B2B-sale: preparation, presentation, a key meeting and work with the client's contradictions (Part 2/4)

In the 1-st part we discussed how to get ready for the meeting with the B2B client:

• to get acquainted with the interlocutor beforehand;
• to find his imprint on the Internet;
• to learn about his work experience with the previous contractor.

Today we'll discuss what you should pay attention to while preparing for the presentation, how to keep the interlocutor's attention and not to confuse him during your story, how to show the product clearly and "tastily".

Show the difference between how the client's company works now and how the client's company works now and how it will change thanks to you.

There are 3 steps to help you:

Add some questions to the brief:

• how the processes are built now;
• about the experience of the work with the previous contractor;
• what was convenient and inconvenient;
• what you should change in the process.

Try to collect as much information as possible and analyze it.

It's important: the picture of the present must be truthful and create the desire to improve it, but not to be insulting for those, who is responsible for this direction now.

The picture of the future in the presentation must arouse pain from the fact, that everything is wrong for now.

E.g., you defend the creative strategy before the top manager of the customer.
First, you show your research of the actual situation.
Then – reflect the concrete result: what will happen if you implement the strategy.

This is the basic part of your presentation. It must be presented at the moment, when the interlocutor is interested in the difference between the actual and the offered future. Show that you can lead the client to the wonderful future.

It must be clear from the titles what is to be discussed right now. Nickname headlines, e.g. "Team", "Market", "Conversion" don't reveal the main idea of the slide.

Use the key theses as headlines that will explain your interlocutor, what you want to say. This will allow him not to read the whole text in the slide, but focus on listening to you.
Ask yourself: "What is the main idea of this slide?”. The answer that comes to your mind is going to be in the headline.

A pair of examples of good theses' headlines: "There are specialists with unique skills in our team", "Conversion will be higher if you add one more step into the sales funnel".

DON'T USE "Thanks for attention" in the end. Read here how to replace this.

The presentation logic is easily built on three main questions:

What is it?
How do we implement it?
What will it lead to?

Put these questions to every block of the presentation. The answers may be written right on the slides – the result is the ready text.

If you need to place much text on your slides, here we give some practical life hacks.

Show concrete stages and periods, in which the project will be implemented. Here one may not go deep in details, but it's important to show your approach to work.

In the third part we shall discuss our behavior at the meeting with the client and how you can take the leading position in the dialogue.