Presentations
How To Present Your Product With No Resistance
By Bill Brooks
Apr 14, 2004, 14:16

How
well do you tell your sales story with power, believability
and behavior? How effective are you at virtually guaranteeing
that your prospect will become a customer? Learn how in this
week’s article by sales trainer Bill Brooks.

To present
your product or service in a compelling and believable way,
follow these two simple principles, no matter what you are selling.
Here they are:

People buy
anything they will buy for their reasons, not yours (or mine)

Prospects
expect salespeople to exaggerate the value of their product
or service (you or me, included!)

Once you
understand and accept these two realities what can you do about
them? The first principle can be dealt with very easily and
systematically by remembering two things:

The more
you are in front of qualified prospects, the better off you’ll
be… and the secret is to ask the right questions of the
right people (qualified prospects) related to what they’ll
buy, when they’ll buy, how they’d like to buy, under
what conditions they’ll buy – and then ensure your
product or service meets those exact standards.

The second
principle, though, creates a little larger obstacle. Most salespeople
are accustomed to "telling and selling" instead of
"involving and asking." It is true that people learn
a lot more from what they experience and actually do than from
what they simply hear, isn’t it? The same is true about
your product or service presentation. In fact, I prefer to use
the term "application" rather than "demonstration"
or "presentation." The former means a mutual discovery
or learning experience as your product or service is unfolded
to your prospect while the latter terms refer to a standard,
sterile and boring monologue related to your product or service’s
features or, perhaps, even irrelevant benefits.

It has often
been said that features "tell" and benefits "sell."
Unfortunately, it is far deeper than that! You need to determine
which benefits actually do sell! You also need to discover the
role that active participation, involvement and education play
in the effective presentation of your product or service.

Always remember
that people are far more likely to believe what they experience,
do, feel, touch, smell, think or immerse themselves in than
from what they simply hear from you!

What does
this mean to you as a sales professional? Simply this –
never underestimate the importance of allowing your prospect
to learn all they can about your product or service. Your job?
To serve as the tour guide, interpreter or facilitator. To allow
them to reach their own conclusions, draw their own comparisons
and discover precisely how your product will address their concerns,
enhance their profits, solve a problem or meet a need.

Some tips?
Let me give you six very specific things you can do today. Here
they are:

You need
to know how to prepare your "lesson plan" (your presentation)
by addressing only the specific issues your customer has.

Your product
or service must be seen strictly from the perspective of your
prospect or customer – not you, your marketing department,
R&D staff or anyone else within your organization.

Keep your
presentation simple yet elegant. Don’t confuse your prospect!

Make your
application interactive. Show and tell, ask and explain –
educate and involve. Ask feedback questions to ensure your prospect
or customer understands and emotionally accepts your solution.
Questions like, "What do you think?" "How does
it fee," "Do you understand?" Do you have any
questions?" or "Would you like to try this yourself?"
are all essential to ask.

Don’t
talk too much, non-stop or in jargon your prospect or customer
will not understand. Always remember that people don’t
want to be sold. Instead, they really do want to buy.

Ask the
right questions (What do you want to buy? When do you want to
buy it? How will you buy? What do you need?) and then present
only the right solutions – and allow them to experience
your product or service. Then, they will buy! And you won’t
have to sell them anything.

About
The Author:

Bill Brooks, CSP, CPAE, CMC, CPCM former CEO of a $300,000,000
corporation and two-time sales award winner from an international
sales force of 8,000, Bill has real-world expertise. Bill has
spoken or consulted in over 300 different industries while being
engaged by at least 150 clients an astonishing six times each.
Bill is the author of nine books, including the

best-seller, “High Impact Selling.”

Contact
Information:

The Brooks Group

3810 N. Elm Street - Suite 202

Greensboro NC 27455

800-633-7762

www.brooksgroup.com

e-mail: sales@thebrooksgroup.com