9 Quick Sales Presentation Tips All Salespeople Must Know

By implementing these 9 quick sales presentation tips, you’ll master the habits of superstar salespeople, every time you present to a prospect. Check it out now.

Have you ever been in a prospect meeting that seemed to be right on track—but then, after the presentation, the prospect got squirrelly on you?

Maybe you never even heard back from the prospect again, regardless of all the follow-up that you did.

This is an all-too-common problem for salespeople. Most of the time, it’s caused by a sales presentation that simply misses the mark.

In fact, the data shows that over 75% of sales presentations leave prospects feeling like the salesperson just didn’t get it. Luckily, this major problem can be easily avoided by implementing a few quick sales presentation tips that will transform your selling approach.

In this video, I’m going to show you 9 quick sales presentation tips all salespeople must know. Check it out:

Quick Sales Presentation Tips Video Summary:

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #1: The presentation must come after a thorough discovery.

I can’t tell you how frustrating it is when a sales manager or salesperson says something like, “Oh, we really need to work on our pitch.” In reality, salespeople don’t need to worry about their pitch, because the very idea of a pitch implies that they’re presenting before they’ve done a thorough discovery.

This means that salespeople are worried about pitching even before they’ve asked the right questions to find out what’s going on in the world of the prospect.

Of all the quick sales presentation tips out there, this might be the simplest—and the most transformative. It’s time to make your pitch a thing of the past.

Pitching is an old-school idea that essentially means, “I’m going to convince this person with a really compelling presentation that they need to do business with me.” But the reality is, you don’t need to be persuasive or convincing at all.

What salespeople need to do is master the discovery phase of the sale by asking the right questions to find out whether the prospect is a good fit; whether the prospect has challenges and concerns that the salesperson can really solve; and lastly, whether the prospect is the decision maker with the budget to invest in a solution.       

All of these questions must be answered before getting into a presentation.

Most prospects complain that salespeople’s presentations are missing the mark, simply because the salesperson didn’t do a good enough job up front to find out what the prospect really needs and cares about.

So make sure that your sales presentations always come after a thorough discovery.

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #2: Only present solutions to your prospect’s challenges.

This is one of those quick sales presentation tips that just seems so obvious—but I want to shout it from the rooftops anyway.

Most salespeople find themselves giving sales presentations where they end up talking about way more than the prospect really cares about.

So, what do your prospects care about? Solving their challenges.

When you’re presenting the features or benefits of your product or service that have nothing to do with the prospect’s challenges, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. Your prospect simply doesn’t care.

Think about the last time you bought a car. Most likely, the car salesman enthusiastically said something like, “Look at this, we’ve got an amazing new SiriusXM Radio feature! Let me know you all the cool things it can do…” Maybe you were thinking to yourself,  “Why is this guy wasting my time about this? I’m just going to use my iPhone to play Spotify the whole time…I’m not going to use SiriusXM.”

This is a common example of a salesperson presenting solutions that have nothing to do with what the prospect cares about.

Only present solutions to your prospect’s challenges.                             

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #3: Don’t present one last thing.

One of the top quick sales presentation tips I live by is this rule: Keep your presentation as short as possible.

So many salespeople, however, just can’t help presenting “one last thing.” This can be devastating to the sale.

If you’re in a selling situation where the prospect is ready to buy, but then you say, “Oh, let me show you one last thing that we can do…” and after that, the prospect says, “You know what, we really don’t need that. That’s actually outside of what we’re focused on,” then you’ve just lost the prospect a little bit.

You’re probably nodding your head, saying, “Yeah, I’ve done that before.”

Don’t ever let that happen again.

Get rid of the idea that you have to present just one last thing.

As salespeople, we get excited about the features and benefits of what we do—but the reality is that your prospects only care about the stuff that relates directly to them.

Don’t ever get caught up in presenting that one last thing.

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #4: Use case studies.

The case study presentation is one of my all-time favorite quick sales presentation tips.

Most presentations are pretty dry, so they fail to hold prospects’ attention. They’re not really telling a story. As a result, salespeople are missing out on an enormous opportunity to show real-life examples of how they’ve helped other people in the past.

 So how you can present in a way that showcases how you’ve solved a similar prospect’s problem in the past? Use a case study.

A case study is basically just an example of how you’ve helped another prospect do what this particular prospect is looking to do.

When you use case studies in your presentations, you show a real-life example with proven results, and engage prospects by showing them that your solution has worked on other people in the past.

Case study presentations are so much more engaging than your typical run-of-the-mill presentation.

Make them your new standard.

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #5: The 60-Second Rule.

The 60 Second Rule is simple: You should never speak without interruption for more than 60 seconds during a sales presentation. This is one of the most effective quick sales presentation tips out there.

Gong.io, a top intelligence conversion platform for sales, recently discovered that top salespeople’s conversations with prospects look quite different from average and bottom-performing salespeople’s conversations with prospects.

One of the biggest differences is that top-performing salespeople have a lot more back-and-forth engagement with prospects during the presentation, whereas lower performers typically just talk the whole time.

Make sure you never talk for more than 60 seconds in a presentation without engaging the prospect back into the conversation. Make sure the prospect is still on board, make sure you’re answering any questions that arise, and make sure the prospect is engaged.

Gong.io found that no presentations that turned into closed sales ever had situations where the salesperson was talking for more than a minute and a half straight. That’s powerful stuff.

Keep your presentations to the point where every 60 seconds, you’re engaging the prospect back into the conversation.

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #6: Use feedback loops.

A feedback loop is essentially the solution to the 60-Second Rule.

With feedback loops, you can always keep prospects engaged in the presentation. If you only implement one of the quick sales presentation tips from this article today, let it be this one.

A feedback loop is just a simple question that you’re going to ask throughout the presentation to bring the prospect back into the conversation.

Questions like, “Does that make sense?” or “Is that cool?” or “Are we on the same page at this point?”

Little simple questions like these are going to prompt the prospect to say, “Yeah, that does make sense,” or “No, could you explain that again?”

And if you use feedback loops in the right way, you can do this frequently.
When I’m presenting to a prospect, I constantly use feedback loops to suck people back in. Usually, the questions are so simple and casual that the prospect doesn’t even notice I’m doing it.

The other really powerful benefit to using a feedback loop is that when you go off track, you’re going to know right away, because the prospect will typically push back and say, “Uh, actually, I’m not sure if that does make total sense.”

And now you’re getting really valuable information that you can then use to get back on track. Does that make sense?

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #7: If you lose them, stop.

This is one of those quick sales presentation tips that should be required learning for every salesperson out there.

When salespeople feel like they’re losing the sale or they’re losing an opportunity, they often tend to push more. They keep barging through the presentation, trying to get everything in there before it all falls apart.

But in reality, as they get more pushy and persuasive, they start to lost the prospect even more. Because they’re applying more pressure, the prospect is going to push back.

If you start to sense that you’re about to lose a prospect in a presentation situation, just stop.

It’s really that simple.

I recommend you say something like this: “You know what, George, I’m starting to get the sense that maybe we’re off track here. Have I missed something?”

One of two things is going to happen. Either the prospect is going to say, “Yes, I do feel like maybe we are off track, and here’s how we got off track,” or, “No, no, I’m sorry, I was just distracted…I got an email from someone about something else and wasn’t paying attention.”

Either way, now you can just play it out and get the conversation back on track. But the second you start to lose the prospect, stop.

Hit the brakes, take a deep breath, and ask.

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #8: Keep it as short as possible. 

I know I already mentioned this before, but I can’t say it enough. Keeping the presentation as short as possible is only going to help you.

That’s why, out of all the quick sales presentation tips in this article, I repeated this one twice.

What often happens is that salespeople get really excited about what they’re talking about, and the problem is, the prospect is never as excited about it as they are.

Keeping that presentation as short and concise as possible is only going to serve you. Once it starts to get long and meandering, and going off track, you’re going to lose far more sales.

Why? Because you’re not just presenting to the challenges that the prospect has.

Instead, you’re also throwing in those other benefits, those other features, or that one last thing.

So keep the presentation as short as possible.

Quick Sales Presentation Tips #9: Clear and scheduled next steps.

You literally can’t focus on clear and scheduled next steps enough. This is one of those quick sales presentation tips that you absolutely must start using in your selling approach.

If your presentations are ending with anything other than a very clear and scheduled next step, you’re in trouble.

The idea of the one-call close is an old-school idea. Salespeople today are selling far more complex, high-end products or services that require multiple steps. And, as a result of those multiple steps, sales are getting lost because there isn’t a clear and scheduled next step.

After your presentation, there will likely be some kind of a next step before you can ultimately close the deal.

In some cases, you’re just going to be getting the prospect to sign on the dotted line. In other cases, you’ll be having a follow-up call or another meeting with decision makers.

Either way, you need to send out a calendar invite to the prospect while you’re in the current presentation.

Say something like, “Do you have your calendar out? Let’s schedule a next step to discuss this more, after you’ve had a chance to talk it over with your team, and we can talk about moving forward, if it ends up making sense.”

The prospect is almost always going to say, “Sure, let’s get on the calendar”—and now you’re on the prospect’s calendar.

What you always want to avoid, of course, is this: “Hey, how about I call you on Wednesday of next week to follow up on this?”

Prospects will always say yes to this, but then they’re not going to pick up the phone. It’s not because they’re hiding from you, it’s because they’re really busy—and now the sale is starting to slide off track.

So, there you have it. Those are the 9 quick sales presentation tips all salespeople must know. Which of these tips about sales presentations will you implement right away? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll do my best to respond to every single one.