HOW IMPORTANT ARE YOUR PRESENTATION SKILLS? -by Shamus Brown

HOW IMPORTANT ARE YOUR PRESENTATION SKILLS?
-by Shamus Brown

Guys! I didn't start out my life with the
intention of being a salesman. No. As a matter of fact, in
my late teens, I thought that "sales and marketing" were a
lot of what was wrong with American business.
I got into sales by accident.

I wasn't one of those kids selling seeds and magazines
subscriptions door-to-door.

I was someone always fascinated with building things.
Building and transforming businesses were what I wanted to
do.

You may not know this, but I have a degree in Engineering.
Yep, got one from one of the more prestigious places you can
get one, the College of Engineering at the University of
California in Berkeley.

I spent my 5 years of college with the full intention of
going on to graduate school. I wanted to study business
*and* law, and I thought that a technical engineering
background would give me a powerful combination to go into
business with.

Well life got in my way my senior year of college, and I
came down with a serious illness just before I was to take
my standardized tests to apply to grad school.

Grad school was out, and I had to look for a "job".

About a month before I was to graduate, I didn't have a job
in sight. Then something unique happened for me. IBM lifted
their hiring freeze and did a job fair on campus. I saw
their openings for sales jobs, and I got excited because
1) an IBM sales job would pay well, and 2) a computer sales
career would allow me to combine my interest in persuasion
with my interest in technology and computers.

Within a couple of weeks, I had secured an awesome job with
IBM in their downtown San Francisco office. I was psyched!

*** I tell you this because I want to share with you why I
went into sales, and what I learned when I got there.

One of the biggest things I wanted out of becoming a
salesman was to become a great presenter. I have always
truly enjoyed watching a great speaker entertain and
mesmerize me.

The way some people like to watch sports, I like watching a
great speaker.

I wanted to be a great speaker. And I thought that
becoming a professional salesperson would help me.

The funny thing I found out after just a few months as a
sale professional was that you didn't have to be a great
speaker to be an effective salesman. I learned how to be an
OK presenter at IBM, but my years at IBM didn't teach my how
to WOW and audience like I wanted to (I had to start my own
business as a sales trainer to finally develop that skill).

What I discovered was that the most important skill needed
to be effective in sales is the ability to qualify your
prospects.

You see I was selling big ticket items: Computer systems
that had to have their own air-conditioned rooms and costs
hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars to
purchase.

Due to the cost and complexity of these systems, there were
always multiple decision-makers involved. Buying decisions
typically took months - 3 months was fast, 6-9 months was
pretty common. And I always had a team of pre-sales experts
that I could direct to present the right information to the
prospect as the sale progressed.

The decision at the beginning of the sales cycle of whether
or not to pursue the deal was of prime importance. If I lost
a deal, then I had just wasted 1000s of dollars in sales
team staff time that could have been used on to help close
other sales.

A big part of effective selling is sorting the wheat from
the chaff... qualifying who deserves your sales time, and
who does not.

Qualifying I believe is one of the most important sales
skills to possess.

Spend your time well, and you make a lot of money.

Spend your time on loser prospects and you'll become a sales
loser yourself.

You can be an awesome presenter, but without qualifying
effectively, you just won't ever sell at your full
potential.

If you want to make a lot of money in sales, focus on
developing your client interviewing skills, understanding
your competition, and knowing why past customers have bought
from your company. Learn these three things well, and you'll
possess the stuff that great salespeople are made of.

ADVICE TO SALES PEOPLE WHO WANT TO CLOSE MORE SALES

Forget giving away your time, attention and knowledge to
prospects who don't purchase. Learn 5 simple skills that
will enable you to close significantly more in the same time
that you are working now. No more cheesy closing lines.