Developing a Sales Story Customers Respect

For the past few years I have been building the sales efforts for two early stage start-ups. For 18+ years prior I was part of the sales efforts for a few mid-sized companies and also led sales teams at larger corporations as well.

Many businesses regardless of size struggle to put together the right customer presentation. It is a never ending process to improve the presentation, and even more difficult to simplify.

Part of my conversation with people on building the right sales story is that it is not just about having a good looking “deck”. It is about looking deeper at why a product sells or does not sell to frame the right "sales story".

For the most part there are only three reasons a product does not sell. Reason one is that there is a problem with the product. Reason two is that there is a problem with marketplace perception of the product. Reason three is that the wrong people are selling the product.

Typically though I find even a terrible seller can generate lots of revenue from an outstanding product.

However, the goal of this write up is to help build the right story for great sellers to maximize their potential and revenue for the products they are bringing to market.

Sell a Solution to Your Customer’s Problems

One of the most common requests and conversations I have is about what presentation format I use to tell our company story, and how do I talk about features, benefits, the product etc.

My short answer is always no one cares about me, or my product, and no one will care about you and your product. But… Anyone you present to always cares about their own products, customers, and fixing their issues.

Before I build a deck and just use it, I actually do a bit of research and work with literally every group inside of my company and talk with customers + prospects to get the message right. Better to ask for advice on what the market thinks before just showing up and trying to sell, right?

So below I will frame out the five steps I take to build the right, short but informative presentation. Ready?

First – Conduct Internal & External Interviews

The first thing I do is create a short survey that I send internally to our sales and sales support teams. Then I send a different survey to our customers and to key prospects we have a good rapport with. SurveyMonkey is the product I use to conduct the survey and gather the results.

Survey 1 - Questions asked internally to our sales & sales support teams:

1. What do you like about our products?
2. What needs to be improved in our products?
3. Which of your customers have had the best results from our products & why?
4. If you have lost a sale to a competitor who was it and why?

Survey 2 - Questions asked externally to our customers & prospects:

1. What do you like about our products?
2. What needs to be improved in our products?
3. Do you require training or assistance to use our product?
4. How effective is our product for you?
5. Which of our competitors does a better job than we do & why?

Just because you have a product you are selling does not mean you cannot try and improve it, right? The more effort you put into creating a better product the better your story will be. And… You know that a better story will allow you to sell more.

Second – Present Survey Results

Once you get all of your data in, aggregate it and then do a simple write up showing what you found to internal constituents. You should also go back to key customers that are open to helping you further and show them your results too.

Then with the survey info distributed, review “The Basics” internally to make sure all are on the same page. When “The Basics” are put into a presentation it will fill up just eight pages. So you are asking, what are “The Basics”?

Third – Write Up & Detail “The Basics”

The basics form an overview of what you need to know before going to market. Also, talking openly in the company about The Basics help to get buy in from everyone at all levels of your company to make sure you are all on the same page. Having everyone know The Basics helps drive improvements needed that came out of the survey.

The more everyone talks about the sales story the more everyone wants to help be part of the success of sales. If you are not able to generate sales of a product successfully, fail fast, get out and sell another product.

The eight slides for “The Basics” contain the following:

1. Overview: What does your company do? What problems do you solve for your customers?
2. Customer: How many types of customers do you have? What are they?
3. Type of Sale: Is this a complex sale or a short term / relationship driven sale?
4. Who is Seller: Direct sales, inside sales, Indirect/3rd party sales?
5. Price/Fee: What is the price or fee you will charge by product? What do competitors charge?
6. Alternatives: Who else is doing this / what are customer’s alternatives?
7. Value Points: What are your differentiators vs. competitors?
8. Target Customer: Who are your target customers?

It is very important for everyone in the company to be on the same page regarding the above eight basics. Once you have buy in on this, and insights from the survey you are then ready to build your presentation that you can take to customers.

Fourth – Build Your Sales Presentation

Customers like to be entertained. A boring pitch will not help you sell more. Below are the nine slides every seller should have to make the most successful sales presentation. If you need 1 or 2 more slides that is OK. If you can give the presentation in less than nine even better.

1. Market: What part of the market are you creating value for? What are the key trends?
2. Problem You Solve: What problems do you have solutions for that talk to each client type? (You may need to have a unique slide or deck for each category of customer you pitch if you are solving problems that are unique to different customer types you pitch…)
3. Product/Service: What are your products & services? How do they work?
4. Marketplace Benefits: What are the benefits the market will derive from the product or service?
5. Alternatives: What alternative options does the market have to your product? How are you better?
6. Proof: What proof or evidence is there to substantiate your value proposition?
7. Customer Benefits: List Benefits for customer. How do you make the customers life better?
8. Costs: List Costs for customer
9. Value Gained: List Value or ROI gained for customer

And course after the pitch say thank you, ask to find out who else you need to talk with or just ask for the sale. You may get so excited after having such a good meeting that you forget to start working on getting a deal done :-)

Fifth – Write Up Your Elevator Pitch

If you are in the proverbial elevator with a potential top prospect, or with your grandmother at lunch, and they asked what you do, what would you say?

All of this info can be extracted from “The Basics” and your new sales presentation. This might even be a great way to open your meeting before getting into your new presentation.

The Elevator Pitch

First: Address what you do? [NAME OF YOUR COMPANY] is: Item 1, Item 2

Second: Address what makes you different? Customers find that: Item 1, Item 2

Third: Address how you are better? Customers like that [NAME OF YOUR COMPANY] offers: Item 1, Item 2

Good luck building your *New* messaging and closing more deals! 

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Sometimes the internal sale is more difficult than the external sale check out Office Politics Made Simple.

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