C-Level Selling: Proposals and Presentations Strategy 25, The Presentations Is the Performance of the Proposal

Presentations are movie versions of the proposal books.  As with the proposal wording is critical.  You must frame all your descriptions around how the individuals and the organization will benefit from you doing the job.  For example, “This is how we will assure your success.”  Rather than, “We are the best at doing this.”

Use numbers names and details when explaining anything.  These make it real, colorful and memorable.

Be sure to focus on individuals’ personal results and social expectations.  Line items are put in there because they are important to someone in particular.  Be sure to give that person the comfort it will be completed to his or her satisfaction.  Remember it’s not all about the organizational success, it is about personal successes - especially high level ones.  The voters must believe they will have their personal interests met or else they will vote for someone else.

Show that you understand all the various impacts to the business, to surrounding areas, to the environment, etc.  Describe how you will mitigate these impacts.  Describe how you will handle uncontrollable issues, i.e. weather, permits, mistakes, and how you’ve done it for others

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Comments

[Wes Schaeffer]

Good point on the "personal success" topic. Too often I see sales people say "I'm in B2B sales" as if a faceless Wal-Mart buys from a faceless Sony. In reality Joe the purchaser buys from Mary the sales lady for a myriad of reasons: comfort, confidence, trust, past performance, delivery, reliability and even price. But we will all pay more for something if we know it works better and will either make us look good and/or not make us look bad.