Listening more and talking less will also give you opportunities to read your client's body language or other nonverbal communication cues. Take the time to notice whether your client is comfortable, in a hurry, relaxed, annoyed, offended, interested, or bored, and tailor your presentation to fit her mood. You don't want to spend your time telling someone about your product if the person is in a hurry to get somewhere. You will be wasting both her time and yours. Sometimes when you are going on and on about yourself and your product, you can miss these nonverbal cues and miss out on a sale.
When you do speak, make your answers brief and easy to understand and make sure you speak as you would with your friends. Don't put on a fake, cheesy sales voice and persona. Be relaxed and speak to your client as you would speak to someone you feel comfortable around.
2. Make it about your client, not yourself.
The best tactic you can use when presenting to a client is asking lots and lots of questions about him, about his lifestyle, about his family, about his business, and about his needs. Any question that yields information about your client is a question that will help you in your presentation. People like people who are interested in them. Convince your client that you care about him and want to make his life easier by really getting to know him.
Once you feel that you have all of the information you could possibly need to know in order to determine what is best for your client, you are free to present your product. However, you should do it in a way that lets your client know you genuinely care about his well-being and makes him feel that your product will help him out.
People can smell an act. As soon as you jump into an hour-long description of your product, spouting general reasons as to why it is helpful, your client will close up. You must customize your presentation to fit your client's needs.
Many books and sales seminars focus on closing techniques. Salespeople spend thousands of dollars each year on books and CDs that promise to deliver the best closing—the magic words to wrap up the conversation and seal the deal.
However, in keeping with the first two points, launching into a closing technique is not the best step to take in many cases. A lot of sales presentations fail because of closing techniques, which take the focus off of the client and put it on you, reminding the client that you are, after all, a salesperson who is out to make money.
In order to keep this from happening, try leaving the closing up to her by letting her know she is the one who will decide whether to take the action you think she should. Use the information you have gathered through the questions you asked, inquire about any reservations she might have, do your best to put her fears to rest or answer her questions, and then genuinely let her know that any further action is up to her. In many situations, this approach will land you the sale.
