Solution Presentation

Y our final sales solution presentation for your products and services to your customer is the culmination of your sales campaign. You deliver your solution to a group of people to show your prospects how your solution will help them achieve their key business requirements.

The presentation may include multiple presentations made by different members of the sales team or a single presentation made to a group of your customer's personnel.

Your sales team's solution presentation will focus on building perceived value of your solution. Using the information you discovered during the sales campaign, these presentation ties together the information that is important to your customer. Use your presentation to build competitive advantage, and show the unique business value of your solution.

Very seldom do you win a deal by making one presentation, but one bad presentation can lose an opportunity. As a result, your solution presentation is a very high risk, high reward event.

There are many things that can go wrong in your presentation. Your solution may be incorrect, there may be new players at your presentation whose needs you haven't addressed, there may be an objection that is brought up for the first time which you may have never heard before, or one of many other things that can make your presentation go wrong.

There are many variables you need to manage in your sales solution presentation. Here are a number of things you can do to minimize the risk:

• Make sure that you use a process for the presentation.
• Maintain control of the presentations.
• Make certain to set the prospects expectations.
• Get agreement on your presentation from key stakeholders prior to the presentation.
• Be prepared to handle objections and unplanned group dynamics.

Having a well-thought-out plan will help your presentation team present a more concise and compelling presentation. Make certain everyone on your team understands their role, the message, the flow of the presentation, and the value your solution brings to the customers business issues.

Use your team appropriately. Generally, no one person has all the information the customer will need, so practice working together as a well coordinated high-performance team to deliver your solution. Review your presentations ahead of time to make sure you cover all pertinent information, and deliver a consistent message and story.

Your solution presentation is your time to compete against the competition. Make sure your competitive advantages, unique business value, and support of their business issues are well covered. Identify the specific attributes you want to show during your presentation, and personalize the key benefits that you want to communicate.

Each prospect has their own business and personal agendas. Each person has their own decision criteria and way of evaluating your solution. Make your presentation interesting, and memorable to the attendees.

Solution Presentation Planning

A good presentation does not happen spontaneously. It should be thought out, planned, and rehearsed before it ever is presented to the prospect. When you are planning and preparing your presentation, consider these areas below.

• Have a "theme to win" for your presentation which is relevant and meaningful to the customer.
• Recap the customer's key business requirements.
• Review the prospects desired business results.
• Review the customer's business issues, tactical pains, and consequences of those issues.
• Provide a similar customer story for a company that had the same business issues and challenges, and how you resolved that problem and what the benefits were of that resolution.
• Provide an overview of your solution in a concise and confident way and in language that the prospect understands.
• Discuss the attributes of your solution for each of the customer's pains and business issues.


• Discuss just the amount that is necessary to get your point across.
• Be confident and positive.
• Use the customer's language and information


• Personalize the benefits that you present to each appropriate level of the organization.


• Link your value to their individual panes related to the business issue.
• Attach the benefit specifically to each person by name or business unit or service unit that will receive the benefit.
• Link your benefits to other groups in the organization if possible.


• Discuss your competitive advantage


• Relay negative competitive information attributed to someone else; not directly from you.
• Remain positive and don't bad mouth competition.
• State your specific advantages that you have over the competition related to the prospects business issues.
• Highlight key competitive points and invite the customer to take action to confirm them.


• Link your value to business results


• Personalize the value to the key stakeholders and sponsors.
• Relate each benefit to the customer's business requirements.
• Be concise, factual, and brief.
• Summarize your value and your competitive differentiators.
• Describe how your solution has a unique ability to solve the prospects problems and deliver the desired business results.


• Have a close that leads to the next step


• Focus on the key stakeholders, or the sponsor.
• Propose the next step.
• Gain commitment and agreement on follow up actions.

Flow of the Solution Presentation

Here is a suggestion of flow for the actual presentation.

Set the Stage

• Gain your prospect's attention with a relevant and creative first impression that introduces the theme for the day.
• Make the introductions of yourself and your team and explain why each member is at the meeting.
• Set the expectation for the meeting and what you hope to accomplish from the viewpoint of the prospects objectives.
• Review the prospects business challenges, expected results, and the impact of key business issues on their goals and desired results.
• Gain commitment from the key stakeholders that the issues are still accurate and nothing has changed.
• Present an agenda for the presentation related to the key business issues, and gain agreement on the time allowed for the presentation.
• Confirm specific departure times if needed, and adjust the agenda if needed.
• Create an atmosphere that is interactive and open, and discuss how you would like to handle questions that come up during the presentation.

Presentation and Linkage to Business Issues

• Address the first key business issue that you want to discuss.
• Explain what is broken that will prevent them from achieving the key business issue.
• Explain the consequences of that problem.
• Explain how those consequences impact of the key business issue.
• Show how your part of your solution maps onto that problem path.
• Provide specific evidence that proves your solution addresses their problem.
• Provide specific benefit statements to all levels of the organization and all key stakeholders.
• Expand the benefit of your solution to other levels and areas of the organization if possible.
• Repeat the process for each the prospect's business issue paths.

Close the Solution Presentation

• Recap the key business requirements, business challenges, and summarize the proof you offered with your solution.
• Give an overview of your competitive advantages, value, and benefits of your solution.
• Ask for a specific action and gain agreement to move forward.
• Close the presentation with a polite and considerate comment that will make your time spent together memorable.

General Presentation Style Considerations

• Remained composed and just be yourself.
• Have a balanced open and energize posture that communicates confidence and comfort and conviction.
• Move naturally and with purpose and use the space available.
• Use natural and spontaneous gestures from your shoulders, arms, wrists and hands.
• Use effective facial expressions as appropriate and don't forget to smile.
• Breathe appropriately, speak with volume, and use a variety of low, medium, and higher pitched tones.
• Establishing and maintaining eye contact is one of the most important skills you can use to communicate confidence and honesty.
• Look at one person at a time to convey the feeling of a one-on-one conversations.
• Speak at a conversational rate and punctuate your content with pauses.

Conclusion

A well thought out and executed sales solution presentation is a big part of winning a competitive sales opportunity. It can also be a big part of losing a sale if done incorrectly. Take the time to prepare your presentation, rehearse with your team, and review with your coach or mentor at your prospect for content accuracy and impact. Then use your best style and techniques when delivering your solution presentation to the key stakeholders.

Related Articles

• Opportunity Management
• Opportunity Assessment
• Opportunity Plan
• Business Value
• Key Business Issues
• Political Alignment

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