Selling Power Blog

Sales Presentations Are Easy; Creating a Connection Is Hard

Today's post is by Amy Appleyard, vice president of sales for the Communications and Collaboration business unit at LogMeIn, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based connectivity and one of the world's largest SaaS companies.

 

If you search “how to be a better presenter,” you’ll find pages and pages filled with articles, books, and recommendations on the topic. Presenting is a difficult skill to master as it not only involves public speaking (a common fear), but also, on some level, requires the presenter to sell.

When a presenter just talks through the benefits of what it being sold, however, the end result is a dry sales presentation that leads to a lack of engagement with the audience.

Why? No connection can be made when the conversation focuses squarely on the attributes of a product. Only by making a strong connection can the product be sold.

To get started, here are a few ways to create the often-elusive connection that is so essential for every successful sales presentation:

1. Turn on your video. People are constantly being sold to and bombarded with messages, resulting in shorter attention spans. According to The American Marketing Association, “Studies show that the average consumer is exposed to up to 10,000 brand messages a day.” In-person meetings have long been a chance to cut through the noise and create more personal (and less transactional) experiences; however, time and cost constraints require most meetings to be  conducted remotely. The good news? Thanks to technology, it’s easier than ever to build the level of rapport with prospects that was once possible only with in-person meetings. Although there will always be a place for in-person meetings, don’t be afraid to encourage your prospects to turn on their video cameras and utilize technology to create that “face-to-face” experience.
2. Stop talking about yourself. I don’t mean you should create a conversation that is void of any personal anecdotes. Showing a more personal side – whether by incorporating humor or recounting a personal experience – is important, but make sure you also take the time to understand what need the prospect is looking to fill so you can tailor your presentation accordingly. I also often coach people not only to tell personal stories, but to ask about the prospects’ business and challenges they are facing. It’s a great way to get to know a customer and understand if what you are selling will help them solve issues. A successful presentation is about telling a story where your prospect is front and center so you ultimately make them look like a hero to their boss. Who doesn’t like that?
3. It’s all about the follow-through. Like in golf and baseball, what you do after you hit the ball is just as important as what you do before. If you don’t follow through with your swing, the ball will always fall short. Taking a page out of the athlete’s playbook, what you do after your presentation is often just as important as the preparation and the actual presentation itself. This means having a recap, recording, and/or transcription of the conversation in order to follow through on promised action items and reference specific topics discussed.

At the end of the day, all successful presentations start with a connection between the presenter and the audience. Sparking those connections through technology and remembering what makes for an engaging presentation is key. That connection (or lack thereof) between you and your audience is often the difference between losing and closing a deal.

How to Deliver a Great Keynote Speech

Today’s post is by Sara Carter, an experienced tech expert who established her blog, Enlightened-Digital, to share her passion with others around the Web. After 15 years in the industry, her goal is to bring information on all technology to the masses. Her philosophy is to create each article so anyone – whether a consumer or technology expert – can understand the content.

 

Delivering a successful keynote speech can be daunting. There are so many ways to go about addressing your company or group of attendees that organizing your structure and approach can seem overwhelming.

However, if we take a look at some influential CEOs and the keynote speeches they’ve given, we start to see they’re all leveraging similar techniques or rules – but doing so with some unique variations. All (impactful) keynotes seem to follow the same principles:

• Connect with the audience
• Deliver the new data or products (commonly referred to as the “meat” of the speech)
• Reconnect with the audience

Let’s break down how some of the best in the business get this done.

#1: Connect with the audience.

As a CEO or executive of an organization, it can be hard to relate to each employee across the company. It’s crucial for a speaker to connect with the audience right away to ensure they’re engaged and absorbed by the presentation when the key components of the speech are delivered.  

Telling a personal story is a great way to immediately come across as just another employee who has another life outside of work just like everyone else in the audience. When the listener comes to realize that their CEO or executive team member is more than just their title, they are more likely to empathize with them and care about the message that follows.

Stories are the tried-and-true method of connecting with an audience – but another way is to simply change the dynamic. For example, Oracle CEO Mark Hurd sits behind a desk for his entire speech at Oracle OpenWorld last year. He has a cup of Starbucks coffee in front of him, and even a cup of pencils. He doesn’t open with a story, but his presence on stage is so relaxed he doesn’t need to. He comes across as a relatable talk show host just hanging with the crowd – and that plays incredibly well with the audience.

Whatever your technique, the key is to make sure the audience empathizes with you and can relate to you. Once you’ve accomplished that, you can move into the “meat” of the presentation.

#2: Give them what they came for.

Now that you’ve made the audience feel comfortable and interested in what you have to say, it’s time to deliver the central message of the presentation. The middle of any keynote speech is reserved for the informational portion of the conversation. What differentiates good keynote speeches from great ones is the kind of information being shared.

Take Elon Musk’s keynote for Tesla Energy from 2015 as an example. Musk’s vision to develop wall-mounted batteries to support his continued quest for powering the globe is revolutionary thinking. How can you boil down all the material and broad information into digestible slides? He does a fantastic job of highlighting the shocking or adding “wow” moments into his speech. For example, Musk shows a graph that highlights the growth of carbon emissions up to the present day, and their predicted rise in the future. This graph is not only hard to forget; it helps prove his larger points and support the overall vision for not just Tesla, but the world.

Musk also used slides with mostly images instead of predominantly text. The information the audience needed to understand came from him – not the slides.

It’s impossible to mention corporate keynote speeches without bringing up the master, Steve Jobs. Jobs’s speeches became iconic for the products he revealed, of course, but many would argue the way in which the products were presented was even more important. Like Musk, Jobs used slides in his presentations, but they were almost always simply one image or word. Jobs’s personality and leadership skills lay in his ability to simplify the complicated. Everyone in the world could understand his vision immediately. By limiting his presentation to single images or words – and using storytelling as a means to express his ideas – he turned Apple products into more than just physical devices. They became ideas or expressions of personality.

Watching Jobs’ 2007 iPhone announcement is still a thrill ride. Even though it was a short 11 years ago, it’s hard to imagine a world in which the idea of merging your music, phone, and emails into one device was actually new. All Jobs needed to do was cycle through three photos to build extreme anticipation until his big reveal. Introducing a complicated product with simple imagery was the key. Now anyone who saw that can easily explain it to the next person, and the next person and so on.

#3: Reconnect with the audience.

Most CEOs don’t have the luxury of launching new iPhones or unveiling software that can change the world. They have to give performance updates filled with numbers and other data. Even if you’re required to deliver that kind of information, make sure to reconnect with your audience when concluding your speech and they’ll be much more likely to remember some of your points.

One of the best examples of establishing this connection at the end of a speech wasn’t even from a CEO; it was in a TED Talk by Benjamin Zander. His closing story, about a boy whose life was completely changed by the music Zander was teaching, served as a great way to both prove his point and endear the audience.

Another great technique is to close with inclusive language. Listen to Gregg Renfrew’s closing speech at the Beautycounter Leadership Summit last year. As founder and CEO, she needs to ensure she’s still relatable to her employees. She continuously uses “we” and “our” to create common ground between herself and the audience.

Final point: Tell your story

There’s a great quote from an article on Toastmaster that reads:

“People rarely come up to a speaker three years after a given presentation and say ‘I’ve been thinking about your fourth point on leadership.’ However, what they do say is, ‘You know, I still think about that story you told about raking leaves with your son.”

These are the kinds of impressions great CEOs leave with their keynote speeches. Connect with the audience, show them the products or data, then reconnect. It’s that simple.

24 Presentation and Speaking Tips to Wow a B2B Sales Audience

Today's post is by Matt Heinz, president and founder of Heinz Marketing. Join him at the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on July 18 and 19, where he will present “How to Double Your Sales Team’s Productivity and Active Selling Time.”

I’ve attended many industry events and seen some amazing speakers. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen plenty of speakers who simply bring their “zero” game with them – they’re uninterested, unengaged, pitchy, and worse.

What separates the great speakers from those who are immediately forgettable?

Here are 24 tips for presentation success based on my experience as an audience member at industry events, and one tip based on my own personal experience speaking onstage.

1. Use a Proven Icebreaker to Get the Audience Engaged (and Laughing)
   Start with a joke or anecdote – something to get your audience’s attention immediately and break the ice. To make sure it’ll work, test the story or joke with another audience (employees, colleagues, etc.) before you get on stage.
   
   
2. Talk in Stories
   Tell stories about your customers – the issues and problems they wrestled and overcame. Stories can be incredibly engaging – especially if they include the three essential elements of Problem, Struggle, and Solution.
   
   
3. Use a Thematic Analogy to Make Your Points
   One particularly effective speaker I remember from a past Sales 2.0 event used basketball to make several points during a brilliant keynote. He spoke about sales coaching best practices, and, to outline problems in current sales coaching environments, he used such phrases such as, “Too many big games, not enough practice” and, “Too much defense, not enough offense.” His points were immediately clear.
   
   
4. Talk and Present in Tweetable Formats
   Use succinct statistics, share points in threes, and predetermine statements in 100 characters or less. Make it easy for the audience to tweet and retweet your content to ensure your message resonates across the social Web and well beyond the room.
   
   
5. Give Attending Press/Bloggers a Copy of Tweetable Comments in Advance
   At many conferences, trade press, bloggers, and tweeters are scattered throughout the crowd. If they had a list of tweetable primary points before the keynote, I bet that content would get exponential play (hat tip to fellow Sales 2.0 Conference speaker @annekeseley for this one).
   
   
6. Present the Problem, Not the Solution (i.e., Ditch the Pitch)
   I know we’ve been saying to “ditch the pitch” for a long time, but it’s clearly still alive and well (unfortunately). You don’t have to walk me through your entire solution if you prove to me that you understand the problem.  Focusing on the problem – breaking down why it exists and how people are addressing it – demonstrates your subject matter expertise and thought leadership. It makes me want to get to know you and your product more after the presentation. 

Specific Advice Based on Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s Dreamforce Keynotes

1. Mixing It Up
   A three-hour keynote sounds awful (if, in fact, it’s literally three hours of someone speaking from behind a podium. But Marc mixes it up – you’ll hear him speak for a while, then he’ll play a video, then call a customer up on stage for a quick Q&A, then ask one of his managers to give a demo, etc. Not 10 minutes go by without something new to watch. It’s a great way to keep the audience continually engaged, especially for a long-form keynote like this one.
   
   
2. Surprises
   One year the Dreamforce keynote opened with a performance by MC Hammer. In a previous year, Neil Young was in the audience and did a quick Q&A. Every year, Marc features some surprises that keep people guessing.
   
   
3. Customer Focus
   Benioff is fanatical about his customers, and it shows in his keynotes. He fawns over them, telling their success stories as his own. Even the product demos are shared in the context of how a successful customer is leveraging the new technology.
   
   
4. Authenticity
   Marc practices, of course, but you can also tell he really means it. Some long-time Dreamforce attendees joke that his frequent use of the word “amazing” would make a great drinking game. And, although they’re right, he really loves what he does, loves his customers, and loves the stage – and that authentic enthusiasm makes an impact.
   
   
5. Talk about the Future
   Again, the cynics will call it vaporware. But Marc has evolved to the point where it’s not enough to just hear him talk about what’s happening now. His customers and followers want to hear him talk about the future. And he delivers.

Specific Advice from Andrew Davis

1. Energy
   The night before he spoke at last year’s 6Sense InMarket Conference, Andrew and I shared a drink at the pre-event networking event. Thirty minutes before he took the stage, I saw him pacing in the back of the room. The second he took the stage, he lit the room on fire. His presence and energy – the way he physically owned the stage – was impressive. You could see cell phones being put down, people leaning in. His energy earned everyone’s immediate attention.
   
   
2. Speed
   Some speakers talk too fast and it’s a distraction from their message. With Andrew, his speed amplified his effect and impact. For 30 minutes, he didn’t let up. He knew his content cold and he followed his presentation and visuals without leaning on them like a crutch. He had clearly prepared, clearly practiced, and that allowed him to leverage his energy and speed as an asset on stage.
   
   
3. Humor
   In another life, Andrew could do stand-up. He’s hilarious. If his “between points” remarks on stage are rehearsed, he’s even more polished than I thought. If they aren’t, his quick wit and sense of humor are seriously on point. Great speakers keep your attention through a variety of means, but humor – genuine, authentic, spontaneous humor – works every time.
   
   
4. Talk in Tweets
   Most speakers ignore this opportunity. Others oversaturate their audience. Some of the best? They do it subtly, without calling attention to those tweetable moments. They’re less frequent but incredibly powerful. Things like, “What if your moment of inspiration is tied to your prospect’s aspirations?” and, “I know the ending of your case studies. What if I didn’t? Wouldn’t that be more interesting?”
   
   
5. No PowerPoint
   Every time I’ve seen Andrew present, he’s used Prezi. I’ve never been courageous enough to do that, but the format allows him to present visuals as an aid and augmentation to his presentation, not as the foundation. Great speakers know that their best impact comes from what they say, not what their slides say.
   
   
6. A Call to Action 
   At the end of the presentation, literally the last words Andrew said before the crowd erupted in applause were: “You’ve been ‘Drewed.’” Simultaneously, the URL www.youvebeendrewed.com appeared on screen. It stayed there during the brief Q&A. The site is a clever combination of highlights from Drew, information about how to hire him at your next event, and an individual attendee subscription to receive his content periodically. Well done.

Specific Advice from Jeffrey Hayzlett

1. Speak in “Tweetable” Moments
   Many speakers don’t like their audience to tweet while they present, as they fear it takes their attention away. Hayzlett, whom I saw speak at previous Sales 2.0 Conferences, knows the opposite – that encouraging his audience to tweet, in fact, is the best option to increase the impact of his words and exposure beyond the room. He not only encourages tweets but set up a few in advance to post – timed roughly to what he was talking about on stage. And he was smart enough to fill his slides with short, impactful messages and statistics that were perfect for 140 words or less. As a result, he generated massive Twitter volume during his one-hour keynote.
   
   
2. Give It Everything You’ve Got
   Jeffrey yells. He stomps around. He’s extremely animated. When you watch Hayzlett talk, it’s truly a performance. He gives everything he’s got. Clearly this is part of his personality, but it also makes him a highly entertaining and dynamic presenter. It makes him memorable, which means more events and conferences will want him to lend that impact to their agendas as well.
   
   
3. Tell Stories
   Hayzlett makes numerous points during his keynotes, but he brings each of those points to life with at least one story. He’s a master storyteller (the energy he brings is a huge part of that), and he’s able to keep his audience engaged not by sharing statistics and bullet points but by telling stories that take on a life of their own.
   
   
4. Swear a Little
   OK, so maybe Jeffrey let fly a couple too many f-bombs. But, for someone with his personality, there’s something about a well-placed cuss word that lends credibility to your story. Not everybody can pull it off, but it’s clearly one of his secrets to keeping his audience richly engaged and satisfied.
   
   
5. Have a Back Story (Be a Brand)
   Hayzlett is from South Dakota. He calls himself a “CMO Cowboy." He talks extensively about his experience with horses. Some say the story that comes with him is fed by his ego, but I think it’s a carefully-crafted part of his own story, his own brand, that only increases his draw.
   
   
6. Be Accessible Afterwards
   Most speakers disappear back into the green room as soon as they’re done, never to be seen again. Hayzlett often mingles with the crowd. He signs copies of his book. He might not do that every time, but even just doing a little of it makes him feel that much more accessible, which does even more to add to his popularity and pass-along potential.
   
   
7. Give Something Away
   This tip comes from my own speaking experience. Recently, when giving presentations at conferences, I have offered my homemade smoked bacon recipe. It’s been a hit, and a great ice-breaker not only at the start of the presentation, but also with attendees afterward.