5 Ways To Set Your Sales Team Apart With Presentation Management

Digital marketing came, virtual tools saw and tech-savvy sales stars conquered. It’s a story you’re familiar with – one that’s etched in iPads everywhere – and there’s no “The End” in sight. But while your sales team is constantly connected and perpetually plugged in – they “WFH” (work from home) and “GoToMeeting” – there’s only so far all this virtualization goes for sales enablement. You may be surprised to hear this, but the most effective sales tactic is still the face-to-face meeting.

Shocking? Perhaps. Accurate? Absolutely.

But perhaps what’s even more shocking is that today’s B2B sales reps, immersed as they are in this squally sea of technology, are still using PowerPoint as their go-to presentation platform. If Alex Trebek were in the room, “What is an anachronism?” would be the game-winning response.

So naturally, you’re dying to know…
What’s it going to take to break my sales reps’ PowerPoint dependence? How do I revolutionize my obsolete sales process into 21st-century sales enablement that’s fit for today’s savvy, self-reliant B2B buyer?

And naturally…
We’re glad you asked.

BUILD THE RIGHT PRESENTATIONS
…and the buyers will come.
The right presentation management platform empowers your sales team to meet and exceed the daunting demands of today’s B2B buyers.

1. Don’t throw out “the basics” with the bathwater.

Maintaining relevancy to your buyers is still vital. Being consistent with your messaging and branding has not changed. Providing distinct value is still your ongoing mission. So you need to make sure your platform is equipped with the tools to keep these basics going for you.

Make sure your presentation management platform has the following legacy capabilities:

• Central access
• Easy search and retrieval
• Custom presentation creation
• Branding/messaging control
• Automated updating
• High-level tracking and reporting

2. Surge beyond simple search.

Today’s B2B buyers expect quick, relevant responses to their requests, no matter where they are in the buying process. There’s no place for time-intensive search ventures through vaults of mismanaged information, and certainly no room for a hit-and-miss methodology when it comes to relevancy.

Your presentation management platform should offer recommendations for presentations or slides based on each buyer and each selling situation.

• With user-friendly Q&A wizards, your sales rep is presented with the right material at the right time, every time.
• These recommendations point the rep toward deliberately targeted material, created by your marketing department, to fit each unique selling situation and point in the buyer’s decision-making process.

3. Your buyers’ inboxes have something to say:
Enough already!

The buyer’s experience is the number-one factor influencing his purchase decision. Yet email is still the dominant channel used to distribute presentations. Emailed presentations don’t do much for the buyer experience. Actually, scratch that: They detract from the buyer experience quite a bit. Your buyers get frustrated scouring through your sea of emails, and they’ll likely give up when tasked with piecing together your intended story (as awesome as it may be!) from multiple attachments.

Your presentation platform must boast highly evolved sharing capabilities via sales portals.

• Invite your buyers into a private portal, where they’re able to access all your presentations and slides.
• Your presentation material is organized, tagged and categorized so the buyer views what they want and gets their answers quickly and efficiently.
• Buyers are able to invite other buying-team members to share your material and elicit interactive feedback that squelches buying bottlenecks and promotes consensus.

4. Dress to impress.

Remember: Face-to-face meetings are still the most effective sales tactic, and the buyer experience is still the number-one ingredient in sales enablement. So it’s crucial that you put your best foot, face and presentation forward.

Your presentation management platform must help you do just that. How? Creating slideshows with impact. In other words, it should help you turn your PowerPoints into rich multimedia experiences.

• Enhance presentations with voice annotations, sticky notes, slide zooming and video clips.
• Level up your slides to compete with those flashy PowerPoint alternatives.
• Create cloud-based slideshows to present anywhere, anytime via mobile device.

5. Put it all together and what do you get?

We’re all “bottom-line” people here. So what’s the bottom line when it comes to presentation management? Sales enablement.

This blog post has (hopefully) hit home to you that presentations are an essential resource for your sales reps’ arsenals. But it’s not the only resource they need for sales success. The leading sales enablement consultants champion an integrated environment of resources: tools that are all required and must be utilized in coordination with each other and in alignment with the sales and buying processes.

Your presentation management platform must integrate with all these other systems, platforms and resources that your sales team needs to 1) execute with efficiency and 2) dominate the modern market.

• Content marketing assets
• Coaching tips
• Subject matter experts
• Analytics engines
• Workflow forums
• Sales asset management (SAM) and content resource management (CRM) platforms

A presentation platform that is disconnected from your sales enablement ecosystem might as well be a ship lost at sea. It may be big and make a lot of noise, but is anyone really seeing and hearing it out there?

Take your presentation management platform into the 21st century with Accent Technologies. Fill out the form the button below to get the conversation started about empowering your sales team with a presentation platform designed for savvy, game-changing sales enablement.