Ian Altman: 00:00:02

Ian, welcome to the same side selling podcast. I am

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your host. Ian Altman, one of the most common questions I get

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has to do with sales presentations. And people ask

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me, What should I include when I go to meet with a prospect, what

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should be my PowerPoint presentation? That's what we're

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going to talk about on today's episode. You're all set, you're

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ready to go to your meeting. You show up, and you have your

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PowerPoint presentation. Maybe you're really advanced using

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Keynote. Maybe instead of keynote, you're using some other

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AI driven tool, using beautiful.ai using pick it. It

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doesn't matter what tool you're using, but nonetheless, you walk

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into the meeting and you're ready to give the presentation

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of your life. Here's the problem, your customer isn't

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thinking, Oh, wow, I'm about to see the best presentation ever.

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Your customer, on the other hand, is thinking, Oh, great,

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there's an HDMI cable, there's a projector or a screen in our

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room. And this person's about to speak, I'm going to catch up on

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some much needed sleep right now, because it's nap time, I

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can get a good rest right now, and this is going to be

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fantastic. In fact, this is probably the best rest I'm going

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to get all week. I hope my Fitbit is dialed in with this,

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and I'm hoping the presentation goes at least three hours, so I

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get a good score on my Fitbit. It counts. It counts towards my

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sleep. Big mistake. So part of our challenge is that we walk

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into a meeting and we've set no expectations in advance. So the

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client is thinking, Oh, you're going to give us a presentation.

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The problem is, when we leave that meeting, the client doesn't

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think, wow, they really understood us. The client

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instead is thinking, wow, they covered a lot of stuff in that

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meeting. And I don't know whether or not they can help us,

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but they certainly spend a lot of time on their slides. Because

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what's in a typical presentation where a typical company's

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presentation includes five or six slides about your company,

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it may even include a picture of the building that you work in,

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like anybody cares. Maybe if you had animation of the building

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being constructed, it might be interesting, but otherwise,

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there's really no reason to talk about your building. Then

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there'll be a bunch of slides that talk about your products

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and services. We have this product. We have that product.

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Maybe there's something that talks about how many employees

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you have. You may as well talk about how many memory cards you

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have, or how many spare HDMI cables you have around the

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office, or what kind of mouse you use. It's all irrelevant to

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the client. They don't really care about any of that stuff. So

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you've got that presentation, and then maybe you have a case

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study or two. And a case study usually says, here's this

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client, and here's why we were so brilliant in helping them. So

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I've now given a presentation that talks about me and my

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company, maybe talks about our buildings and number of people

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and how many widgets we have somewhere. Then we talk about

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the different products that we have, and then we give some case

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study examples. At that point, our client has probably slipped

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into a coma, and maybe the hope is we convince them to buy some

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of our stuff. What should we do instead? If you want to get top

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results for your team, take a look at these same side selling

Ian Altman: 00:03:26

Academy. Just visit same sideselling.com to learn more.

Ian Altman: 00:03:31

Well, instead of taking this approach of talking about

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yourself, first thing you want to do is you want to set an

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expectation about the meeting that says, hey, we're going to

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be out there next Tuesday from nine to 10. I don't yet know

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that we can help you. I'm going to spend at least the first half

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of the meeting asking questions, to learn about your situation,

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to see if we can even help. How does that sound? Oh, it sounds

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great. Okay, by the end of the meeting, you and I will either

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conclude we don't have a fit looks like we might. We'll add

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our next steps together. How's that sound? That sounds great.

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So now I've just set an expectation that says I'm not

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coming to give a presentation, I'm coming to learn about them.

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It allows us to navigate through the same side quadrants that we

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teach in same side selling. It's in chapter four. It's on page

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76, of the actual paperback and hardback of the book. And it

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talks about us getting information about the client,

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about what they're trying to solve, why they need to solve

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it. How important is to solve that, what results or success

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looks like, and who else needs to be involved. That way, we

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have all the information they need to build a business case to

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make an informed decision. If you want to have a PowerPoint,

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what you can do is you can do what I call the Jeopardy board.

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So the Jeopardy board is similar to the board game. Jeopardy.

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People get to pick a tile. You can create a grid on the page

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with different topics, and then when the client brings up a

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topic, what you can say to them is you can have the screen blank

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the whole time and say, look, I've got some slides. If you

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mention a topic that I have something relevant to share with

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you, I'll turn the screen on. I'll show you that, and then

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we'll go back to our conversation. Has that sound

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great in that. Example, what you want to do is then be able to

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say to them, so here's someone else who was having a similar

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problem. Here's what that problem was costing them, here's

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why it was important for them to solve it. Here's what they were

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looking for in terms of an outcome. Fortunately, we were

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able to help them. And here's the outcome that they had. They

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ended up with this great outcome that's really almost utopian.

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How similar or different Do you think that would be to your

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situation? Now I turn off the screen, and now I'm back to a

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conversation. And in PowerPoint, you could just hit the letter B

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and it'll blank the screen, and they'll just get a black screen.

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And once that happens, the customer says, oh, now I'm back

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to this conversation, if I leave the PowerPoint up. The whole

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time. We've been taught since we were in kindergarten that it's

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nap time, and now I can catch some z's. Remember when you're

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going out to speak with people, it's not about you, it's about

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them. You can either show up as someone who is there to sell

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something, or someone who is there to solve something. We

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want to make sure we're showing up as someone who is there to

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solve, not sell. If you look, sound and act like a

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stereotypical salesperson, you're likely to get the

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response, no thanks just looking. If instead, I show up

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as someone who's there to solve. If I navigate the conversation

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so that we're having a discussion about what the

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client's trying to solve and how we might be able to help them,

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that's how we shorten sales cycles. Shift the focus from

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price to results and achieve better outcomes across the

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board, there are topics you'd like me to address. Just drop me

Ian Altman: 00:06:28

a note to Ian at Ian altman.com and I will see you next time on

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the same side, selling podcast. So long you