Let’s eavesdrop on a recent phone call between a sales manager and her prized sales professional.
- Sales manager: “We have a new qualified lead that I am assigning to you. Go meet with them and do an overview for them about how we can help them.”
- Sales professional: “Great. Thank you. Excited to run through the overview with them.”
- Sales manager: “Love it. The meeting is this Thursday, and you can use the refreshed slide deck with new solution details.”
Fast forward to the 30-minute meeting with the buyer. After brief introductions, the sales professional opens up the laptop and shares 42 slides with the buyer over the next 27 minutes, including how differentiated the solution is from other offerings in the marketplace and a detailed monologue on the solution features.
Sadly, the sales professional did exactly what the sales manager advised them to do. Meanwhile, the buyer tuned out after about four to five minutes and day-dreamed about the joys of peace and tranquility on a deserted island. Okay, a little hyperbole there, but if we are honest with ourselves and one another, that scenario is truer than we care to admit.
While our solution may be the perfect fit for the buyer and their use case, our task in the sales cycle is to help them understand their needs, pains and desires more clearly. In doing so, we position ourselves in a more favorable station where the buyer is more keenly aware of their problem (and, more importantly, implications of not addressing that problem and doing so especially right now), while we are able to contextually articulate the unique value proposition of our solution for the buyer.
YOUR SALES DECKS ARE DISENGAGING BUYERS
Sales decks have become the norm in engaging prospects on these first calls, but industry research and insights from the last few years are giving your salespeople’s decks a thumbs-down — no matter how well-designed or well-delivered.
Let me break down the insights.
Gong Labs, a data research team from the revenue intelligence platform provider Gong, noticed a correlation between using slides on discovery calls and a decreased success rate in sales cycles.
Their data showed that:
- Seller questions dropped by 21%
- Seller monologue went 25% longer
- Sellers talked 15% more than the prospects
The thing is, slide decks can become a crutch for your salespeople — a rote pitch that salespeople should resist. Slides looming large on the screen can take over conversation, transforming the first call into a presentation your buyer is likely not ready for – a monologue if you will versus the dialogue the best salespeople covet.
DO NOT THROW OUT YOUR SALES DECKS — ADJUST THEM TO SEEK TO SERVE™
Slide decks can be the bane of your sales pursuits, or you can re-package them to spark a deeper conversation with your buyer(s). The reality is your buyer wants to hear about you some, too. In fact, their willingness to take the meeting was predicated on you providing a solution overview for them: “I would be willing to meet with your sales professional if they can share an overview of how your solution could help us, including a ‘ballpark price’ for the solution.”
That is not an unusual request. So, answer that question in your initial introduction and remarks with a simple Power Pitch that includes:
- A generic pain (or tailored as best you can based on what has been uncovered during qualification discussions)
- A high-level summary of your solution (think 8-10 words max)
- The gain your solution provides (especially highlighting likely outcomes in scenarios similar to your buyer’s)
- Relevant proof (again, ideally the value a peer has garnered from your solution)
If done well, you can articulate that information in a minute or so max, using picture-heavy slides to visually portray what you are verbalizing. And in the midst of that “solution snapshot,” weave in a discovery question or two that prompts the buyer to share their situation — to get them talking about their current state, what is working and what is not, as well as their ideal future state. Be inquisitive and let that curiosity energize the conversation as you genuinely demonstrate to the buyer that they matter and to serve them you need to learn more about them.
A leading practice for prompting this is to include some insights or statistics slides in your deck that convey industry benchmarks about performance. These set up natural questions like: “So how do you stack up against your peers?”
Lastly, include client value stories at the end of your deck, examples of your clients (peers of your buyer are the best) who have gone on the journey with you already and who are willing to share their testimony. These client value stories serve to both calm your buyer (“Someone else like me has done it”) as well as create a sense of jealousy (“We are going to lag our peers if we do not move on this now”). Between the questions and the client value stories, you are making a compelling case for why status quo is not even an option for your buyer.
ENABLE YOUR SALESPEOPLE TO SUCCEED
All in, you are looking at two to three slides in your deck, or maybe six to eight tops if you have more client value stories. Remember, the purpose of the meeting is not to “pitch” your wares but rather to ask questions that prompt your buyer on a self-reflective journey, while you guide and shape that journey based on your personal experiences with peer clients. Help your salespeople resist the itch to pitch with a Revenue Accelerator enablement guide. Download the how-to today.