Shamus Browns Top 5 Sales Presentation Tips

When its time to give your next sales presentation, here are my favorite tips for delivering powerful, charismatic, and engaging sales presentations.

#1 - PLANT YOUR FEET SQUARELY ON THE FLOOR

How you hold your physical body during your sales pitch communicates a tremendous amount of information about you to your audience. Studies have shown a person will unconsciously interpret approximately 55% of the meaning of your message from physiological cues in your body position, stance, and facial expressions.

Deliver your presentation from a position of confidence. Stand with your feet squarely between your shoulders. Distribute your weight evenly between your legs, and plant your feet firmly on the ground. Keep your arms relaxed at your sides, until your are ready to make a gesture.

Shifting your weight from one leg to another communicates to the audience a lack of confidence. This comes across unconsciously in that if you were to ask someone, a typical response might be "he didn't seem like believed in his company" or "I not sure that I can trust her".

Try both the balanced and the unbalanced speaking postures right now, and see which one makes you feel more confident and ready for your next sales presentation.

#2 - GET PUMPED UP

It is your job to lead the audience. The reason they are there to get something from you. So you must lead them where you want them to go. If you want people to get excited about your product or to feel a sense of trust towards you and your company, you must first create this emotion within yourself.

How do you do this? Simple. Do whatever it takes to get yourself excited. Jump up and down. Clap your hands. Play your favorite music loud. High five your sales partner. You can do this where you won't be seen by the prospect (in your car, in the customer's stairwell, bathroom or outside the building). What do you think a rock star or an actor does to warm-up before going on stage?

The idea is to begin your presentation in an absolutely great state. Do this right and the audience will follow your where you want them to go.

Special tip: Use this technique before making important phone calls so that you are "on" when you make the call.

#3 - WARM-UP THE AUDIENCE

Another thing big rock stars do before coming out on stage is they have warm-up acts. The job of a warm-up act is to get the audience in a mood will be receptive of the main act's energy.

You can accomplish this same effect by simply playing music before you start your presentation. Many laptops have CD players these days, or you can use a boom-box. The type of music you play will depend on your audience, and the emotional state that you want to warm your audience up to. Just think about how this will set you apart from your competition's stale PowerPoint slide show.

#4 - BEGIN WITH AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

The more rapport you have with an individual or a group, the more receptive they will be to your message. One way to build rapport with your audience is by asking questions of your audience during your first few minutes on stage.

Ask a question or two that most people can easily answer (but don't put anyone on the spot too much). Questions such as "How far did you come to get here?" and "How long have you been working in this field?" easily get conversation going and begin creating a relationship between you and your audience.

#5 - SUSTAIN EYE CONTACT WITH INDIVIDUALS

You probably know you should do this. Now here's why and how.

The more frequently you change the location of your focus, the more new information your brain is taking in. Your eyes are the visual sensory input system for your brain. Change focus fast enough and frequently enough, and you overload your brain to the point where you forget where you are at in the presentation. Aaaaggh!

Maintain your concentration on what you want to say next by fixing your visual focus for short periods of time. Do this by completing a thought or a sentence (whichever you find easier) while sustaining eye contact with one person. Move eye contact to a new person with each new thought or sentence.

Shamus Brown is a Professional Sales Coach and former high-tech sales pro who began his career selling for IBM. Shamus has written more than 50 articles on selling and is the creator of the popular Persuasive Selling Skills CD Audio Program. You can read more of Shamus Brown's sales tips at http://Sales-Tips.industrialEGO.com/ and you can learn more about his persuasive sales skills training at http://www.Persuasive-Sales-Skills.com/

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Facilitating Panel Discussions
A client recently called to say she was going to facilitate a panel for the next business meeting. She had never done so before and asked if I could coach her.

Steps to a Successful Audience/Trainer Relationship
A major cause of trainers being unreceptive to their audience is stage fright. Being so self-involved the trainer has very little energy to devote to making personal contact.

Too Many Choices - Dont Confuse Your Customers
Conventional wisdom is that the more choices customers have, the more likely they will buy. That may be true when customers have very specific wants or needs, and they know what those wants or needs are.

Business Presentations - Use Power Pitching - Get the Personal Edge
Whenever and whatever you're pitching, dozens of factors will figure in the final decision of your prospects. All else being equal, you have the edge if you can establish a personal connection.

A Powerful Presentation Technique-Story Telling
Appealing to emotions is the most powerful way to transfer learning in an information cluttered training or presentation. A compelling story woven with a lot of information in the telling with a conclusion that appeals to the emotion can permanently etch the learning in an otherwise unresponsive training or meeting fatigued audience.

Shamus Browns Top 5 Sales Presentation Tips
When its time to give your next sales presentation, here are my favorite tips for delivering powerful, charismatic, and engaging sales presentations. #1 - PLANT YOUR FEET SQUARELY ON THE FLOOR How you hold your physical body during your sales pitch communicates a tremendous amount of information about you to your audience.

Dump Your Speeches For Leadership Talks
The CEO of a worldwide business asked me to help him develop a talk he planned to give to several hundred of his top executives. He said, "I feel as if I'm Daniel going into the lion's den.

A Discussion about Facilitation Skills
Interview with Julia Apple-Smith, Manager of Employee Development at Sauer-Danfoss Ames, Iowa about Facilitation Skills:Q: Would you tell me a little bit about the culture at Sauer-Danfoss?Julia: About nine years ago, Dave Pfeifle, President and CEO had a vision for us to change our culture. We, at one time, were part of the Sundstrand Corporation, and as such, over time, had evolved into a company that was fairly autocratic and not very customer focused.

How to Give a Great Speech
As a former owner of a National Speakers Bureau, I have learned from several thousand professional speakers "How to Give a Great Speech." Here are some techniques that I share with my coaching clients who want to become paid professional speakers or business professionals who want to deliver masterful presentations.

After the Speech
Usually the emphasis on making an effective speech is what you do in preparation before the presentation begins. But if you speak very much, what you do after the speech can help you become a more effective speaker.

Winning The Big Pitch - The 7 Deadly Sins Of Business Presentations And How To Avoid Them!
Are poor presentations costing you business?The ability to deliver a presentation to potential investors or clients is an essential skill for any budding entrepreneur, sales professional or consultant.Whether it's a '15-second elevator pitch' or a more extensive presentation, winning over and persuading audiences is vital in today's competitive capital raising and sales environment.

Presentation Paranoia
"The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public." (Sir George Jessel)Have you had this feeling before? Rest assured you are not alone.

Keeping Meetings Productive
KEEPING MEETINGS PRODUCTIVE: Whether participants approve or disapprove of an idea, they shouldn't be penalized or given a raise. If you start criticizing people who disapprove, then you're only making your meetings less productive.

27 Tips For An Effective Presentation
So you're not a professional speaker. That's no excuse for NOT giving a professional presentation.

Create A Better Impresion With Your Emails
How do you come across in your emails?As I receive more and more requests for assistance by email, I also get more and more poorly worded or badly formatted emails.When you ask someone for help, or approach them for the first time, you will get a much better response if you word your initial contact carefully.

Tips to Energize Your Presentations
"There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours.

Why You Need a Lesson Plan
LESSON PLAN DEVELOPMENT: Lesson plans, believe it or not, are a lot like the maps you have in the back seat of your car. They're probably not covered with the ketchup and pencil marks that your maps are, but they are directional guides.

How to Begin a Lesson Plan
DEVELOPING LESSON PLANS: In developing lesson plan formats, two things are paramount: extraordinarily careful documentation and room left for possible changes. Sloppy accounting of the direction your class will be going is worse than none.

Quick and Easy Rehearsal Tips
Never rehearse at the last minute. This creates undue tension and nervousness and does not allow sufficient time for correcting mistakes and polishing delivery.

How To Make Your Best Ever Presentation
The most important tip..