Making a sales pitch (or a presentation in general) is tough. It doesn’t matter if it’s in front of 1 person or a whole room of people, you need to speak clearly, directly, keep a good pace, and most importantly stay focused! Here are a few tips to avoid distractions during a sales pitch.
1. Plan Ahead
Plan your presentation based on what you want your customer to know about you, your company, and the work you are presenting. Make and follow an outline! Not sure how to begin an outline? PEP’s Basic eBid template is a great tool to help you navigate a sales pitch.
2. Visual Aids
Go into your sales pitch with materials and visual aids to walk through with your customer. These could be digital, like PEP’s eBid presentation, or a slideshow of past-work photos that the client can explore. They could also be physical – a photo album or samples of paint finishes to demonstrate the end result.This will not only help you stay on topic but it also makes your clients feel included in the presentation.
3. Location
If possible, choose a location for your sales pitch that is free of distracting noises, people, and things. For example, a busy coffee shop would not be a good choice of places to make a sales pitch.
4. Prepare for Questions
Before your presentation, take a moment to think through some potential questions your customer might have. If you don’t know the answer to one of their questions, make some notes so you can get back to them.
Distractions are sometimes unavoidable, but with practice you can smoothly steer the presentation back on track. We’ve got a few tips for you here:
Scenario: Your phone rings in the middle of the sales presentation.
Solution: Give your customer your full and undivided attention and don’t answer the phone. If the distraction was noticeable, apologize briefly and continue with your presentation.
Scenario: Your customer’s phone rings and they take the call.
Solution: When you have your client’s attention again, take 10 seconds to recap where you left off in the presentation, then move forward (following an outline makes this super easy).
Scenario: You’re customer is interrupting with questions.
Solution: Stay positive. If the questions are related to something you cover in your presentation, you can say something like, “That’s a great question and we’re actually going to get to it in just a minute.” If the question isn’t something you were going to address, you can A) pause the presentation to talk about it; or B) say, “That’s a great question. Let’s finish going through this (reference the presentation) and then let’s talk about [insert question topic]. You might have some other questions that we should discuss too.”
You can never be too prepared going into a sales pitch but like everything, it takes practice and persistence to learn how to do it well. Don’t get discouraged if distractions come up. Each presentation will be different and how you handle the distractions will improve the more you do them.
Do you have helpful tricks to avoid distractions during a sales pitch? Let us know!
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