Big-ticket items — computer systems, business services, industrial equipment — typically aren't sold without a sales presentation. The buyer wants to know more than the color, size, and price. Thousands and sometimes millions of dollars are being spent, and the buyer needs to ensure that the product or service will do the job. So the seller offers a “presentation.”

What is a sales presentation? It's a descriptive and/or persuasive account that introduces or explains the facts, features, and benefits of a product or service. Retail presentations are quite simple: the package shows the product in use and lists its features. Presentation over. A presentation for selling an aircraft to a corporation is actually numerous presentations to various management and financial groups who participate in the final decision. Each presentation has a unique purpose but a similar function.

Before making a sales presentation, you need to determine the presentation's objectives and requirements as well as decide what tools you will use. No matter what you sell, presentation skills can help you be a more effective seller.

The first task in developing a sales presentation is deciding what you want it to accomplish. The more detailed and costly the product, the more things you may want to cover in the presentation. However, the presentation should have no more than three primary goals. More than that can become confusing to some of the people who see it. A few viewers will ask clarifying questions, but many will not, and you will wonder why the presentation didn't succeed. It may be because it was trying to do too much.

What goals should a sales presentation have? Much depends on the complexity of what is being offered and the level of understanding among the people who view your presentation. If they are all technicians, an explanation of the underlying science may bore them. If the audience is financial advisors, technical descriptions may be lost on them. Know your audience.

For example, three primary goals for a sales presentation to school administrators on a new health plan may be:

• Summarize their current health plan, noting its limits.

• Explain the features and benefits of the proposed health plan, including costs.

• Get an agreement that the new plan is more cost-effective than the old one.

One way of determining the presentation's goals is to identify what the audience knows now and then determine what they need to know to make an informed decision. It may require that you interview a few of the participants before developing the presentation. Identify the primary decision makers in your audience and ask for their suggestions before you make a presentation to the larger group.

Once you have a goal, a destination, for your presentation, developing a list of requirements is much easier. For example, before you can summarize the current situation for members, you must determine what they already know. If they are well aware of the current health plan's features and limits, you will bore them by spending much time rehashing it. Summarize and move on.

What does your presentation need to help the audience understand your points? At the least, a clear map of what is being presented, such as a simple agenda or handout. In addition, many people benefit from visual summaries of what is being said, charts and graphs that review or reinforce the spoken points. They can be printed handouts, product literature, projected slides, or other graphics. The choice depends on what similar audiences prefer as well as what tools are available to you.

One of the requirements that many presenters forget is time. Few people have the time or inclination to listen for hours to a sales presentation. The ones that do probably aren't the decision makers. Establish a time limit for the presentation and, no matter what happens, don't exceed it. In fact, your audience will appreciate your telling them how much time the presentation will take in advance. If you take less time, you will be a hero. Structuring a presentation will be covered in the next section of this chapter.

The level of tools needed to make a presentation can range from copies of your outline to animated graphics projected on a large screen. Simpler sales presentations with a small group can be in flip books — notebooks with one-page graphics that can be flipped through as the presentation is made. Artistic presentations can be made with a simple white board and various colored markers.

However, most business presentations today are developed using one of the many presentation software programs available. The programs can be installed on a laptop computer for viewing or plugged into a separate projector that will display the graphics on a larger surface. Most take the form of a prepared slide show. The advantage of these programs is that they are easy to modify during the meeting if the presentation takes a different direction. In addition, the presentations can be viewed online by other prospects.