our general purposes we will disregard this if you are in fact doing a sales presentation.
4. Don’t list your partners unless they are great. Remember, it’s about the product or service.
5. Don’t try to be funny if you aren’t funny. This can and will bite you if you don’t heed this sage advice.
6. Don’t sing. There is always the exception but most of us aren’t clever enough to devise and sing a jingle, are we?
Tags: Sales Presentations, Venture Capitalists, David Hornick, Have Fun .