Sales Presentations On Mute? It’s Time To Speak Up

Selling is unpredictable. It didn’t always used to be that way, but that was when the seller had all the power. With the scales officially shifted and buyers holding all the cards, sales reps no longer get by with one-way monologues and single-surface spiels. B2B buyer confidence and decision consensus must be earned, and this means creating textured sales presentations that speak to buyers on their terms – and with more than just stats on a slide.

Voice strikes a cord.

Winning sales presentations respect buyer intelligence. They demand attention with interactive engagement. They pinpoint pains with hyper-personalized, precision-targeted messaging. But, most important, winning presentations invite the buyer into the conversation.

Buyers want to be spoken with, not sold to. With buyer portal technology, your reps use the greatest power they have, their conversational skills, to speak to the buyer with a voice that engages, assures and informs.

Your buyers have to feel your presentations. This requires stepping onto that field of emotions, which means changing the tune of your sales game – because not everyone is a reader.

All buyers are people. No person is the same.

If you gave a group of people the option to watch a video or read an article – both on the same topic – the video would take the cake. Watching video is, for most people, a lot more enjoyable than reading text. But the video’s entertainment advantage is nothing new, and it’s not the whole story.

Audio-visual presentations are about more than just entertainment and aesthetic appeal. Some buyers need this show-and-tell sell to truly get on board with the information. Remember: Buyers are people, and some people absorb content more easily when it’s streamed through their eyes and ears – not just plopped on a page or flashed on a slide.

• Visual learners make up 65% of the population.
  Charts and graphs make more of an impact than plainly stated stats.
• 30% of the population is composed of auditory learners.
  These people learn and remember best when they hear the information.

Understanding the way people learn and process information isn’t just for the education sector. This awareness has huge ramifications for businesses, too. Consider these findings from a Forbes Insight report on senior executives’ preference for video:

• 59% prefer to watch video instead of reading text.
• 65% visit a vendor’s website after watching a video.
• More than 50% share work-related videos with colleagues at least weekly, receiving them just as often.

It’s not because we’re lazy that we crave information on that multimedia platter. Our palate for interactive content stems from basic biology.

• Our brains are wired for visuals.
  The brain processes visual information 60,000 faster than text.
• We pay special attention to faces.
  There’s a particular part of the brain, the fusiform gyrus, that’s entirely dedicated to recognizing and interacting with faces. It’s hardwired to make us zero in on the human face as a focal point for information and believability.
• We perk up to voice.
  The sound of the human voice triggers the auditory parts of our brain to listen up and take heed. 
• Emotion makes a difference.
  Expressions relayed in voice intonation and body language spark the limbic system: the part of our brain that regulates mood, motivation and drive. This tags the content being presented as more impactful, memorable and likely to be shared with coworkers, friends and family.
• Movement moves us.
  The V5 area of our visual cortex is specialized to detect movement. This ability dates back to the days of cave dwelling, when recognizing and reacting to peripheral motion were essential to survival.

If you really want to speak volumes to your buyers and get your reps selling to the tune of sales enablement, you need to recruit the right technology.

The buyer portal puts a voice to your words.

Put simply, a buyer portal is a content management platform.

• Organized as a private, secure and typically web-based environment, the portal is a place where both buyer and seller are able to share and view content, meet virtually and communicate.
• The portal offers a specialized repository for the sales rep to upload and send everything a buyer may need. This singular hub keeps all content in one place, all processes consistent and all team members on the same page.

Portal technology brings a lot of benefits to the sales enablement table, but perhaps the most powerful one is the merger of spoken voice and written word.

Voice is great.
It conveys emotion, but it’s not always possible.
Words are good, too.
They’re efficient and easy, but they don’t engage like audio with inflection and tone.
But voice and words together?
Now you’re talking.

It’s the conversation that sells.

Your buyers hate the hard sell. They don’t want the pundit pitch. Today’s buyers demand to be engaged and respected, to take part in and have control over the sales process. A buyer portal solves this pain by empowering your sales reps with the art of conversation.

• Invite the buyer in.
  The buyer gets access to a reservoir of powerful information and industry knowledge, feeling a sense of control over the buying process and gaining confidence in your business.
• Do more and reach more.
  Multidimensional presentations tap into your buyers’ various senses and brain regions at once. Plus, they cater to all types of learners: auditory, visual and even tactile.
• Create an experience.
  Reps pull their unique conversation styles and skills into a dynamic, voice-annotated message, setting the groundwork for an exceptional, personalized experience that’s critical to sales enablement. 
• Cater to each buyer persona.
  Reps are able to pinpoint specific buyer pains by choosing which value points to convey and what information to emphasize via images, graphs, notes and other personal touches.

Cash in on the perks of the portal.

With portal technology and sales presentation software, it’s easy for your reps to create vocal slideshows that talk your buyers through the information and redefine the way people think about your solutions.

Reps add texture and tone to sales presentations, amping up the value of their message, with a variety of content options:

• Slides
• Pages
• Movies
• Website links
• Images
• Sticky notes
• Voice overlay
• Comments

It’s the conversation that sells. Speak to your buyers (and let them be heard) with sales and marketing technology that adds voice and vision to your presentations.