Meghan called.  She was a high school senior, my daughter’s friend and highschool classmate.  She had a summer job selling for the CutCo Knife Company, and wanted to make a presentation to us in our home. 

I said, “Yes,” although my wife was uncomfortable that she might have to say, “No,” to Meghan.  So she arranged to be out of the house when Meghan arrived.

On the appointed evening, Meghan carried her hefty sales case through the front door and set up on the dining room table.   While she was unpacking her wares, she asked me if I would please get her a glass of water.  I did, and when I returned to the dining room and sat down, she asked me to get the knives we currently used and bring them in.

I went back to the kitchen and returned with the knives.  When she was all set up, she asked me, “How would you describe your current knives?”

“Old, dull and inadequate,” I said.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.  I described how hard it was to keep them sharp, how some of the blades were so old they were worn thin, and how some of the blades wobbled in their handles.

 She pulled a length of rope from her case, and asked me to cut it with my sharpest knife.

“My sharpest?  That’s not saying much,” I said, taking my grandfathers old carving knife that was probably a good 70 years old.  It had a hardwood handle.

Meghan held the rope down on a cutting board that she pulled from her bag.  “Count the movements back and forth,” she said. 

 I began to saw.  It took fourteen saws.

“Now hold it down for me,” she said.  She picked up one of her new knives from a wooden block.  I grabbed one of the lengths and held it down.  “You’re stronger than I am, but count the saws it takes me with this knife,” she said.

 It took her four.

“Let me try that,” I teased her, as if she had done something slick.  I took the knife from her while she held the rope down on the cutting board.  Expecting it to be difficult, I pressed hard with the new knife and sawed through the rope in two strokes.

 I was impressed.

Meghan asked me to bring my best pair of kitchen scissors to the table.  They were also old, and could not make a dent on the rope.  She got out her CutCo scissors, and not only cut through the rope with ease, she also cut a penny in half.

I was pretty much sold.  She gave me information about the steel and the handles.  She showed me the different sets I could buy.  My wife came home and I called her in to the dining room.  She sat down reluctantly, and I asked Meghan to do the rope trick.  She had my wife count the strokes, etc. etc. and I saw my wife change from skeptic to true believer in a matter of seconds.

“Do the scissor trick,” I said.  Meghan cut the rope and the penny.  I saw Sharon’s eyes wander over to the full set of kitchen knives displayed on the table in a butcher block case.

We ended up buying all the kitchen knives and a set of 12 steak knives.  They remain in their butcher block on the kitchen counter seven years later.
                                                         ______

Selling by telling is what most of us do.  But selling by doing is more powerful because it’s active and experiential.  You could say that conversation is also experiential (in that we experience it) but words are more likely to get caught in the filters of the mind and not reach the muscles.  

I know of one law firm that goes to major corporations who are shopping for a new legal advisor, and begins by saying, “We can do the March of a Thousand Slides, or we can have a discussion about your issues so you can get a feel for what it’s like to work with us.” 

More often than not, the clients look at each other and choose to have the discussion.   

An active audience is more likely to be moved than a passive.  Hitler knew this, unfortunately, and had his followers do their “Sieg heils,” throughout his speeches. 

Meghan was trained by a very successful company.  She got me to do things—bring water, bring knives.  She got me to say things, “Old, dull and inadequate.”  She had me cut rope, and compare the old with the new.  It was sensational—literally sensational—in that it gave me a sensation, like driving a new car after you’ve been driving your old one for 10 years.

Plus, she was Meghan, my daughter’s friend, and the daughter of my friend Merrill.  She was in a strong position to win my business. 

According to Robert Cialdini and others, there are at least 25 proven Principles of Persuasion.  Meghan may have invoked 7 in her brief visit to our dining room. 

What can we as business speakers, and as sales professionals, learn from this exchange?  Stay tuned for more. 

I’ve been introduced with fanfare, and I’ve been introduced with a kind of shrug in my general direction, as if to say, “Hey Sims.  You’re on.”

I like fanfare, pomp and circumstance.  But when it’s touting my resume and puffing me up to make me look important, I’m embarrassed.  I wonder if I’m going to live up to the inflated expectations being created.

I like speakers who are capable of disguising their preparedness with a cloak of informality and spontaneity. 

For instance, I just spoke to a guy who sells software to hospitals.  His favorite presentation happened a year ago, when he was alone with the entire C-suite of a major hospital chain—just him, a whiteboard, and the senior execs. 

He was drawing pictures, constructing diagrams, and modeling their IT infrastructure on the board, all the while answering questions and learning about their business.

It was a sales call, but it was really a chalk-talk. 

This guy is a National Sales Director, so he doesn’t need a PowerPoint deck or a pitch book.  His experience gives him the ability to make it look easy.  He knows his product, their business, and how to connect with them

A sense of ease is the mark of a pro.  Watch Tom Brady or Eli Manning in the midst of battle, and they look like they’re on a stroll with their grandma. 

I’m not saying that formality doesn’t have it’s place in presenting.  But a sense of ease that puts the audience at ease is also a powerful technique.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Let’s call her Sheila.  Like many in the financial services industry, she sells with the aid of a pitch book, printed in landscape format and containing information about the history of her firm, her team of colleagues, their range of services, the historical performance of their funds, and their fees. It’s a handsome piece, with beautiful thick card stock for covers, and full color graphs and pictures throughout. It took her firm a year and a half of internal wrangling to produce it.

When we sat down to role play, she directed me to the first page, which was covered with bullet points enumerating the key features and benefits of her firm. I was soon lost in a jungle of terms, ideas, and services with which I was not familiar.

When she paused, I jumped in and asked her if I could tell her about my situation and what I thought I needed. She apologized for plowing through the boilerplate and allowed me to describe the situation I faced.

As I was speaking about the need to get my finances in order and to help my aging parents with theirs, she stopped me and referred me to page 18 in tab 3 to show me her firm’s trust and estate capabilities.

I listened to what she said about their long history helping people preserve assets across generations, but still I felt as though I wasn’t being heard, or I wasn’t hearing what I needed.

I stopped the role play and said that I felt that I was being drowned in information, and that I wanted her to show some bedside manner. I instinctively trusted that she knew about investing–after all, I was referred to her by a friend who used her services–but I did not feel that she had learned enough about me.

As I was saying this, Sheila interrupted me to say that this was just a role play and that of course she would do that in real life. I asked if she was aware that I found it difficult to get a word in. She said no. I began to explain my experience and she interrupted me to tell me that others had told her the same thing.

“What have they told you?” I asked.

“They’ve told me that I interrupt people,” she said.

“Did they tell you how they felt about being interrupted?”

“I assume they don’t like it,” she said. “But some people are just slow. They need to be straightened out.”

“What about your prospects? What happens when you straighten them out?”

“I suppose they think that I know more than they do. That’s what they’re paying me for.”

“To interrupt them? To correct them?”

“Well, I don’t have all day. People shouldn’t be so sensitive.”

I began to ask her again how people might feel about being interrupted when she cut me off to say that she thought I wanted her to use the pitch book–and that was why she hadn’t asked me questions.

I said, “You interrupted me again.”

She acknowledged that she had, but said she had to say what came into her mind before she forgot it.

“But if you do that, you cut the other person off,” I said, “And they feel that you’re dictating the flow and direction of the exchange.”

Our session continued in this manner, and every time Sheila interrupted me, I pointed it out and asked her what she should say.

“I’m sorry?” she asked.

“Yes. What else?”

“I’m sorry? I interrupted you? Please continue?”

“That’s a good start,” I said. “If you can’t change your habit of interrupting right away, at least become mindful of it, and apologize.”

According to a poll conducted by the Gallup Organization, the number one most disliked habit in conversation is “people who interrupt.” The second is “people who use profanity.” The third is “people who mumble.”

And along the same lines, the four biggest mistakes that sales people make?

1. They talk too much
2. They don’t ask enough questions
3. They don’t listen well
4. They are too quick to offer solutions

Let’s call her Sheila, but let’s understand she’s like most of us. We all have our pitch books and boilerplate. We think selling is about talking. We think listening is easy. It’s not, because to listen well requires that we drop our self interest momentarily and help the other person articulate clearly what they have not been able to say so clearly before.

Believe it or not, that’s a great service.

When transforming your house into a dream home, talk to three architects.

When getting heart surgery to transform the quality of your life, talk to three surgeons.

And to transform your sales presentations, talk to three consultants.

I have three people in mind. The first is Ford Harding, a sales consultant to professional service firms and the author of Creating Rainmakers, (Wiley 2006) and other books on selling professional services. Ford has helped umpteen thousand professionals get over themselves and bring in business.

The second is Suzanne Lowe, a marketing consultant and author of Marketplace Masters: How Professional Firms Compete to Win. As Ford says, she can get a burlap bag full of cats, dogs and canaries to hum the same tune.

The third is me, Sims Wyeth, a presentation coach whose mission is to transform the personal impact of business presenters.

To officiate, we have assembled a panel of fifteen objective judges selected for their diversity along multiple dimensions.

Here are THE FIVE DON’TS OF SALES PRESENTING in no particular order.

Don’t even go to the presentation if the client won’t meet with you ahead of time so you can learn what they want and why they want it. Your time is extremely valuable, as is theirs, and you should not waste either their time or yours by pursuing an opportunity for which you are not suited, or by traveling to recite information they could read in a brochure, e-mail, or website.

Don’t assume that the presentation begins when you stand in front of the room and open your mouth. In reality, you began presenting when the prospective client first encountered you and your team—perhaps months before, on the phone, on the web, or in person, when their search for a provider began. Your behaviors, and your tangibles (including your brochure and office) throughout the preliminary discussions and scheduling of the presentation play a significant role in their ultimate decision

Don’t be late, unprepared, sloppy, rude, poorly dressed, or tense when you enter the meeting room. People want to do business with people they like and trust. A sales presentation is a formal social occasion as much as it is a business transaction. Therefore, be attentive to all aspects of the conversation. Show interest at all times. Do not slouch in your chair, Blackberry under the table, conduct side conversations, scowl, be boring, or dominate the conversation. A bad dinner guest is the same as a bad salesperson.

Don’t elevate prospects to a higher status than yourself, nor should you look down your nose at them for any reason. You do the potential partnership a disservice on both counts. Treat your prospects as equals—partners with whom you can be yourself and speak your mind.

Don’t go there to sell them anything. If you do, they will smell it. Go there to help them. Don’t make the presentation all about you. Make it all about them.

If you would like to submit additional Sales Presentation Don’ts, Ford, Suzanne, and I are glad to pass them on to our totally objective board of fifteen judges for rating.

To see a marketing expert’s choices for presentation Don’ts, go to Suzanne Lowe’s blog:

To see a sales consultant’s, go to Ford Harding’s blog.

You are currently on Sims Wyeth’s Blog.

Michael Blechar is a smart and thoughtful guy (and a very good writer.)  Years ago he told me about a good way to organize a sales presentation.

Recently, we were swapping emails about one of my Presentation Pointers (the one called the Power of Words), when I remembered to ask him about his approach.  He said he was not its author, nor could he remember who taught it to him.

Here it is.

1) Identify. – “I spent most of my career as a programmer and I can tell you that I do not envy your having to deal with management’s misconceptions of what it takes to build and maintain applications”. Or “Are you like me and wonder if ANYONE in Washington cares about us taxpayers?”

2) Attack – This is the statement of the problem we all share, or which I had to address and overcome. “I was being asked to do more with less”. “I have/had my hands full just trying to keep the operational systems up and running and respond to emergency changes….how was/am I supposed to suddenly find the time or get the tools and training to change these applications to new service-oriented architectural designs to be more agile in response to changing business needs?”

3) Confess – Personal statement of what I thought or was able/unable to do. “Truth was, I wanted to get the next generation of technology on my resume. I wanted to break out of my paradigm and take on something new. But I was scared. Could I do it? What if I failed? Would I get fired? Would it require extra time at the cost of my family to get trained and become proficient while I kept the current environment running?”

4) Solution – What I did and how I succeeded. “I decided to work part-time on a pilot project using the new methods and tools. While it increased my workload by about 20%, I discovered that by building things in a reusable way, I could now go back in and make rapid changes. Maintenance time dropped by 40% and I was able to do the next set of applications 20% faster. Testing time for applications went down drastically as I reused proven components. And quality went up factorially. I found I actually had more time to spend with my family and was under much less stress as the applications were more stable. Within 18 months I received a substantial salary increase. And, to be honest, I’ve been approached by other firms who are looking for people with my new skills”.

In other words:

1) I’m like you
2) I have the same problems you do
3) I have the same concerns about change as you do
4) I was successful and since I’m just like you, you can be too.

There is something very personal about this approach.  Instead of going straight to a recitation of  features and benefits, it encourages you to reveal something about yourself, connect with your audience on an emotional level about a problem you share with the audience, and speak from your own experience.

All of which should make you a more confident and convincing presenter.