Speaking engagements in Sales

In my opinion, I believe this is one of the top three traits of successful salespeople.  The days of hiding in your office, or behind the phone or behind your engineer are over.  "One to Many" as I would like to call is an opportunity to get in front of a bunch of prospective customers at one time and build trust. 

I am not taking anything away from salespeople that are successful and cannot Public Speak but sooner or later it will catch up and bite them in the ass.  From my experience, customers expect us to be experts and very comfortable talking about our solutions to our customer's initiatives.  Not just in a one on one meeting but in a group setting.  Also keep in mind, the customers you are selling to WILL attend some type of event that you will need to speak at and if you blow it it could now blow that relationship as well.  And remember, customers will NOT come out and say that you sucked or how is it that you cannot articulate your product that I bought from you to a group.  They will slowly shy away and make assumptions that you are not serious about your career.  Don't let this happen.  Practice presenting, take some classes, read some books.  Get educated on how to speak properly. 

MAKE YOUR PRESENTATION ENTERTAINING and MEMORABLE!!!!  Just because marketing sends you the presentation and did all of the work for you doesn't mean you don't tweak it and make it your own.  Put some time into it as well.  Throw some funny pictures relevant to your solutions.  Put something in it unique to you that people will always see and relate it to you.  Maybe a character or quote or phrase or something.  Get people excited.  Ask the audience questions.  If they don't answer you don't worry.  They all heard you trying to engage them.  Pausing frequently creates a sense of anticipation.  Use this to engage them silently.  Less words on the screen and more visualizations.  Diagrams, examples, case studies, pictures, etc. 

Get out there and present!  You will be amazed at how well this will work for you once it is mastered!

Shawn
sr@ShawnCReilly.com