The importance of a good sales presentation for converting leads is immense. They help establish the relationship between buyer and seller and can be a great chance for sales teams to show the benefits of their product.
Data can help sales professionals elevate their presentations in many ways: from providing insight into the needs of the company they are selling to, as well as giving a greater understanding of the industry conditions the prospect is dealing with.
Here is a look at how data supports sales presentations.
Help Sales Teams Find Suitable Targets
A sales presentation can only be effective if it is targeted at a company which needs your product. Good data is essential because it helps sales teams to identify those suitable targets.
Businesses should first discover the type of company that uses their product. While most businesses already have a good idea of this, big data can help them dig deeper when it comes to finding patterns that may make a company more likely to buy from them.
On a basic level, businesses can look at their existing customers and find patterns relating to the industry and structure of companies that use their services. However, more detailed data allows businesses to go further with this research. For example, a marketing firm may discover it takes on most new clients at times when they are growing quickly, or that its clients generally work in highly competitive industries.
All this information can be put together to give sales teams actionable insight into the type of companies they should be targeting when building prospect lists. By doing so, they’ll know that once they get to the sales presentation stage, they’ll be talking to a company that is already primed to be a customer.
Tailor Presentations Based on Specific Company Requirements
In a 2012 paper, University of Memphis marketing professor John Cicala set out to find the differences between how buyers and sellers characterise what makes a good sales presentation.
Perhaps the most interesting observation in the paper is the way buyers and sellers view knowledge in a sales presentation. Specifically, while those in sales thought having knowledge about the product would make for a successful presentation, buyers were more concerned about how the product can help their company. Based on this, Cicala suggested sellers should focus the presentation on the benefit of the product to the company.
Data can help here by giving sellers in-depth information about leads, allowing the sales team to focus presentations on buyer benefits. For example, if the seller’s information shows the buyer is expanding at a rapid rate, an energy broker can highlight in the presentation the benefits of a flexible energy plan that will be easy to upgrade as the business grows.
Produce an Adaptive Presentation
The same paper also discussed key differences between how buyers and sellers look at adaptability. While buyers claimed they favoured presentations that simply explained the facts of the product and its benefits, sellers preferred an approach that told a story and sowed the seeds of a relationship with the buyer.
The potential impact of this difference in opinion was highlighted by one buyer who suggested that not only was a long presentation not particularly effective, but it meant the seller was “not courteous” of his time. This is a condition unlikely to lead to a sale.
Once again, data can help in this situation. Having more in-depth knowledge of a lead’s company and needs means sellers can cut fluff from their presentation and focus only on the most relevant ways their product can help a prospect.
Provide Sellers with Wider Industry Knowledge
Access to data not only helps sellers gain knowledge of individual companies, but also of overall industry trends that could be used in sales presentations. Having knowledge of the wider industry not only shows buyers that sellers have done their research, but also allows sellers to specify exact examples about how a buyer’s company may benefit from their product.
Take the example of a company that sells construction equipment. They already know that their equipment can increase the project efficiency of their customers. However, if the seller also has specific data that shows competition is intense in the construction sector, they can explain to leads how the product could allow them to undercut other firms’ prices, while keeping margins the same.
Show How Previous Companies Have Benefited from the Data
As well as providing sales teams with information about the prospective company, data can be used to clearly illustrate how other companies have benefited from the product they are selling. If the sales team can show clear examples of success, it will suggest to the lead that they may be able to achieve similar results.
For example, if a company selling accounting automation software includes data relating to the average amount of time or money its customers are able to save, it could give the sales presentation more authority and trust in it than if the sales team made claims without using data to back them up.
Red Flag Alert Data Can Improve Your Sales Presentations
Red Flag Alert can provide your business with the data it needs to improve sales presentations. Here is how it can help:
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The comprehensive data covers every business in the UK, including those newly formed – giving sales teams company-specific information to use in presentations, no matter which business it is for.
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The database is updated every day with over 100,000 business changes – that’s 2 million a month and 24 million changes a year, meaning sales teams will enter meetings confident their presentations are supported by the most relevant data.
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The depth of the data — covering everything from finances to industry and directors — means sales teams will have access to everything they could need to tailor sales presentations to specific businesses.
- The data can be filtered by industry, giving sales teams unique insight into the wider conditions a company is working in.
For a free consultation about how Red Flag Alert can help improve your sales presentations, as well as your sales efficiency in general, sign up for a free trial today.
