Like any good performance, a performance should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Also, it should be easy to listen to, so that your audience “gets it” and responds positively. Let’s be clear; you show up to sell

To deliver a winning sales presentation, you must:

*differentiate yourself from your competitors

* convince your audience that you are worth listening to by being easy to listen to

* deliver information so that it is understood and appreciated

* Keep your audience listening and engaged from the first word.

Too many presenters waste their most important opening minutes with the standard “Thank you for having us,” quickly followed by “My name is…” and navigating directly to “I’d like to introduce you to our team.” If that is what you do, you are achieving the exact opposite of what you intend. First, you sound like everyone else. Second, its beginning is instantly forgettable. And finally, you’ve given your audience a good reason to tune out right out of the box. In fact, it is seriously out of step with the needs of a listening audience.

When you want to win, you need perfect pitch. Here’s the how and why in 7 easy steps.

Step 1

Start with your Big Message, the one you’ve polished until it sings.

Benefits

Research tells us that most people who are faced with a flow of information forget almost everything. In fact, you’d be lucky if your audience remembers two or three details from your presentation. In reality, the details you present are not the essential factor in making the sale. Your Great Message is. Open with your message and your audience will remember it.

Your Big Message is the main thing you want your audience to know about you. It’s the strong statement of fact that sets you apart from your competitors and resonates with your audience so they listen and respond positively.

Your Big Message is the big reason, in sentence form, that convinces your audience they need you. Polish it, refine it, and open it up before you even get to a word of content, before you even introduce yourself. Once you get your message across, if it’s a good one, your audience is engaged. Now you can introduce yourself.

Step 2

Organize and deliver your content around three (maximum four) main themes. These are the themes or themes that support or prove your message.

Benefits

People understand information only when they can organize it into a coherent structure so that it makes sense. Make it easier to remember by organizing the information into three different themes.

Imagine your message is something like: Our team is better built, more reliable, and easier to use than any other on the planet. The topics you choose should support or prove that message. So let’s say for this message your three topics are technology, design, and return on investment. That’s all. The rest of your content should go under those three headings.

Now, whether you’re asked to present at lightning speed, or expected to speak for twenty minutes or more, you can bet your audience will forget the details, the minutiae, the facts, and the figures. Short or long, a well-planned presentation follows a three-topic structure. The difference between them is in the amount of detail you put under each heading.

So, and this is the trick, no matter how long your presentation is, when it’s structured in three sections, or as many as four, your audience remembers your message because they opened with it. What’s more, even if they forget all the details, they will remember that you talked about three big concepts that prove your message: technology, design and return on investment. And after all, that’s what’s really important.

Step 3

Reinforce your big message with a visual metaphor.

Benefits

Pictures are more memorable than words. Images can instantly engage your audience and subliminally reinforce the message you want to convey.

The words matter. The images make the difference. The more careful you are about tying everything together with an underlying theme, the more memorable your presentation becomes. If, for example, your big point is that you’re the best at putting all the pieces together, you could use an image of woodworking as a background and reinforce your message with titles that relate to the image, titles that start with words. such as construction, crafts or cementing. Or if you want your audience to know that you have a specialized team to work on your behalf, you can use a sports metaphor with a team image as a background on your slides. Your topic titles should fit with the sports theme.

Choosing appropriate titles to match your theme adds a touch of creativity while highlighting your underlying message.

Stage 4

Use your slides as a visual aid, not a reading exercise; remove all the text you can.

Benefits

Good eye contact is the key to connecting with your audience. You can’t connect when everyone is reading from the screen. If necessary, use bullet points to keep up-to-date or to point out key features or benefits. Delete sentences or anything else that requires reading.

Don’t give your audience text to read as you speak. The research explains that people process visual material and verbal material in different areas of the brain, in separate channels. Listeners can digest information on only one channel at a time, which means that if they’re reading, they can’t hear it.

Research also reports that the more senses you can stimulate, the more information retention will improve. If you can stimulate the visual cortex with a compelling image while verbally transmitting information to stimulate the sense of hearing, you’ve doubled the chances that your ear will remember everything you say.

Don’t worry about forgetting something. These are your things and you could talk for hours about it. Also, if you leave something out, your audience will never know.

step 5

Don’t print your PowerPoint slides to use as handouts. Create separate, easy-to-read documents.

Benefits

A well-written brochure is proof that the presentation you gave is valid and true. PowerPoint slides are designed to be visual, the exact opposite of reading documents. The slides are horizontal; documents are vertical. The slides are on dark backgrounds; the documents are on white paper. The slides use large fonts; documents use reading fonts no larger than 10-12 point because larger than that are actually harder to read on paper. There’s a lot more, but you get the idea.

And while Microsoft suggests that you use your slides as a handout, it’s a big mistake to do so. Brochures that look and read like real documents provide a great advantage because they are readable and people actually read them. Imagine that! Feel free to include as many facts, data, details, and minutiae as you like, and distribute them before the Q&A.

step 6

End your presentation by going back to your Grand Opening Message.

Benefits

Your Great Message is the hook on which everything else hangs. Once you finish delivering the content, repeat the Big Message you started with, to remind your audience what sets you apart. Also, when he ends where he started, his presentation has the smooth, satisfying quality of a good performance.

When you’re done, it’s time for questions and answers.

step 7

Practice with a coach to make sure you present it with warmth, energy, and real language. It’s all about their “likability factor.”

Benefits

A good coach can make the difference between an amateur performance and a professional one. Remember, his goal is not to be clever, it’s to be nice, which requires a careful combination of confidence, energy, and enthusiasm.

It is difficult to evaluate your own performance. It’s almost impossible to gauge how likable you are to an audience. A trainer will check that you make good eye contact and speak conversationally, that your body language is open and welcoming, that you appear warm and friendly. A coach will make sure that your voice is pleasing, that your passion shows through, and that your way of speaking hits all the right notes.

When making the sale is important, you want insightful feedback from a professional to help polish your delivery.

Follow these 7 steps and become the likable, memorable, easy-listening presenter you know you can be. That’s a perfect shade!