8 Ways to Deliver a Boring Sales Presentation

A boring sales presentation does not motivate your listeners to buy. They might stop listening. They might be annoyed. They might even leave the room. They won't feel interested to buy. Avoid these sales presentation mistakes as described by Kelley Robertson.

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Unfortunately, many sales people bore their prospects. Here are eight ways they do that.

1. Start your pitch by talking about your company

Your marketing department might think it’s important that you tell your prospect about your company’s roots or heritage, the client or organizations you work with or how innovative you are.

I can tell you from first-hand experience that those points aren’t even on their radar. They don’t care about you.

I know…it hurts, right?

But here’s the reality…

All they want to know is how you can help them solve a pressing that they’re struggling with.

Skip the mindless chatter about anything else. Get to the point and show them how you can help them deal with, or eliminate, that problem.

2. Talk endlessly about your product, offering or solution

Next to the above point there is no quicker way to bore a prospect or customer.

Contrary to popular belief people don’t want to know EVERYTHING about your product. They only need to know the aspects or features that are relevant to their specific situation.

Highly analytical or technical people—especially engineers—struggle the most with this because they love detail, data and information.

However, it is critical to understand that most people don’t need this level of detail. It is more effective to present the high-level information and have back-up documentation ready just in case your prospect is also a detail-oriented person.

3. Make the conversation one-way

Remember that presentation I mentioned at the beginning of this post?

The sales guy used all the air-time for the full 30 minutes. Snore…

Telling is not selling.

I have found that it is much more effective to have a two-way dialogue during any type of sales meeting or presentation. Even if you have a pre-planned presentation, you should still get your prospect involved by asking them questions or getting them to comment on a point you have made.

Read the rest of these Eight Ways to Deliver a Boring Sales Presentationhttp://fearless-selling.ca/how-to-bore-your-prospect/ at Kelley Robertson's Fearless Selling Blog.


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Make a Room Appear Fuller

Sometime you might be speaking in a room that is too big for the audience. That has at least two negative effects on your audience.

The empty space drains away the energy that you are trying to create in the room. It's always easier to speak to a packed room versus a half empty room.

The empty space sends the message that you expected more people and that the topic of your presentation didn't draw the interest that you hoped for. The attendees might be seconding themselves about attending your presentation if it was shunned by others. 

So how to you make a room look and feel fuller?

10 Tips for making a “too large” room look fuller

1. Fill the seats near the front
2. Move the chairs farther apart
3. Add tables – “rounds” take up the most space
4. Place fewer chairs at each table
5. Dim or turn off the lights at the back of the room
6. Create a larger stage area at the front
7. Arrange plants or partitions to block off part of the room
8. Sit people so they are faced towards a full room
9. Place tables around the outside with product displays
10. Move about the room to use more of the space

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Six Words to Summarize Your Presentation

Can you summarize your presentation in six words? If you know your message, you can state it in a few words. If you need 30 minutes to explain it, then you really don’t know it. What would you do if the decision maker said, “You have six words – go.”

Enjoy these six word presentation summaries:

Buy low, sell high, discover how

Stop wasting money on expensive advertising

Join us for weekly breakfast networking

Think about it before you speak

Never, never give up. Call us

Don’t drink and drive. Arrive alive

Find the right mate for you

You can fight cancer. Donate today

Success is simple but not easy

Problems are opportunities but often overlooked

Love your customers. Attract them back

Buying insurance sucks. Being without devastates

Seatbelts saves lives, maybe yours

Help those who can’t help themselves.

Relax. Enjoy. You are getting older.

Don’t stop questioning. We need you.

Imagine, say it in six words

Add your six word message below.

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How to Arrange the Chairs for Your Presentation

Follow these three rules for setting up the chairs for your presentation. Notice the seats at a baseball stadium.

1. Curves are better than straight lines. 

Place the chairs in curved rows to be warmer and more friendly. Straight lines look and feel like fences. Straight rows also isolate your audience members because they end up looking at the back of heads and can’t see other faces.

2. Make it easy for your audience to see you while they look straight ahead. 

If they need to turn their head to see you – at some point they get a pain in their neck. They stop listening and they blame you for giving them a pain in the neck. The curved seating will help alleviate this pain.

3. Position yourself in the room so that all members are as equidistant from you as possible. 

This helps creates warmth. You want to avoid having some people very close and some very far. That would be the case where you stand at the front of a long narrow room. You want to arrange the chairs into the fewest possible rows.

Have soft chairs, but not too comfortable or participants will fall asleep! Sit in some of the chairs before anyone arrives so you can check sight lines and comfort. If the chairs are “ganged” or hooked to each other – unhook them and spread them a few inches apart so your audience can sit in every chair and still feel comfortable. Few people want to sit butt cheek-to-cheek so if they have a choice they will sit in every second chair which makes your room look half empty.

   

As people arrive the back rows tend to fill up first, which could leave you with vacant seats in the front. To avoid this, mark the back rows with “reserved” signs, so that no one will sit there. You could also tape off the back rows with masking tape. As the room fills, you can remove the signs or tape. Another idea is to put out fewer chairs than you will need, leaving the rest stacked at the back to be used as required. Full seats at the front of the room help to make your talk appear more interesting plus the late arrivals can sit at the back without disturbing your presentation.

It is best to have everyone comfortably seated before you are introduced. The main thing to remember is that you want everyone situated so as to best hear and see your presentation. If you speak in a board room and know the names of the attendees, you might wish to pre-assign seating. It is better to position participants so they meet new people.

Arranged seating also reduces idle chatter. If your company’s President or some other important business leader is expected to attend, plan to position that person near the front where everyone, including you, can see their reaction to what you say. If the boss likes it, the rest of the room will like it too!

If you expect people to take notes you might furnish them with a writing surface where they can spread out notes, handouts, briefcases, etc. Each person should have a table space approximately 2.5 to 3 feet wide. You might supply notepaper, pens, mints, water, and other conveniences. 

For presentations involving a screen, do not arrange chairs closer than twice the height of the screen.

          Example:     10 foot screen - not closer than 20 feet.

                            3 meter screen - not closer than 6 meters.

          

The last row of seats should not be farther than eight times (8x) the vertical dimension of the screen.

          Example:  10 foot screen x 8 - not farther than 80 feet.

Set up the chairs to make your audience more comfortable and hence more inclined to listen to your message.

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Presentation Environment

The place and conditions in which you present have an important influence on how well your message is received. If the environment isn’t right, participants might not pay attention and worse - will become irritated. When the audience is irritated they always blame the speaker.

To do a truly great job, it is important that you are familiar with your presentation room in advance. 

• Where will it be? 
• Will you be in a board room at head office or a district branch? 
• At a hotel, a college, or a conference centre? 
• What facilities will be available?
• Where are the bathrooms?
• What parking challenges will people face?

Make every effort to visit the location so that you can determine what adjustments are necessary. Give yourself enough lead time for special arrangements as to seating, equipment, microphones, lighting, and whatever you want to change.

The presentation environment can make or break your presentation. It means that you must pay attention to the little details that influence the thinking and feelings of your audience.

I recall attending a workshop at university. The way to the presentation room was well and consistently marked with signs and directions. I wouldn't have found the room without the directions. By the time I entered the room I was already impressed with the presenter.

What a great way to influence your audience before you even speak.

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Executive Speech Coach, Business presentation tips from George Torok, the Speech Coach for Executives