Ever watch a presentation and get lost in the details presented? It is like sitting in front of a fire hose. So much information.
The retention rate for a presentation after one week is shockingly low. Ten percent or less at best. How does that make you feel? Your presentation is important. Maybe the presentation is for a six-figure sales opportunity, funding a new company, or budget approval for the next project.
What do audiences remember from a presentation? Studies show an audience will remember more of the end of the presentation (the last they hear), next the beginning (the first they hear), and surprising a small amount of the middle, the information section. How you present is critical to the success of the presentation, its outcome, and your goals.
There are a lot of different presentation outlines. Which is best depends on the goals of the presentation. One outline I used for closing many millions of dollars in sales is well known. Astonishingly, not often followed, especially by marketing.
The presentation outline is three sections.
- Tell them what they are going to discover from the presentation and how they will benefit. This should be three to five items/categories, where three or fewer are best.
- Present the information.
- Summarize. Tell them what they just learned and how they will benefit.
Now there are three other components to add to the outline.
The following I got from Brian Tracy. Before I give Brian’s advice, let’s set up a sales scenario. I have flown to a customer site. The cost of an airline ticket, car rental, hotel stay, and of course my time. This a six-figure opportunity. Representing the company in the meeting may be three to five engineers, a manager and/or director, and on some occasions a vice president. Add this all up and the company is spending a lot of time listening to the presentation. Will it be worth it to them?
With the high “cost” to the company, what does Brian Tracy recommend? You spend the first few minutes on why it is worth their time to hear your presentation. Do not start with some ten-minute (or worst) marketing message about how great your company is. The meeting participants are there to discover how they will benefit from your product or service. In other words, WIIFT which few presenters do.
After a “why you should listen to me” introduction, slide into a very short, a few minutes in length about the company you represent. These are items One and Two before the first section of the presentation.
After the summary, there should be a very specific call to action. You need to let the participants know what to do next. If you do not tell them the next step, you will get the “we will get back to you”. Plus, if they are almost ready to move forward, a call to action will flush out the remaining issues or objections.
Let’s summarize the outline.
- Why they should listen, WIIFT.
- Short background about the company, very short.
- What they will learn/discover from your presentation.
- The body of the talk/presentation.
- Summarize what they just heard, and the value to their company.
- A call-to-action. What they should do next.
There it is. Pretty simple.
Of course, the devil is in the details you put into the presentation. The key is how your product and/or service will help the customer meet their goals.
Direct Market Results generates high-quality leads, both BtoB and BtoC. For a consultation on how we can help your company grow revenue by growing sales with high-quality leads, click here and schedule a 30-minute no-obligation call. https://directmarketresults.com/
Jason Froehlich has a great book on putting together a high-impact presentation, “The Profitable Pitch”. The book is available on Amazon or at https://jrdeck.com/theprofitablepitch (this is a non-affiliate link).