The Modern Sales Presentation Is Designed for Today’s Selling Environment

BY Tim Londergan
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Long gone are the story boards, 35mm slides and overhead projectors of yesterday's sales presentations. Yet these tools told the branding stories and cajoled and persuaded the buyers of a bygone era. As primitive as these tools seem today, they succeeded in moving the prospect toward the sale. Subsequently, they were right for the room at the time. Today, however, the room has changed, and time has advanced. Knowledge, experience and technology have merged to provide today’s sales professional with the tools needed to perform in our new environment. The modern sales presentation combines current technology with behavioral psychology to bring forth the ultimate sales pitch.

Components of the modern sales presentation

You are a sales professional, and as such, you may not be a design artist. Therefore, your creative solutions do not easily lend themselves to visual stories. Moreover, you are busy with client calls, so a sales presentation planning session will not fit your schedule. Not to worry. Help is on the way. Jason Lapp, COO of beautiful​.ai, engages in design-​driven technology and its impact on workforce communications. Writing for salesandmarketing​.com, Lapp discusses the 6 Traits of the Modern Sales Presentation. Consider his argument for modern sales presentation software and how it may fit within your organization.

Artificial intelligence equals smart design

Modern sales presentations give non-​designers a pass. According to Lapp, “Presentation software with design AI ensures design principles by building the intelligence of a designer into the tool itself.” As a result, no more re-​formatting decks to fit the pitch-​of-​the-​day — you can now spend time practicing and preparing.

Library of templates gives a leg up

Pre-​built templates remove the pressure of building from scratch. In addition, these master slides assure design-​forward standards and keep you from reusing old decks. Design AI makes decisions on your behalf to keep the message on-​brand and saves you time.

Engaging the audience

In remote selling environments, Lapp suggests providing experiences to enhance storytelling. For example, imagery, video and animations will bring stories to life. Therefore, you can enrich the buyer experience with these elements and they can be shared with digital ease.

Cloud-​based for collaboration

Many hands make less work. Teams who collaborate on the modern sales presentation have the advantage. Keeping current with product offerings and production schedules can be confounding. However, smart templates that draw internal data from production, customer service and finance departments will maintain accuracy. Anytime, anywhere cloud-​based tools make the difference. Likewise, updating and editing on-​the-​fly will save time. Eliminating bottlenecks and maintaining the flow of information is fundamental to the modern sales presentation.

Who’s watching?

Measuring your impact and calculating your effectiveness is crucial. Firstly, analytics for the modern sales presentation are now possible to detect. Secondly, unique and total presentation views, who viewed, and the average and total time spent are a reality. Powerful stuff. “Armed with these insights, teams can understand what content and which messages resonate with buyers, and adjust accordingly”, says Lapp.

Productivity plus deck design

Modern sales presentation software has your best interests at heart. As you know, keeping pace with sales is tough enough. But as Lapp says, “Presentation software that offers design AI, smart templates, seamless experiences, cloud-​based collaboration and presentation analytics enables sales and marketing teams to improve their workflows and become more effective.” All of this saves precious time that you can, in turn, devote to the selling process.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash


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