The Presentation Advantage

Dr. Stephen R. Covey with Elizabeth

during his famous LIVE “Big Rocks” Presentation.

Welcome back to week number two of our 3-week BusinessCommunication Series.  In case you missed last week’s session, The Writing Advantage, you can follow this link to read it now. 

Presentations have been a common form of business communication for some time.  We can give a presentation at an internal meeting, on a sales call or even in the class room.  Below are a few points for consideration. 

Meetings - Keep in mind that people are making crucial business decisions based on your information.  Make sure that your point is clear and welcomes input.  If you can provide a handout with key points and place for your notes, this will help them know what to focus on during your time in the front of the room. 

Sales Presentation - A good sales presentation should be interactive with the client.  If you have done a good job analyzing what the client needs, when it’s time to recommend your solution, you can ask questions that are checking their buy in along the way.  Be prepared to adjust on the fly if needed.  Continuing down the path as a talking head in the front of the room and not addressing their concerns will kill your opportunity.

Classroom Facilitation - This is usually reserve for experienced trainers, but even leaders can be put in this position from time to time.  Knowing your content well and connecting with your audience is key!

Regardless of which situation you are in, following these few tips below can help increase your effectiveness.

1.       Design - Taking time to design your presentation is key.  Remeber to "Begin with the End in Mind."  You need to identify the needs of your audience.  What points do you want to make?  What do you want them to do a result after seeing your presentation?

2.       Check point - If your presentation requires equipment, allow adequate time to connect everything and check to make sure everything is working (sound, slides, projector, etc.)

3.       Pictures - A picture is worth …. (you know the rest).  Using a powerful image to make your point is far more effective than writing out the bullet points of your speech

4.       Keep Moving - There is power in stillness … when making your point.  After you do so, keep the content flowing and feel free to move across the room and engage with your entire audience.

5.       Build Up - When you look at a tall building, your eyes typically take you to the top.  Your presentation should do that for your audience.  As you land key points, make sure they are guiding them to the one key takeaway you want them to know.

6.       Close - When it’s time to wrap it up, review your points, restate your purpose and close strong!

These are just a few helpful tips.  If you want to watch some great presentations, I highly recommend a website called www.ted.com.  You will see some amazing presentations and I’m sure you will laugh, learn and become inspired!

If your team needs better presentation skills, I highly recommend our 2-day PresentationAdvantage Program.  This is limited to 12 participants in the classroom.  Participants will bring actual presentations that they are currently working on.  They will draft their presentation and practice segments of it over the 2-day period.  More importantly, our consultants record their sessions for them so they can see their body language, eye movement, connection with audience, etc.  By the end of the 2-days participants have the mind-set, skill-set and tool-set to create effective presentations every time!

I attended this content a few years ago and I know that it made a significant impact on my capability to deliver a quality presentation.  For more information, please request a meeting using our meeting invitation tool on the right side of this page or simply call me at 214-387-9960.

Enabling greatness, one organization at a time,

John Vakidis

The Demise of Dysfunctional Selling

Over the last 2 days, I was fortunate to attend one of our public sessions for Helping Clients Succeed.  I was in the room with very seasoned sales professionals, CEOs and sales trainers from around the country.  Everyone was there to learn a new and better way to work with their clients. 

Let’s face it!  Dysfunctional selling is all around us.  Salespeople are trying to sell solutions to help their clients all while trying to make a quota.  Clients are struggling with their businesses and need outside vendors, yet they don’t like “being sold” and withhold valuable information that could help the salesperson help them with their products and services.  Without trust the sale will rarely happen. 

Take the comic above for example.  Do your prospects feel like wallets rather than people?  If so, you will rarely close a deal.

Here is a typical scenario.  After a few short interactions, the client asks for a proposal just to see if the solution is in their budget.  Like a dog fetching a ball, the salesperson gladly chases that opportunity, wastes a lot of time drafting a proposal and drumming up internal support without ever knowing if the client is going to buy or not.  In most cases they don’t.  The sales rep is now back at the beginning of trying to drum up new business and starting this dysfunctional process all over again.  At the same time, the client is also frustrated because they need outside assistance, yet think all salespeople are out to get their money.  The next vendor approaches them and they repeat again, too.

If the above scenario sounds like your sales process, then you might want to take a look at our Sales Performance Solutions.  We work with sales teams with an entirely different approach.  Your sales professionals learn that “Intent counts more than technique” and to “Move off the solution” and to truly focus on the client, rather than trying to make the sale.  After they go through the process, when it is time to offer the client a solution, they provide them with one that “exactly meets their needs.”  These sales have a higher close ratio, are often much bigger and clients are happy to do business with you again and refer you to other clients.

Ready for a change?  If so, use the Online Appointment Book at the top right of this page and let’s set up a 30-minute call to explore your situation.  You can also learn more by ordering a copy of the book, Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship. 

Helping our clients succeed,

John Vakidis

PS - if you are an executive or a sales leader, consider joining us in Dallas on April 5^th for a ½ day session to better understand this process.  Contact me directly to register.  Seats are limited.

Sales Performance

In November 2011, I wrote a 4 week blog series based on some research from Gallup about the 4 key factors that determine a salesperson’s success:   

1.       Intrinsic motivation

2.       Disciplined work style

3.       Ability to build relationships with customers

4.       Ability to close a sale

While the first 3 aspects are more linked to characteristics of a good sales person, the last one really depends on the PROCESS in which a salesperson works with their prospects and clients.  In retail, managers often push their salespeople to "Close, close, close!" because they know the statistics that when a person leaves without buying, the chance of them coming back can be thwarted by a number of factors, which leads to items remaining in the warehouse.

In more complex B-T-B sales environment, the way you consult your client will have a dramatic effect on not only if they buy, but how much they buy, how fast they buy and if they will ever buy from you again.  Many companies are good at initiating the opportunity.  Their marketing department has done good analysis of determining what companies want/need and the price they are willing to pay for their products or service.  With a well-written email or good phone call, a salesperson might be able to set up a meeting.  From that point, this is where most salespeople FAIL.

In Mahan Khalsa’s book, Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship, he and co-author, Randy Illig explain that when in a more complex sale envirnoment, salespeople need to learn to work with their clients in IN ORDER.  They need to understand their client’s needs (Opportunity Creation) and build them a solution that exactly meets their needs and help them get results (Opportunity Conversion).

The Key to Sustained Superior Sales Performance lies solely on getting a sales force to adopt a proven methodology and hold them accountable to execute the process.  As a sales leader, if you can do this well, you will hit your quota year after year and you’ll have plenty of happy clients that are willing to be referrals.

To learn more, consider requesting a meeting with your FranklinCovey Client Partner using the Online Appointment Book (top right of this page) or even joining us in Dallas on February 22-23 for our regional 2-day public session for Helping Clients Succeed. 

To your sales success,

John Vakidis

Are you on LinkedIn?  If so, connect with me and mention that you read this blog post on "Sales Performance"

Networking and Trust

Today I bring you a post, written by my colleague, FranklinCovey Consultant, Mark Murphy.  Mark resides in Dallas, TX and has facilitated our programs for clients all over the globe.  Mark holds a M.S. in Organizational Behavior from BYU and brings nearly 20 years of facilitation experience to his clients.

Mark provides you with great insight today to focusing on TRUST while building your network.  As you consider connecting with others in 2012, keep these thoughts in mind.  Enjoy!

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Have you heard of Paul Revere?  Have you ever heard of William Dawes?  Both men came from the same social class and had similar educational backgrounds.  Both men rode out from Boston on the night of April 18, 1775 to announce the beginning of the Revolutionary war.  Paul Revere rode north while at the same time William Dawes rode south.  They traveled through towns that were demographically similar.  But only Paul Revere raised a militia and became famous.  Why?  In a large part because of the trust developed in his relationships.

According to the Harvard Business Review article How to Build Your Network, “Paul Revere was an information broker, a person who occupies a key role in a social network by connecting disparate groups of people.  Because Revere targeted other well-connected people during his ride, his news spread widely and quickly, as explained in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point.

The article goes on to say that “networks deliver three unique advantages: private information, access to diverse skill sets, and power.” I want to focus here on the first of the advantages--private information. 

These days, public information is easily available through the internet and other sources.  But precisely because it is so easily accessible to so many people, public information offers much less of a competitive advantage in today’s business environment.  Private information, on the other hand, provides unique information not found in the public domain.  Private information is also, by its very nature, more subjective and less verifiable.  Therefore, its value depends on how much trust exists in the network of relationships.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, says of trust, “you know it when you feel it.”  In his book, The Speed of Trust, Stephen MR Covey says, “Simply put, trust means confidence.  The opposite of trust—distrust—is suspicion.  When you trust people, you have confidence in them—in their integrity and in their abilities. When you distrust people, you are suspicious of them—of their integrity, their agenda, their capabilities, or their track record.  It’s that simple.” As trust goes down, costs go up, and everything slows down.  As trust goes up, costs go down, and things happen much faster.

Could the trust accrued in his network of relationships be a factor in Paul Revere’s success?  Could that trust have something to do with the speed with which his message was accepted and acted upon?  I believe so.  Are you a Paul Revere or a William Dawes?

- Mark Murphy, FranklinCovey Consultant             

Copyright © 2011 - Mark Murphy

____________________________________________________________________

Are you interested in learning how to build trust in your circle?  Consider joining us in Dallas to hear best-selling author, Stephen M.R. Covey deliver his Speed of Trust Keynote on Feb 16, 2012.

Do you want to learn more about Mark Murphy and the offerings he can facilitate for your organization?  Then follow this link to read his bio.  If you would be interested in visiting with Mark by phone, then please contact me to set up a meeting with Mark and your FranklinCovey Client Partner.

Also, keep your eyes open for more posts from Mark in 2012!  Become a member of this blog and you can make comments on our posts.

To your networking success in 2012!

Sincerely,

John Vakidis

Associate Client Partner | FranklinCovey

214.387.9960 | john.vakidis@franklincovey.com

Sales Effectiveness 104 - Closing the Sale

A few weeks ago, I started a four-week blog series about the 4 key factors that determine a salesperson’s success.  The first 3 aspects include: Intrinsic Motivation, Disciplined Work Style and Building Relationships.  In our last post today, we will explore the Ability to Close the Sale.

You might have heard that selling is an art form.  Well, I’d like to challenge that thinking and say it is also a science.  It takes a few key aspects to be a good closer.  One trait is to have a good balance of IQ and EQ.  A salesperson must be able to ask effective questions that are thought provoking for the client which add value throughout the process, yet asking them in a way that helps the salesperson learn to find out how they can help their client with their solution and eventually close the sale.

At FranklinCovey we use a sales process called Helping Clients Succeed.  We put our opportunities IN ORDER (see below):

The first part of selling is Opportunity Creation.  This includes Initiating New Opportunities, discovering the Opportunity itself with the client, determining the Resources available and then enabling the Decision Process.  Once this has happened, we determine whether we should proceed or not.  If the answer is YES, then we move to Opportunity Conversion and build an Exact Solution that meets the client’s needs and make sure we help them get the Results they are trying to achieve.  By being client focused and results oriented, our clients not only like working with us, they come back for more.  In sales, it’s not just about the initial sale, it’s about the relationship and sustainability that makes the difference between a good sales person and a great salesperson.

If your sales force is spending very little time on inquiry and a lot of time on writing proposals, etc., then they are going to have a lower conversion rate if they would simply do the opposite.  It’s natural to want to talk about the features and benefits of the products that they sell.  If that is all they do well, then they are dead in the water.  After they tell your clients all about your products, the next thing the client is going to ask is about your price.  In today’s economy, pricing will always be a factor.  If your sales force isn’t focused on results and selling value, then they won’t be closing as many sales as you would like.

Our Helping Clients Succeed sales training balances the realities of solid business thinking and a desire to build capacity for short-term as well as long-term success. This methodology is based on the work of Mahan Khalsa and his book titled Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship. 

Learn more about the results we are helping our clients achieve by downloading this whitepaper to learn more about The Key to Sustained Superior Sales Performance.  If you want to achieve new results, then you have to do things differently.  Contact me today to set up a 15-minute call to see how we may be a resource to you and help you close more sales in 2012 and beyond!

Until next time,

John Vakidis
Associate Client Partner | FranklinCovey
214.387.9960 | john.vakidis@franklincovey.com



Sales Effectiveness 103 - Relationships

Two weeks ago, I started a 4 part blog series about four key factors that determine a salesperson’s success.  In case you are a new reader to this blog, below are the first two links:

Post #1: Intrinsic Motivation

Post#2:  Disciplined Work Style

This week, we will explore Building Relationships…

A mentor of mine once told me that being successful in life is about 2 things: Choices and Relationships.  I think he nailed it on the head!  If you are conscious about the choices you make and the outcomes you want to see, then you might think more before you act.  Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of one the best-selling business books of all time, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, referred to that choice between stimulus and response as Being Proactive.  

When it comes to relationships, there is one key factor that is the foundation to all great relationships and that factor is Trust!  There are several aspects that clients are looking for when looking for a new vendor or partner.  They want a salesman who knows their product line, they want to make sure they are receiving a fair value, but if they don’t trust you, then you will rarely get their business.

In Stephen M.R. Covey’s best-selling book, The Speed of Trust, he writes about The 4 Cores to Trust:

·         Integrity

·         Intent

·         Capabilities

·         Results

Integrity

Your client wants to see that you are humble.  They want to see you keep your commitments.  They also want to see that you stand for something… that you work to enable your mission.

Intent

This is one of the first things clients will notice.  Are you working with them to enable their agenda or are you looking out for your own.  People want to see that your motive is to help them.  If it is to help yourself or your company, it will be apparent quickly and people will see right through you. 

Capabilities

People need to feel confident that your product or solution will solve their problem or enable their mission.  If they don’t feel that you or your products/services are capable to help them, it’s going to be difficult to win them over.

Results

As Stephen M.R. Covey said, “Results matter!”  People evaluate you and your company based on past performance, current performance and expected performance.  At the end of the day, if you don’t deliver results, you will lose the deal and the client!

If you want to make sales quickly, close bigger deals and build lasting relationships, then start with trust!  In our last blog, we will explore Closing the Sale. 

Until next week,

John Vakidis
Associate Client Partner | FranklinCovey
214.387.9960 | john.vakidis@franklincovey.com

PS - Do you want to learn more about The Speed of Trust?  If so, consider joining us in Dallas for an upcoming keynote with the author on February 16, 2012.  Early bird pricing good through 12/31/11!  Click here for details.