Chapter Six
Sales Presentation
and
Demonstration:
The Pivotal
Exchange
PowerPoint presentation prepared by
Dr. Rajiv Mehta
Chapter Outline
• The first sales call and the sales presentation
• Planning the sales presentation
• General guidelines for effective sales presentations
• Sales presentations to groups
• Sales presentation strategies
• Adaptive versus canned sales presentations
• Written presentations
• Selling the long-term relationship
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Chapter 6 | Slide 2
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should understand
• Alternative sales presentation strategies.
• Guidelines for effective sales presentations
and demonstrations to organizational
prospects.
• Preparation of written sales presentations.
• Sales presentation strategies for different
prospect categories.
• Use of adaptive and canned sales
presentations.
• Sales presentations to prospect groups.
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• How to make a sales presentation memorable.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 3
Figure 6.1:
The Personal Selling Process (PSP)
The fourth step of the professional selling cycle
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Chapter 6 | Slide 4
The First Sales Call and the
Sales Presentation
• Successful salespeople think of the sales presentation and
demonstration as the pivotal exchange between seller and
buyer in the sequence of exchanges that make up the
selling process
• The approach emphasized in this text is the consultative
problem-solving strategy
• Consider several tasks before making the sales
presentation
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Chapter 6 | Slide 5
Planning the Sales Presentation
• To prepare for the first sales presentation, salespeople can think of 5
planning stages:
1. Gathering information
2. Identifying the prospect’s problems and needs
3. Preparing and presenting the sales proposal
4. Confirming the sale and/or the relationship
5. Ensuring customer satisfaction
Chapter Review Question:
What are the basic steps in planning the
sales presentation?
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Chapter 6 | Slide 6
Table 6.1 Planning the Sales
Presentation and Demonstration
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Chapter 6 | Slide 7
1. Gathering Information
• Too much talk can be detrimental to the sales process. A chronic
complaint is that salespeople talk too much, fail to ask the right
questions, and do not really listen to the buyer.
• Top-performing salespeople understand the need to gather all the
relevant information they can about prospects and their perceived
problems.
• First, they make sure they’re talking to decision-makers (those with
authority to buy) or key influencers, so neither party’s time is wasted.
• Next, they ask probing questions to encourage prospects to provide
information on perceived problems, objectives, financial issues, needs,
and personal feelings.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 8
2. Identifying the
Prospect’s Problems and Needs
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• Using a consultative,
problem-solving approach,
the professional salesperson
tries to uncover the
prospect’s perceived
problems and needs through
skillful questioning and
careful listening.
Chapter 6 | Slide 9
3. Preparing and Presenting the
Sales Proposal
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•
Before making a sales presentation,
take the time and effort to prepare
yourself to give a superb
performance.
•
Thus, remember the following:
A. Professional approach to sales
presentations
B. FAB leads to SELLS
C. Value-added selling (VAS)
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Chapter 6 | Slide 10
3. Preparing and Presenting the
Sales Proposal
A. Professional approach to sales presentations
• Salespeople should custom-tailor the sales presentation and
demonstration to the prospect’s specific business situation, needs,
and individual communication style.
• The sales presentation strategy can vary depending on different
types of prospects as shown in Table 6.2.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 11
Table 6.2 Prospect Categories and
Sales Presentation Strategies
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Chapter 6 | Slide 12
Table 6.2 cont’d
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Chapter 6 | Slide 13
3. Preparing and Presenting the
Sales Proposal
B. FAB leads to SELLS
are the obvious
F —Features
characteristics of the
A
B
product.
—Advantages are the
performance traits of the
product that show how it
can be used to help the
customer better solve a
problem than present
products can.
—Benefits are what the
customer wants from the
product.
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S —Show the product’s features.
E —Explain its advantages.
into the benefits for the
L —Lead
prospect.
L —Let the prospect talk.
S —Start a trial close.
Chapter 6 | Slide 14
3. Preparing and Presenting the
Sales Proposal
C. Value-added selling (VAS)
• A comprehensive strategy, VAS focuses on providing customers with
extra, or value-added benefits over those offered by competitors
• VAS shows customers that the extra overall perceived value is greater
than that the competitors are offering
• VAS presentations go beyond the FAB approach to convincingly present
and demonstrate the overall added value (benefits) that the customer
will receive from purchasing from their company across four categories:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Value-added product benefits
Value-added relationship benefits
Value-added company benefits
Value-added salesperson benefits
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Chapter Review Question:
What is the value-added
selling approach to sales
presentations? Identify and
discuss the four value
dimensions.
Chapter 6 | Slide 15
Table 6.3 Value-Added Benefit
Comparison Chart
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Chapter 6 | Slide 16
4. Confirming the Sale and/or the
Relationship
Professional salespersons:
• See their prospects and customers as business partners cultivating a
relationship based on trust, mutual interests, and cooperation, instead of
aggressively on “closing the sale.”
• Spend considerable time trying to undercover and fully understand the
needs and concerns of their partners through attentive listening and by
serving as trusted advisers, consultants, and even friends.
• Do not want to sell products or services with which the customer will not
be satisfied.
• Realize that only by providing continuous customer satisfaction will they
obtain the repeat business that leads to long-term customer loyalty and
higher commissions for themselves and greater profits for their
companies.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 17
5. Building Relationships and
Achieving Customer Satisfaction
• Some underperforming salespeople neglect post-purchase customer
service. Immediately after the sale, their interest, contact, and
relationship with the customer fall off rapidly.
• Such shortsightedness or indifference is a “relationship killer,” and these
salespeople may later have to work doubly hard to reestablish rapport
and rebuild the relationship with that customer.
• High performing salespeople are committed to providing prospects and
customers with totally satisfying service throughout the long-run
relationship—before, during, and after the sale.
• They understand that fully satisfying current customers generates repeat
sales, referrals to other prospects, and increased sales as customer
needs grow.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 18
General Guidelines for
Effective Sales Presentations cont’d
•
In sales presentations and demonstrations, salespeople can facilitate
prospect involvement and the learning process by using 4 learning
principles
1. Participation
– Prospects who participate in the sales presentation and
demonstration retain more information and develop more
favorable attitudes
2. Association
– Prospects remember new information better if they can connect
it to their personal knowledge, past experiences, or frames of
reference
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Chapter 6 | Slide 19
General Guidelines for
Effective Sales Presentations cont’d
3. Transfer
– Prospects who see the product being used in situations similar
to their own can better visualize its benefits
4. Insight
– Product demonstrations should weave facts and figures from
the sales presentation into the prospect’s own experience
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Chapter 6 | Slide 20
General Guidelines for
Effective Sales Presentations cont’d
•
Prospects want to understand a product with all their senses, so where
appropriate in the demonstration help prospects see, hear, feel, smell, and
taste a product.
•
Eight planning steps to prepare for the demonstration are:
1. Demonstrate benefits that are
custom-tailored to the prospect's
needs
2. Decide what to say about the
benefits from the prospect's
perspective
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3. Select sales aids that involve the
most human senses and will make
the most positive impact
Chapter 6 | Slide 21
General Guidelines for
Effective Sales Presentations cont’d
4. Pre-check all sales aids to make sure
everything is working smoothly
5. Decide when and where to make the
demonstration (usually a controlled
environment is best)
6. Involve the prospect in the
demonstration. Remember the motto:
"If they try it, they'll buy it”
7. Prepare a written demonstration outlining three columns:
• Benefit to demonstrate
• What to say
• What to do
8. Rehearse the demonstration many times until you have the right timing
of actions and words
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Images
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Chapter 6 | Slide 22
General Guidelines for
Effective Sales Presentations cont’d
Dressing for Success
An important part of any
sales presentation is the
salesperson's personal
appearance
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• Additional suggestions for dressing for success are found in Table 6.4
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Chapter 6 | Slide 23
Table 6.4 Dressing for Sales
Presentation Success
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Chapter 6 | Slide 24
Effective Behavior and
Listening Principles
•
Look like a successful salesperson
•
Develop rapport early
•
Adjust to the customer's communication style
•
Present the strongest customer benefits and selling points
first
•
Establish credibility
•
Make the presentation fun
•
Arouse as many of the customer's five senses as possible
•
Combine factual and emotional appeals
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Chapter 6 | Slide 25
Effective Behavior and
Listening Principles
•
Look for and use responsive behaviors
•
Help prospects draw the right conclusions
•
Avoid making puns
•
Never tell ethnic or offensive jokes
•
Never disparage another company or individual
•
Assume a relatively firm negotiating position initially
•
Help prospects draw the right conclusions
•
Use humor with discretion and only when appropriate
•
Readily admit minor product weaknesses
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Chapter 6 | Slide 26
Table 6.5 Behavioral Guidelines for Effective
Sales Presentations and Demonstrations
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Chapter 6 | Slide 27
General Guidelines for Effective Sales
Presentations: Listening Principles
•
Salespeople must act
professionally and listen
reactively to their
prospects
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• The old maxim “The reason you have two ears and one mouth is
that you should listen twice as much as you talk” is especially true
for a salesperson
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Chapter 6 | Slide 28
Table 6.6 Keys to Good Listening
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Chapter 6 | Slide 29
Table 6.6 Keys to Good
Listening cont’d
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Chapter 6 | Slide 30
Sales Presentations to Groups
• Sales presentations to organizational prospects and
customers must include a business strategy (business plan)
explaining how the product can profitably be resold or used
to make other products
• When making presentations to groups, salespeople may
wish to use a presentation planning checklist
• Organizational customers must be convinced of the
soundness of the overall business strategy before they will
buy the product
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Chapter 6 | Slide 31
A. Sales Presentation Format
1. Problem
2. Product
• Salespeople succeed using
many different kinds of group
presentations. One popular
group presentation format
follows this sequence:
3. Benefits
4. Evidence
5. Summary
6. Action
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Chapter 6 | Slide 32
B. Alignment of the Sales Presentation
• Before your talk, align the sales presentation by knowing:
1. Who is the prospect audience?
2. What benefits are the prospects
seeking?
3. How do the prospects prefer to
communicate?
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Chapter 6 | Slide 33
Table 6.7 Sales Presentation Alignment
and Guidelines for Prospect Groups
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Chapter 6 | Slide 34
Guidelines for
Sales Presentations to Groups
1.
Begin with an audience-focused statement of purpose
2.
Translate the product into prospect benefits
3.
Energize the sales presentation and make it memorable by using
S A D T I E:
S — Statistics
A — Analogies, similes, and metaphors
D
T
I
E
— Demonstrations
— Testimonials
— Incidents
— Exhibits
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Chapter Review Question:
In context of making
presentations to groups, what
does the acronym SAD TIE stand
for?
Define and give an example of
each of the following aids for
sales presentations: (a)
analogies, (b) similes, and (c)
metaphors.
Chapter 6 | Slide 35
Guidelines for
Sales Presentations to Groups cont’d
4. Encourage interaction and
participation
5. Show your commitment to
customer service
6. Ask for specific action
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7. Critique the sales presentation
Chapter 6 | Slide 36
Sales Presentation Strategies cont’d
• In preparing sales presentations to achieve specific objectives, you can
use several alternative strategies, including:
•
Stimulus-response
•
•
Chapter Review Question:
List and briefly describe the
basic sales presentation
strategies. Which one is
generally considered best for
professional salespeople?
Why?
Formula
•
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Salesperson asks a series of
positive leading questions
•
Salesperson leads the prospect
through the mental states of buying
(attention, interest, desire, and action)
Need satisfaction
•
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Salesperson tries to find dominant
buying needs
Chapter 6 | Slide 37
Sales Presentation Strategies cont’d
4. Consultative problem solving
•
This is the most frequently recommended and most successful sales
presentation strategy for today's professional salespeople by
a) Focusing on the prospect's problems, not the seller's products
b) Emphasizing the partnership of buyer and seller and stresses
"win-win" outcomes in negotiations
5. Depth selling
•
Employs a combination of several sales
presentation methods
6. Team selling
•
Presentation made to a group of decision
makers from different functional areas
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Chapter Review Question:
What is the consultative
problem-solving sales
presentation strategy? Give
an example of a selling
situation where this strategy
would be especially
appropriate?
Chapter 6 | Slide 38
Table 6.8 Sales Presentation Strategies
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Chapter 6 | Slide 39
Table 6.8 Sales Presentation
Strategies cont’d
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Chapter 6 | Slide 40
Adaptive Versus Canned
Sales Presentations cont’d
• Adaptive selling
• stresses the adaptation of each sales presentation and
demonstration to fit each individual prospect
• Canned selling
• is any highly structured or patterned selling approach
• Both adaptive and canned sales presentations can be
effective when matched with the appropriate prospect in a
designated sales situation
Chapter Review Question:
Explain the difference between adaptive
and canned sales presentations.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 41
Written Presentations
•
Whether used at the time of the verbal sales presentation or mailed as
a follow-up after the sales call, a written presentation can be very
effective in winning sales
•
Several suggestions for writing effective sales presentation include:
1.
2.
3.
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4.
Tailor each written sales
presentation to the specific
customer
Make the opening paragraph of
the presentation sparkle
Sequence benefits in the most
effective order
Be positive and upbeat
Chapter 6 | Slide 42
Written Presentations cont’d
5. Use a natural, conversational style in
writing
6. Use a lively and logical format
7. Never disparage competitors
8. Ask for action
9. Personalize the proposal with a
handwritten note
10. Double-check and proofread everything
Chapter Review Question:
Give some basic guidelines for written
sales presentations.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 43
Table 6.9 Tips for a
Written Sales Presentation
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Chapter 6 | Slide 44
Selling the Long-term Relationship
• As many industries seek to improve quality and reduce
costs, the trend toward closer supplier relationships, longerterm contracts, and fewer suppliers is increasing
• Salespeople must go beyond mere “selling” to “serving” their
customers much like consultants or business partners
• What these trends tell selling organizations is that selling the
long-term relationship is not just another strategy, it is fast
becoming the only viable strategy
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Chapter 6 | Slide 45
Key Terms
• FAB
• A memory-aid acronym that stands for a product’s Features, Advantages,
and Benefits that will appeal most to a salesperson’s customer.
• SELLS
• A memory-aid acronym: Show your product’s key features, Explain its major
advantages; Lead into specific benefits for the prospect; Let the prospect do
most of the talking; and Start a trial close, and use more throughout the
presentation
• Value Added
• Providing customers extra or added-value benefits than offered by
competitors.
• SAD TIE
• A memory-aid acronym that stands for Statistics, Analogies, Demonstrations,
Testimonials, Incidents, and Exhibits, one or all of which the salesperson
may use to spice up a sales presentation.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 46
Key Terms cont’d
• Core Selling Team
• Members of the selling firm assigned to particular prospects or customers to
develop and maintain ongoing buyer-seller relationships with them.
• Selling Center
• Members of the selling organization assigned to a certain prospect to close a
particular sales transaction. After the sale is consummated, the selling
center is likely to disband.
• Adaptive Selling
• Modifying each sales presentation and demonstration to accommodate each
individual prospect.
• Canned (or Programmed) Selling
• Any highly structured or patterned selling approach.
• Written Presentation
• In sales presentations to organizational prospects, the salesperson’s
explanation of how the prospect can profitably use the product. Also called a
sales proposal or business plan.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 47
Chapter Review Questions
1. Why are the sales presentation and demonstration so
important in the Personal Selling Process?
2. Why are clothing and accessories important considerations
in making an effective sales presentation?
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Chapter 6 | Slide 48
Topics for Thought and
Class Discussion
1. Why do you think the consultative problem-solving sales
presentation is the most successful strategy for
professional salespeople? What are the benefits of this
strategy to the prospect or customer?
2. Name at least five special prospect categories, and
describe an appropriate strategy for a sales presentation to
each.
3. Which do you think is more effective for most business-tobusiness selling, an oral or a written sales presentation?
Why?
4. Do you think sales presentations and demonstrations are
more important for tangible products or for intangible
services? Why?
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Chapter 6 | Slide 49
Internet Exercises
1. Using an Internet search engine, find three firms that
specialize in sales presentation training, and visit their
websites to determine whether they use other types of
sales presentation strategies in addition to those identified
and described in this chapter.
2. Use Google or any other search engine to locate two
examples of sales presentation strategies being
demonstrated using Flash or streaming video.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 50
Projects for Personal Growth
1.
Contact two business-to-business salespeople and ask them about
their methods of preparing sales presentations, dress style during the
presentation, and demonstration techniques.
2.
Research the following two industries and report on the methods and
approaches that each uses to sell its products: (a) airplane
manufacturers, and (b) manufacturers of household products.
3.
Contact three salespeople (one who sells to manufacturers, one who
sells to resellers, and one who sells to the national government) and
ask them how they prepare for their sales presentations and
demonstrations. Are there major differences? What similarities
emerged?
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Chapter 6 | Slide 51
Projects for Personal Growth cont’d
4.
With a classmate, take turns playing the role of a publishing company
sales rep trying to sell a new textbook to a college professor who might
be nicknamed “Skeptical Sid.” Then prepare a written sales
presentation to sell a textbook to the instructor of your personal selling
class. Depending on how creative or cooperative your instructor is, you
may want to ask him or her to play one of the prospect stereotypes
described in Table 6.2.
5.
Assume that you are a sales representative for a manufacturer of
automatic fire sprinkler systems for commercial buildings. Outline sales
presentations using each of the seven basic strategies. For each
strategy, create and then describe the individual prospect or group of
prospects to whom you’re presenting.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 52
Case 6.1: Self-Analysis of a
Sales Presentation
1. What should Peter say and do now? How do you think Mr.
Spearman will react? Why?
2. What do you think about Peter’s sales presentation? What
could he have done better?
3. What advice would you give Peter for capitalizing on the
interest Mr. Spearman showed in environmental
packaging?
4. Should Peter mention the union strike at Megastar?
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Chapter 6 | Slide 53
Case 6.2: What Makes Him
So Successful?
1. What do you think Dan will tell Wanda about his selling
philosophy and use of different sales presentation
strategies?
2. Describe in a few sentences the most important lesson you
think Wanda should have learned on her day in the field
with Dan.
3. What advice would you offer Wanda to help her sell more
successfully in her sales territory?
Case 6.2 is found online at
http://college.hmco.com/pic/andersonps2e.
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Chapter 6 | Slide 54