March 5, 2011 in Articles by Joshua Matthews

Tell Them to Sell Them

I review many types of sales presentations and often find initial pitches forget one main thing – the customer. It’s all good and well to espouse what your product or service does but in the B2B world, it better have a financial, intellectual or time return - all of which are really financial returns for the customer. It’s important to not just suggest or imply a benefit, we must remember to tell them specifically.

Here’s an example:

If I were to put together a sales presentation describing Technical Directors and shared they are good with computers, great with people, able to organize, plan and execute complex projects, I’d be doing a pretty good job. If I could say all of this AND show the websites/software produced under them, the revenue brought into the company for billing out hours to clients and a chart showing the savings accrued through client retention AND producer employee retention due to loyalty, then the client would see the actual financial gain from investing in such an employee.

Whether you’re creating a slide presentation, telephone script, advertisement, or sales pitch, remember that features are only good if they have benefits. It’s not enough to assume your customers “get it”. You must tell them to sell them.