There’s a better way, says Peter Finkelstein South Africa’s top sales coach and head of DaiShõ Marketing. Rather than concentrate on doing a presentation, focus your efforts on having diagnostic conversations that help you and the prospect fully understand the inefficiencies and performance gaps that are the at the root of the challenges he faces. Then work with the prospect to define solutions. When you’ve done things right in these two areas, putting together a winning presentation is like putting icing on a cake. Its an important finishing touch that needs a solid foundation to support it. Here are some ideas that can help do it right…

Use the customer’s fingerprints. Wherever possible use the prospects words and terminology in both your proposal and later, in your presentation. The rationale is simple! The more your proposal reads like a document that could have been produced within the prospect’s company, the more comfortable they’ll be with it. Similarly, the more your presentation sounds like a discussion that could be held within the prospect’s company, the more comfortable and engaged they’ll be

Solicit pre-presentation feedback. Once your proposal is complete and before you begin any work preparing your presentation, solicit feedback on your proposal from a senior member of the decision making team. This serves two purposes. It gives you important clues that ensure your presentation is on track and also helps gain support for your presentation.

Make your presentation participative. In short, this means you need to apply the concept of the prospect’s fingerprints again, only now you not only want to use their terminology and concepts, you want them to take an active role in the presentation. Prospect participation is particularly effective in communicating how your proposal fits in with the prospect’s ideas of a best fit solution. Work with one of the leading buying influencers with whom you have developed a close relationship. Arrange with him / her to participate in some areas of your presentation, perhaps when you are discussing implementation. Having someone from the prospect describe how the implementation will be integrated into the company reinforces the fact that your proposed solution is the right answer to the challenges the company faces and, can be integrated with limited risk. During your presentation hand over the microphone and allow the prospect to describe how you propose implementing the solution. The more involved the prospect is in the presentation – the more his “fingerprints” are all over it.