In any presentation, it’s vital that you know your audience. To simply present without having some idea of your audience’s needs and concerns can be virtual suicide. I saw two examples of this on a recent trip to Las Vegas.
The first, admittedly, was a non-sales situation. My wife and I decided to take in a comedy show at the Laugh Factory at the Tropicana. I was wearing a rather flamboyant shirt that my wife loved, and had bought for me earlier in the day. Well, the comedian – perhaps not getting the laughs he wanted from his routine – decided to take a couple of shots at me and the shirt…and discovered the value of knowing his audience.
He pointed at me, and said, “Wow, that is an awful shirt! Hey, the ‘70s called…and they don’t even want that shirt back.” (Admittedly, a funny line.) Then he made a fatal mistake. He said, “What, did you lose a bet or something?”
And I said, loudly enough to be heard by everyone, “Yep. The loser had to come see your show.” That got a bigger laugh than anything he’d said. He started to say something else, and I just pointed at him and said, “Think it through. I’m better than you are at this.” He decided to move on. One of my friends who is a stand-up comic told me that the riskiest thing a comic can do is to take on a member of the audience – because you have no idea who that person is and how they can bury you.
The next night, we were at the Italian restaurant at the Tropicana (which I highly recommend if you like Italian) and I overheard a salesperson presenting to a group of four distributors about how his company planned to help them grow their businesses. All was going well until he started telling them about the jan/san (Janitorial/Sanitation) program he had for them. His distributors just UNLOADED on him.
They told him that his products were inferior, and two presented him with printouts of how wildly uncompetitive his prices were. Now, I’m perfectly OK with selling at a higher price – but according to his distributors (who had obviously done their homework), the manufacturer’s product was three times the cost of his competitors. By the time we finished dinner and left, he was still doing damage control – and that was 30 minutes later.
His problem was the same as the comedian’s – except he doesn’t have the excuse that he was going before the audience cold. The salesman simply didn’t understand his audience or their concerns. If he was blindsided by the lack of competitive pricing, shame on him. One of the competitive sources they mentioned was Costco – which does not exactly keep their pricing confidential. Not ony was he blindsided by the issue, he didn’t have a good answer for them as far as why they might consider selling his product anyway.
So, before delivering a sales presentation, what should you know?
- Your audience’s needs: This isn’t tough. Your customers and prospects will tell you their key needs and objectives, if you ask the right questions. They’ll also be honest, which is something that my salesman desperately needed.
- “Third Rail” issues: When the salesman at the restaurant began discussing the jan/san products, he touched the proverbial “third rail.” (By the way – the “third rail” refers to the highly electrified power rail in a subway system. Touch it and you become quite crispy.) A “third rail” issue is an issue that is likely to set off a quick and intense negative reaction from your audience. Given the fact that two of the four distributors had done their homework on jan/san and the lack of competitiveness, it’s pretty obvious that this was a “third rail” issue. You need to know what these are – because if you touch it, it negates all the good you do in other parts of your presentation.
- Your own weaknesses: I sensed that the salesman didn’t really know his competitive situation on the products he was pitching – and if so, shame on him. Even if someone else sets the agenda for your presentation, it’s still your credibility on the line. Know your groundwork.
If you read these columns regularly, you know that I’m not a fan of a canned presentation. Even when you’re presenting to a group, you should be able to interact with the group (or representatives thereof) enough to take the group’s temperature and know what the groundwork is. Take that time, and you won’t be in the situation of either the hapless comic or the unfortunate salesperson.
By the way, my wife laughed all the way back to the room after the comedy show. Four other women came up to us and told us that they loved my shirt. I always defer to her taste!
