Here are a few good starting points to make sure, at whatever point you are in the sales cycle, your content is always structured in a compelling way.
How not to structure: Did you ever notice how a journey seems to take longer when you don’t know how far you have to go? Sales presentations are the same.
Those sales presentations that do make the structure visible – by using agendas – usually make the mistake of using headings that mean more to the presenter than the audience, or that are so dry that they do absolutely nothing to help sell.
Focus on the benefits: One way to make an audience-centred agenda is to think in terms of benefits: what’s in it for your audience. Don’t make the mistake of only talking about benefits in a summary slide right at the end of your presentation. The benefit slide can be used as an agenda that appears as a segue between sections.
This benefit slide ought to be written to answer the key question around which the sales presentation revolves – Why Change? or Why Us? We call this the value proposition – for more great insights on writing value propositions, take a look at this article. Value propositions help us in three ways:
The advantages or benefits are stated early romania phone code enough to be noticed
The agenda is now audience-focused, not product-focused
By showing a slide with the benefits multiple times during your presentation, you help your audience to remember your key points
Now that’s a powerful and persuasive presentation structure!
How to write your value proposition: Though it may seem like a dark art, writing a value proposition is something anyone can do. There’s quite a simple formula that you can use:
Decide whether you are answering ‘Why change?’ or ‘Why us?’
List the three to five best answers to the question
Use that slide as an agenda to help structure your sales presentation, and show it each time you segue from one section to the next
Arrange your content into sections according to the benefits or advantages they support. Typically, you might want a few slides in each section.
Use the agenda slide to close the presentation