The accountant was a partner at a major accounting firm. She
was clearly qualified as an expert in her field. She admitted to me that she
was quite comfortable talking about her area of expertise to her clients. She
was sincerely willing to help her clients.
The point where she ran into difficulty was selling her
services to the client. She got anxious when discussing the price and detested
“closing the deal”.
Accounting training had not prepared her for the angst of
selling your value.
Every presentation is a sales presentation even if you don’t
want to see yourself as a salesperson. Every time you speak you must convince
people to listen to you, trust you and believe what you say. Most importantly
you must convince them to act on what you say.
You are selling your credibility, ideas, services and team.
When offering professional services you are also selling your experience,
personality, character, strengths and flaws.
Yes, sell your flaws. Tell your audience what you don’t
know. And tell them what you can do to get that information. Tell them what you
won’t do. That’s more important that you might think. Clients need to you know
your limits – and so do you.
I had a conference call with a prospect on a Friday who
asked for a response from me for Monday. I told them that I don’t work on the
weekend and would have their answer for Tuesday. After a pregnant pause, they
agreed. They hired me to train their staff on presentation skills.
In the 1997 movie, The Devil’s Advocate, Keanu Reeves ask Al
Pacino (The Devil) “Are we negotiating? The devil answers, “We’re always
negotiating.”
When you speak – you are negotiating – you are selling – you
are attempting to persuade your audience.
Presentation Tips on Twitter Presentation Skills Club on Facebook Executive Speech Coach, Business presentation tips from George Torok, the Speech Coach for Executives
No comments:
Post a Comment