Learn how to present your sales proposal like a pro. Here are 9 tactics that the best sales professionals in the world commonly use while presenting their sales proposals.

Know Your Audience

Your presentation should speak specifically to the industry, company and personal needs and interests of your client. Research your prospect before you present. Remember what makes them unique, learn their mission statement and values. Learn their products and services and how your solution helps them specifically.

Personalize Your Presentation

Recognize your audience by their first name. It personalizes the meeting which with all else equal, will improve your chances of winning the business. Learn about their positions in the company and who you are talking to. Always make eye contact throughout your presentation. Hold the attention of the audience by exuding a positive and resilient energy within the environment, while also connecting with everyone emotionally.

Set the Pace

People have a limited attention span. You must set the pace and keep your audience intrigued by presenting the critical information they are seeking. If you must present other information that is not critical, try creating a video or a PowerPoint to make it more interesting. This can help to hold your audience’s attention until you transition to your next critical key point.

State the Objective

Clearly state what the objective of your proposal is at the beginning of your presentation. Review the objective in the middle of your presentation after key points to reinforce the purpose of your key points. Finally, review your objective while concluding your presentation. Tell them, tell them what you told them and then remind them again.

Elicit Participation

It is a good idea to get people involved when they are deciding whether or not they are going to invest with you. This can help them learn more about your product, service, and company, which will build trust and confidence behind the decision to move forward with your proposal.

• Ask questions
• Invite them to ask their own questions
• Ask them to relate to a scenario
• Ask them to recall something
• Ask their opinion
• Ask their approval

 

Present Value

When people see value in a product, they are likely to purchase. Do not assume your audience sees the value, they don’t! Your proposal and presentation should show the client why this is important for them, what they will gain, what advantage this gives them and/or how revenue will increase or costs will decrease. A statement of value should be placed carefully throughout your presentation, at the beginning, before or after every key point and at the end.

Be Real

A genuinely caring attitude is the most important thing you can bring to a presentation. You must care about and pay attention to the people you are presenting to. Always be honest. A prospect will respect your honesty and feel more comfortable doing business with you even if the a piece of information you give them is not in their best interest. If you have prepared properly, you will have plenty of information that is in their best interest and disclosing information that is not will build the trust that is key to cultivating a relationship and making a sale.

Thank You!

Do not forget to thank your audience for their time, participation and consideration. You should thank them at the beginning of your presentation and at the end of your presentation.

Follow Up

Ask them when an appropriate time is for you to follow up. By doing this, you can take the guess work out of it. When you know they answer, you will know you are following up at the right time. You will not have to worry if you are following up too soon and being seen as pushy or anxious or too late and perhaps losing the business to someone else.

Learn more about how to present your sales proposal with The Sales Coaching Institute: one-on-one sales coaching & sales training.

The nature of the word disruptive seems negative at first glance. However, you are certainly aware that sometimes you have to shake things up a bit to be more effective. One of the biggest challenges a sales team faces is finding a way to stand out in the crowd. Many advertisers have discovered that the best way to shake things up a bit is to rattle a few cages. Disruptive strategies are helping to do just that.

Rattling Cages

Let’s take a look at disruptive advertisements to best help you visualize what disruptive means. Most people have always viewed commercials on television as interruptive. They interfere and break away from their entertainment. Disruptive advertising tries to continue the entertainment to avoid interrupting and instead disrupting to create interest as opposed to resentment. This has resulted in advertisements for products/brands like Skittles, Old Spice and Geico commercials to be downright odd, but amusing. A myriad of choices seems counterintuitive to branding consistency but creating branding consistency by being inconsistent consistently can work. It’s a mouthful but it does make sense.

Going Rogue

By using disruptive sales strategies, you need to find a way to be less interruptive and more disruptive to stand out from the crowd. It’s going rogue, not like a crazed pirate, but like a Super Hero. You are going against the grain of crime fighting within the law by going outside the law while fighting to improve the lives of your fellow citizens.

Four Basic Disruptive Sales Strategy Steps

There are four things needed for successful disruptive sales strategies:

1. Step away from the preconceived sales tactics.
2. Step away from small-scale efforts and set larger goals and with a more focused target.
3. Step away from your own industry and look for inspiration from more exciting industries to find ideas.
4. Step away from the seasonal drivers and carve out a niche time of year to rally your sales team and campaigns when no one else is out there.

Disruptive sales strategies go against the grain in order to draw attention. They draw people away from the noise of the competition. You have to fight the urge to take the path more travelled in order to get their faster. Disruptive sales may not be a short cut because it takes more effort, but in the end, it will prove to be one of many paths to success.

Learn more about sales strategies.

There is no denying the underlying competitive nature that classifies today’s sales world. As a sales professional you should always be looking for ways to stay ahead of your competition and to truly become the ‘best in class’ so that you can flourish and enjoy your career. Engaging in best-in-class selling techniques is straightforward but will take effort.

Here are some tips to help you become a best-in-class sales professional.

Research & Prepare

First, you will want to make sure that you have researched your services and products and that you know them like the back of your hand. This may seem like selling 101, but this is something that can really help you become the best and something that many busy sales professionals will overlook. Knowing the in-depth details of what you are selling will help you answer any questions that will come your way. It doesn’t matter how crafty you are or how engaging you are as a sales professional; if you do not know the product inside and out you are bound to miss some opportunities to bring in new business.

Show Enthusiasm (it’s contagious)

Second, always show enthusiasm in everything you do. Engaging in best-in-class selling means engaging in selling that is surrounded by interest and passion for those products and services you sell. This excitement will transfer to the customer and help peak their interest and levels of engagement.

Cultivate Client Relationships

Finally, always build your relationships with your customers. Your customers should feel as though you respect them and what they have to say and that you are providing them with a product or service because it will better their lives. If you want to be considered a ‘best-in-class’ sales expert, then you need to show them that you understand their needs as a customer and that you are there to provide them with a service that they will truly benefit from. Always check in on your clients and always ask them if they are happy or if you can do anything else to help them out.

The Sales Coaching Institute engages in best in class selling techniques. Find out more about the professional sales coaching services and sales training programs. Visit them at salescoach.us to find out more.

Learn about sales keynotes for best-in-class selling here.

Here are some great sales strategy execution ideas to drive revenue to your business. Strategy execution is definitely a trending management topic right now. Many CEOs are concerned with it because it is one of the most challenging issues, especially within the sales profession. However, some companies and managers aren’t sure of what it is, other than implanting a strategic plan and executing against your plan. Execution is implemented and completed with strategies, people and operations. You must have all three to have a great sales team. Here are five sales strategy execution ideas to help you drive revenue, so find the one that fits your needs and start working on it as soon as possible.

Find Growth

Growing your business is one of the only ways to drive healthy revenue to your business. You’ve got to be bigger and better than the competition to ensure that you stay on top. You can do this by constantly being on the look out for new trends in your industry. This is a great way to grow within the existing markets, branching out into a new or different market and drilling into big data.

Serve Your Customers

Your customers are your priority, and you should work with them instead of for them. Using multiple channels to serve your customers will help drive sales. Trying different tactics, such as smartphone paying apps and online buying with in-store pickup are the things your customers want. If you serve your customers better than other companies, you will succeed. Set yourself apart from other companies by going the extra mile when serving your customers, it will create a lasting and positive impression on your client and can even lead to recommendations to generate more clients.

Sales Coaching or Sales Training

Your sales engine is a primary part of the revenue-driving field. If you don’t have the sales management or sales force talent, you’ll lose business. Learning about various strategies and methods can boost the morale of the team and help them perform better. If their weaknesses prevent them from selling, consider working through those weaknesses with a sales coach or with the help of formal sales training.

Focus On People

Whether you are a small or large business, you have to focus on all people, not just your employees and customers. Sometimes, giving back to your community is enough to gain the respect of new customers or renew the respect of current ones. Focusing all your attention and money on the company, customers and community can lead to greater revenues and fewer problems. Learn to motivate your employees in five simple steps.

Change

Change can be difficult and unwanted by many. Employees are always scared of change, but once it’s over, you’ve weeded out the bad seeds and gained a new perspective. However, sometimes the shareholders and managers are the ones scared about some new change. However, implementing those difficult changes can help you beat your completion and drive new revenue opportunities to your business.

Learn more about adapting to change by changing your mindset.

Learning five different sales strategy execution ideas can help drive revenue for your business.

If you’re considering a career in sales, there are many reasons to take that first step and apply for a sales position. If you hone your skills and become an expert in the craft it can be a very lucrative job. It requires hard work, dedication, perseverance, creativity and people skills. These may all seem like daunting criteria, but in order to succeed at other jobs you are required to have the same work ethic. If you have a good work ethic as described in the previous requirements, sales may be for you. Here are some great reasons to become a sales rep.

Job Security

Money makes the world go round, and is the reason most people get a job. Manufacturers everywhere have products to sell they need sales people to sell their product. Insurance, cable, satellite TV, Internet, phone plans, and company services are all things you cannot physically go to the store and buy, but still need to be sold. This is where you as a sales rep would come in, and the company that needs their product sold will pay you big money to sell their products for them.

Pay

There are a few different ways a sales rep gets paid and they all depend on how much you sell. Commissions are a percentage of the profit from the sale. Some companies will pay you for your time and give you a percent of the profits from everything you sell. You are in control of your paycheck, but it never falls below a certain rate due to the hourly pay. Did you know that some sales reps make double digit incomes every month? Some sales positions are commission only, but they offer higher percentage commissions in most cases. Another form of pay is a base price per item sold. For example a company who sells cars may pay you 100 dollars for every compact car, $150 for every sedan, $250 for every truck and $300 for every SUV you sell. This is a very lucrative business and there is a lot of money to be made in sales. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain in selling. You are in control of your finances. The sky is the limit. If you find yourself needing more money, you don’t have to go beg your boss for a raise, just get out there work harder and sell more.

Bonuses

Most companies offer bonuses to their sales reps. Who doesn’t love bonuses? There are many types of bonuses offered Some bonuses come in the form of milestone payouts. For example, the 5 sells reps who sell the most in one month get a 500 dollar bonus, and the next 5 will get 300 dollars. Another type of bonus is the incentive bonus. This is where a company would set a number for you to sell and when you reach it you get a payout. An example of an incentive bonus would be your employer will pay you an extra 50 dollars every time you sell 100 products. This is their way of encouraging you to sell more of their products and everyone wins. The next kind of bonus is where the company offers a percentage of the profit divided among the reps every month, quarter, year or other predetermined amount of time. For example, if you sell over 300 products in a month the company would pay you 2 percent of the company’s profit from the month and if you sell between 100 and 299 products they pay you 1.2 percent. Many companies even offer a yearly bonus to their top sales rep in the form of trips, cruises, cars and cold hard cash. At Mary Kay the top sales reps always receive a Mary Kay pink Cadillac.