Sales Presentation Skills: Make More Effective Live and Video Presentations - Part 1 - Business - Presentation

Making a sales presentation, whether live or on video doesn't have to be the gut wrenching experience you may think. By following a few guidelines, you can develop the sales presentation skills necessary to make presentations that are powerful, focused, deliver your message and leave your audience believing that you are the definitive authority on your chosen subject.

Notice the word focused. I can't emphasize enough that to deliver an outstanding presentation you must be focused, almost laser-like from beginning to end. How many presentations have you heard, or seen where you started wishing the speaker would "get to the point already"? or, in the case of the internet, you click off what you thought was going to be a video chock full of useful information?

Sound familiar? Do the presentations and/or videos you make suffer from these common problems?

Typically, what this all boils down to is a lack of focus on the part of the presenter and the ability to stay focused on the subject material through out the presentation. This becomes particularly important if you are developing a video for the internet because you have very little time to establish your rapport with the viewer, and the length of your video is relatively short.

For the purpose of this writing I am going to talk about content...I realize that with video presentations all kinds of technical issues pop up. But lets face it. In the end it's all about content. We'll save technical aspects of video presentations for a later article.

Developing the sales presentation skills needed to make more effective presentations is not overly difficult, but will require a bit of work on your part. What I am going to do is lay out a format that you can follow that will allow you to focus on your issue(s), and stay focused on your issue(s), regardless if your presentation is 5 minutes or 50 minutes. No more putting together a couple of pages of random notes or cue cards and reading from them! This format has served me well and I know it will serve you well too!

In a nutshell the format is based on the rule of threes. That is, the presentation topic is divided and subdivided into three parts with previews, speaking points and recaps, (or summaries), at the end of each group of three in the main body of the presentation.. This makes it easy to present material, it makes it easy to comprehend material, it cuts down on questions, (or reinforces points in the case of a video presentation), and it lends itself very easily to any length of time you wish.

Here's the format.

1. Tell 'Em What You Want To Tell 'Em

2. Tell 'Em

3. Tell 'Em What You Said

May seem crazy, but that's it! Well, it is a little more complicated, but describing it in this manner makes it easy to remember.

Coming in Part 2 we will begin with the first of the three threes...Tell 'Em What You Want To Tell 'Em.

0