You should have a long and short version of your sales presentation. Don’t save your best content until the end as the audience might have stopped listening before you ever show it. 2. Is Your Sales Pitch Appropriate for the Client and Their Customers? A good sales presentation should be able to persuade, not merely to awe and entertain. We’ve seen presentations that start with slides all about your company history, and structure, and key financials, and client logos. Although I guess it depends on how motivated your audience is to watch in the first place. For more insights from the folks at BrightCarbon, check out their blog and follow them on Twitter @BrightCarbon. Whatever proposal you present will always affect your client and their customers, if they have any. Do you need to present for more than 20 minutes? 19 minutes is probably more time than you have – or at least at the outer-limit. Your goal is simple — to introduce your offering in a compelling way that makes the prospect interested in learning more. It is not enough to simply say how good … Sell … Your sales presentation length needs to be long enough to say what you need to say in a punchy manner – but no longer. If you think it does, you need to tighten the content. Perhaps the only thing to add is that when presenting the problems, it’s important to not sound like you are accusing prospects of being idiots. Another hour is spent in presentation preparation and prospect research. Sales presentations are the cornerstone of many companies’ sales efforts, yet so often they aren’t given the time and attention they deserve. There’s no definitive answer, and nor can there be. What do you think happens to attention levels if your first few slides are boring corporate naval-gazing of the most tedious kind? Keep prospects … With a description of your product’s features and value propositions. … We even have a good articleon this ourselves! Many sales presentations go on for too long. And if you really want to know how long a presentation should be, the right answer is probably “as short as it can be to work”. Using Time to Determine the Right Number of Slides Practice your presentation in front of a mirror … Do you really think attention levels follow the same curve regardless of what the presenter does? This is a guest post by my good friend and presentation specialist Julie Hansen. Yep, they drop off. What is a sales presentation, actually?Is it a 1 minute pitch on the elevator or an elaborate one hour display before a board of executives?Depending on your point of view, it can be both, or it can be none.Nowadays sales presentations not always take place in person, many are done remotely via Skype or similar means. It provides a starting point and context to have a conversation around, not a crux to coast through a generic pitch. We’ve seen attention spans drawn as a hammock, or a hump, as a straight slope down, and plenty of variations in between. Many sales presentations go on for too long. Don’t let your presentation have a ‘boring bit’. But now watch this clip of Bill Gates at TED: What do you think happened to attention levels in the room? Organize your presentation’s structure. Interactivity works brilliantly to keep audiences engaged – consider building a visual conversation instead of a one-way presentation. How long should a sales presentation be? Leading Remote Sales Teams? Don’t go into your presentation blindly, that is, don’t just turn … Any old-style presentation will be designed to work well with a wide range of prospects. Nothing makes prospects stop listening more quickly than when you throw an endless list of facts and numbers at them. Always have a scheduled next step. That doesn’t mean attention levels are always low at the start of a presentation though – they aren’t if something interesting happens. Most sales reps spend about half of the time in this category, or 2 hours per week, planning their schedule and activities. Essentially, you want to cover your key messages in a compelling and persuasive way. More and more people have them. Many sales presentations go on for too long. Sales presentations are important, but 1000s of people each day ignore the principles of sales presentation design and sales messaging and deliver material that is tired, ugly, and ineffective. Break the Standard Mold of a Sales Presentation . Thrown together at the last-minute, often your sales reps stand up in front of a sales presentation that's nothing more than a glorified page of notes. How should you begin your sales presentation? Yep, they drop off. Just like how you can’t drive from Marin … If anything, with a video presentation you have less time. Most people will suspend judgement for about the first 90s, so it's important to use that time wisely. 3. Successful sales people break down their presentations into usable components, with each part becoming an important element in making a successful sale. More than the products or services you present, the PowerPoint deck you use and your manner of speaking should be relevant enough for the client to relate to and not be offended. Length: And if you really want to know how long a sales presentation should be, the right answer is probably as short as it can be to work. You don’t want to lose your audience’s attention. Is It Time to Re-Train Reps on Your Sales Technology Toolset? Often not. Your sales deck should support your presentation. If you think it does, you need to tighten the content. How long should the rapport-building part of an exploratory call be? How Can Sales Enablement Bounce Back from a Tough Q2? Would findings about attention levels in boring text-heavy presentations have any weight for dynamic and visual presentations? And speaking of scripts, the traditional sales presentation, in which a salesperson talks about his product and the prospect listens, isn't the best way to sell. Why Now Is the Time to Double-Down on Sales Training. This category includes determining long term strategies, deciding which customers to contact, and working on presentations. Your demo or presentation should be interactive. But now watch this clip of Bill Gates at TED. Your sales pitch is arguably the single most essential piece of your sales process. Write out your sales presentation. Great sales reps gut their sales presentations to the core. We exhibited at a large trade exhibition a couple of weeks ago, and I went along to see what other vendors are up to. Particularly if it’s on a DVD – it’s just too easy for people to stop watching. We’ve seen presentations that start with slides all about your company history, and structure, and key financials, and client logos. Do you really think attention levels follow the same curve regardless of what the presenter does? By choosing to keep their sales deck brief with only 6 slides, they were able to add more content inside of each slide. How to make the ULTIMATE sales presentation, 9 sales pitch lessons from exhibitions and tradeshows. How long should a sales presentation be? Save my name and email in this browser for the next time I comment. With a short six slide long sales deck, Tumblr gets straight to the point of what in-stream ads mean and why brands should care. Virtual Sellers, Don’t Do This! Opt for graphs, charts, images, and white space over text. Within presentations, a great way for the presenter engage a more interactive approach with the audience is the use of technology. What do you think happens to attention levels if your first few slides are boring corporate naval-gazing of the most tedious kind? Essentially, you want to cover your key messages in a compelling and persuasive way. Keep sections relatively short and reasonably spaced – to ensure that attention levels don’t drop off too fast. Every product or service is different - you need to customize your pitch. Audiences are different, sales cycles are different, and content is different. How would research into ‘natural’ attention levels even work? A PowerPoint presentation design company. Registered in England & Wales, Company Number 7869834. What do you think happened to attention levels in the room? We’ve seen attention spans drawn as a hammock, or a hump, as a straight slope down, and plenty of variations in between. How long should a sales presentation be? Even if you’ve sold your prospect on your company or product, your job isn’t done … Always use a written presentation. As tempting as it is to celebrate how awesome your business is in front of a group, you must fight the urge. The total presentation should last about 30 mins (max) There are obviously times when you may need to break from this, these are meant more as general rules but the point is this; keep it concise and make sure to interact and explain the clips to players. Then we cut to the real software screen cast and demonstrate it for 5 minutes, then recap and conclude in two minutes. All of these graphics assume there’s a ‘fundamental’ audience attention curve that is the same from presentation to presentation. 90 seconds equates to approximately 200 words. Audiences are different, sales cycles are different, and content is different. It’s boring. Don't waste them on trivia. Simply tablets. 40 minutes, 60 minutes, or even more isn’t unheard of – even in a prospecting session. Solidify next steps. This article is written with three big caveats: 1. Essentially, you want to cover your key messages in a compelling and persuasive way. Often not. The challenge of making an elevator pitch is to take all of the important information about your offering a… Instead of lecturing your audience for 20 or 30 minutes straight, have a conversation with them. Announcing the 2020 SHARKIE Award Winners! If you've done a good and thorough job during each of the previous steps, closing the sale may be easy. Either way, selling should always be more about asking and listening than about telling. Keep it customer-focused by underlining the benefits to your audience, and spelling out a clear action you would like them to take after the presentation. Offices in Manchester, Bristol, & London (UK) and Boston/Cambridge (USA). If you’re not landing your sales pitches, keep this quote from investor Dina Routhier in mind: “The most common thing that pegs an entrepreneur as an amateur is when they come in and immediately start talking about their amazing new technology, and forget to start the discussion with, “What big problem in the market am I trying to solve?” If they don’t start with the problem, then I know they are green.” The same applies to sales. Tell a story. The long version of your presentation should be approximately 30 to 45 minutes in length and should fill the majority of a 60 minute meeting that you might have with a buyer. The more words on the page, the more they're reading the text and not listening to what you're saying. Do you have experience with this and what has worked for you? A few years back, he wrote a short blog advocating a simple rule for PowerPoint & pitch deck presentations. Do you need to present for more than 20 minutes? Many sales presentations go on for too long. 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