Your sales presentation will become more effective when you use more persuasive language. Read on to discover two important elements that you should include at the very beginning of your sales presentations.
Sales Training The Powerful Language of Persuasion
Alvin Day's Sales Training and Self Improvement Advice have helped many sales professionals and success-seekers reach and exceed their goals. For more of Alvin Day's FREE resources, visit http://www.AlvinDay4Free.com
There are many elements to successful selling including a captivating opener, good communication and presentation skills, and strong closing tactics. Perhaps one of the most crucial factors in successful selling is your power to persuade. Persuasion should be apparent all of the elements mentioned above, the opening, the presentation and even the close. Persuading successfully means using language, presentations and an overall tactics that all point to your prospect saying "yes."
In this article we will discuss how you can make your language more persuasive. Improving your communication skills in this way will result in your giving a more effective sales presentation.
WIIFM
Do you speak on the same frequency on which your prospect listens? Many sales professionals have a rigid routine from which they never deviate, they suspend talk of benefits they reach a certain point, every time. The problem with this strategy is that you will likely lose your prospect long before your presentation gets to the things that actually matter to him or her.
From the very beginning of your presentation, you need to speak in terms of WIIFM, What's in it for me? You cannot wait until you have reached a special point in your presentation: in a warm sales situation your prospects will quickly lose interest, even if he or she continues to listen politely, it will be hard to bring them back. In a cold calling situation, you may not even have this much, a click of the dial tone will shortly follow an opening that doesn't include WIIFM.
Desired End States
This is a concept that goes beyond the movement that took us from features to benefits. Certainly, it is a great deal more effective to tell a prospect about the whiter whites a special chemical in your detergent will bring, rather than actually describing the chemical in scientific terms. However, you get one step closer to the sale when you focus on the desired end states.
To describe desired end states I will use the detergent example above. My time working at a Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods corporation made me privy to one of the greatest discoveries that the sales profession has ever seen, and the detergent companies were among the first to apply it
Do you remember a long time ago when detergent ads looked like something from a science class? There would be an official looking man wearing a white coat pointing at a graphic illustration that explained the inner workings of some mysterious chemical that would make your clothes sparkle. Today, these ads are completely different. You will see a popular young man arm in arm with a beautiful woman or a happy looking family doing cartwheels in a meadow.
Why the new direction? Instead of telling us about benefits, these clever sellers decided to focus on desired end states. The term refers to the feeling a person gets when he or she is using the product in question. Its effects go far beyond benefits. It is simply more persuasive to conjure the feeling a person will get when using your product or service as opposed to just discussing the technical steps involved.
So in the case of detergent, they will show a woman who does laundry for her family having fun with them in an open field, conjuring the feeling of a wonderful day spent with her family in a beautiful, clean environment. Also, they may show a man with lots of friends and a beautiful girlfriend who doesn't have to worry about not receiving social acceptance because his clothes are always fresh and clean.
If you can create sales presentations that focus on the WIIFM and desired end states from the very beginning, you will have your prospect's attention from the very beginning. The result of this will be a more persuasive presentation.
In this article we will discuss how you can make your language more persuasive. Improving your communication skills in this way will result in your giving a more effective sales presentation.
WIIFM
Do you speak on the same frequency on which your prospect listens? Many sales professionals have a rigid routine from which they never deviate, they suspend talk of benefits they reach a certain point, every time. The problem with this strategy is that you will likely lose your prospect long before your presentation gets to the things that actually matter to him or her.
From the very beginning of your presentation, you need to speak in terms of WIIFM, What's in it for me? You cannot wait until you have reached a special point in your presentation: in a warm sales situation your prospects will quickly lose interest, even if he or she continues to listen politely, it will be hard to bring them back. In a cold calling situation, you may not even have this much, a click of the dial tone will shortly follow an opening that doesn't include WIIFM.
Desired End States
This is a concept that goes beyond the movement that took us from features to benefits. Certainly, it is a great deal more effective to tell a prospect about the whiter whites a special chemical in your detergent will bring, rather than actually describing the chemical in scientific terms. However, you get one step closer to the sale when you focus on the desired end states.
To describe desired end states I will use the detergent example above. My time working at a Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods corporation made me privy to one of the greatest discoveries that the sales profession has ever seen, and the detergent companies were among the first to apply it
Do you remember a long time ago when detergent ads looked like something from a science class? There would be an official looking man wearing a white coat pointing at a graphic illustration that explained the inner workings of some mysterious chemical that would make your clothes sparkle. Today, these ads are completely different. You will see a popular young man arm in arm with a beautiful woman or a happy looking family doing cartwheels in a meadow.
Why the new direction? Instead of telling us about benefits, these clever sellers decided to focus on desired end states. The term refers to the feeling a person gets when he or she is using the product in question. Its effects go far beyond benefits. It is simply more persuasive to conjure the feeling a person will get when using your product or service as opposed to just discussing the technical steps involved.
So in the case of detergent, they will show a woman who does laundry for her family having fun with them in an open field, conjuring the feeling of a wonderful day spent with her family in a beautiful, clean environment. Also, they may show a man with lots of friends and a beautiful girlfriend who doesn't have to worry about not receiving social acceptance because his clothes are always fresh and clean.
If you can create sales presentations that focus on the WIIFM and desired end states from the very beginning, you will have your prospect's attention from the very beginning. The result of this will be a more persuasive presentation.
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- TopStyleTravel TopStyleTravel Jun 19, 2008 @ 6:20 pm
- Great presentation thanks for sharing.
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- Matthew_Ferry Matthew_Ferry Jun 17, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
- Hi there Alvin, thanks for the comment on my lens and rating it..really a great illustration of magnifying glass..focusing on our life's energy can lead to something greater..love your video..as return i gave 5*
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- BFuniv.com BFuniv.com Jun 17, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
- Alvin, great presentation - I enjoyed it, It never hurts to hear things that are important more than once. In fact I review this quote that reinforces your message occasionally.
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain
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- robb2677 robb2677 Jun 17, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
- Love the video, very inspiring
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- walker966 walker966 Jun 17, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
- Yes, I do find that having a tactical approach to my presenations always helps
You have given me some tips to incorporate into future presentations
Thanks Alvin!
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Alvin Day's Sales Training and Self Improvement Advice have helped many sales professionals and success-seekers reach and exceed their goals. For more of Alvin Day's FREE resources, visit http://www.AlvinDay4Free.com
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