46. Why are most presentations based on the wrong thing?
Your presentation is focused on the wrong thing mainly because you are under the assumption that to sell you have to find the needs of your customer and then work up a presentation that will demonstrate how you can help fill those needs.
Here is the problem with finding needs; we are looking for something that does not exist. No one really needs anything. I am sure you have everything you need to get by, just as your customers do. As a matter of fact if you took away twenty five percent of your competition, effective next Monday morning, how long would it take to fill the needs of their customers? Not long, probably a couple of weeks. It would be an exciting couple of weeks if we call on customers and asked them if they need anything and they actually said yes!
If you are not looking for needs, what are you looking for? Talking about what you need is really not very exciting. If you stop for a moment and ask yourself what you think about nearly every minute of the day you will find that it is the same thing everybody thinks about. You think about what you want. You think about your future! To get people excited about buying you must go beyond the need and find out what they want. What is in their future that, with the help of your products and services, you can show them how to get it?
You and I, and every person we know, LIVE IN A TOMORROW! That TOMORROW may be a few hours off. It may be this afternoon or next week, a month, a year, or even ten years from now. Ninety percent of the excitement in the PRESENT is the imaginary picture we are constantly recreating in our minds of a TOMORROW.
Every waking hour the mind of your customer glides out of the present into the future, and they see themselves as they will be tomorrow.
Everyone in sales has been searching for a key which would magically unlock the door of the mind of every prospect you call on. A key which will open a new world for us in the minds of every man and woman with whom we associate. Here it is, if you can hold it firmly and use it!
Ninety percent of the excitement in the present is the imaginary picture of the future you are constantly recreating in your mind.
It will always be a better tomorrow. We picture ourselves as happier then. We will be healthier, more comfortable, with less worries, with more leisure, with more money, with greater power ... we will strangely be freed of the realities that make today far from satisfactory. There will be no north wind, no drizzling rain! Only blue skies.
This attitude forms the texture of desire. It is at the base of the mind of every person who has lived in America for more than twenty four hours. It is our national philosophy, our habitual trend of thought. We know we are going to be better off tomorrow than we are today. Every waking hour our mind glides out of the present into the future, and we see ourselves as we will be tomorrow.
The business owner never likes the profit and loss statement of today... but tomorrow profits are going to climb! He or she pictures a new line of merchandise moving quickly at a greater profit.
Tomorrow the young husband pictures himself in his imagination as free from worry as to the economic future of his wife and children - then his insurance and retirement will be paid and provide for the necessities, his house will be paid, his automobile will be paid, his credit cards will be paid.
Today the manager must work three nights a week to keep his or her desk clean, but they picture a tomorrow when this new computer will clean the desk at five o'clock, unfatigued and with peace of mind.
Tomorrow! We live most of it today. It is so much better than today. The person who sits across from you now is not thinking about themselves as they are now - they are building a mental picture of themselves as they will be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... with this or that added, which they are about to purchase... which, when acquired, will make them much happier. They see themselves with more customers, with larger gross profits, lower labor costs and less taxes to pay.
How can the benefits of my products and services enhance my clients future? When we begin to think in these terms we have crossed the bridge from sales person to a true "Sales Consultant."
Once we begin to think in these terms, our prospects turn into customers and our customers turn into clients. We have set ourselves apart from the average "peddler" who merely has a sales pitch, and put ourselves in the position of a partner who is working for the same goals and objectives as our client. They will know that you "understand where they are coming from". They will know that you understand their problems and have an `insight' into what they are trying to accomplish. Once we can put them on the "magic carpet" and take them to a place where their future becomes a possible reality, you won't have to sell, you will only have to help them buy!
This is the secret of a sales. Your average sales person talks about the price, the competition or the product, always in the present tense. The professional sales person looks at their product or service from a different view point. The first question you ask when putting together your sales strategy is: What does my prospect or customer want? What are the pictures they have of their future? What are their goals? Where do they want to be next year, the year after, and five years from now?
I know you understand this. Most people don't. Take this secret and start creating pictures of success for your customer. Show them how much profit they are going to make using your products and services. Help them create a better future. Don't be a purveyor of bad news, be a purveyor of prosperity.
Comments:
In summation, the question we should be asking the customer is “how can I make your life easier? What issues or problems can my company and I address in your business to give you more free time, more profit, more piece of mind? “
Showing the customer that we think the same way he does, deal with the same daily issues and regularly step beyond them to provide solutions for our clients to “a better day tomorrow” through our expertise, commitment to quality and above all our dedication to serving them will help forge a strong and lasting relationship, profitable to both of us.
Chris Chase
The presentation should be based on the features and benefits of our service. Most of our clients focus on the “tomorrow”, and we as sales people should do the same. After all, that is what we plan everyday for, right? It is our job to show how our service or product can enhance their “future”. Find out goals your customers have, where do they see themselves in a year? These types of questions only make it easier to focus on the features or benefits we provide that will help the customer to reach future goals! That is what interest the customer, the FUTURE!!
Brooke Knight
Life is about making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. Taking what we learned and putting it to use in hopes of avoiding doing it again in the future. Study the company you want to sell to and try to figure out what will help them be successful and keep them ahead of the competition. Put your presentation together to show the business how they can continuously grow towards a successful future. Every business needs a map of where there are going or headed. Without it they get lost.
David Bradley
Bad presentations are based on what we think the client needs, because that is what we are selling. A good presentation will give a brief overview of what we are capable of doing followed by questions of what would help them run their business more effectively. They may say they have no needs, but we need to continue to talk and ask questions because they might reveal a need they may not realize they have.
Brandon Sanchez
This is correct. I am also a tomorrow person. I think about the future more than I think about today. I want to be on top in the future and I also want my client to be there as well. I think every proposal for new business has to have an element of future goals for my business and the fact that I want to be in the future of goals of my clients business.
Kathie Luttrell
Also, as much as we fanaticize about tomorrow, we love instant gratification. So selling on the immediate benefits as well as what our future golas are would be a powerful.
Morgan Frazier
We, as sales people, cannot rely on what business owners need. Their needs are a very small component of their business. For the most part their needs are met, that’s why they are operational. Now they want to focus on tomorrow. People as a mass want to live for tomorrow because tomorrow is forever coming, while today will be gone shortly. Tomorrow has endless possibilities, and it’s our job to help them see their “tomorrow.” When your prospects know that you share in their aspirations, they’ll no longer be just prospects.
Matthew Thacker
Sometimes we wish we had a crystal ball to help us see what is coming to us. The good thing is that we all have a crystal ball, but we just don’t know how to use it well. A crystal ball is nothing but taking a look at existing information and asking key questions about it. When you get to understand that information you will predict the future. I think that the same thing happens in the selling business. You study your prospect and his business, original needs, how they bought before and past decisions made and the results obtained. That past information you have gathered may have pain but that is where experience comes from, mistakes. The past will help your understand the best way to communicate your ability to help in the future.
Yessie Narvaez
"Ninety percent of the excitement in the present is the imaginary picture we are constantly recreating in our minds of a tomorrow. Your presentation should focus on their future."