Flubbing your presentation and losing what should have been a sure sale is perhaps the only thing worse than not getting the opportunity to make your pitch at all as someone in sales. It happens to everyone at least once, even if you have the charisma to sell and the right product, getting your presentation strategies down can be tricky. However, if you put these three killer sales presentation strategies to work for you, and you can turn those missed opportunities into sealed deals.

Listen To the Customer

While we call this one of our presentation strategies, it should be more a way of running your business. This seems obvious, but falling into the trap of rambling on about YOUR product, YOUR company, YOUR service is one of the easiest mistakes to make when you’re trying to sell. Customers want to know what you can do for them, yes, but stopping, asking some questions, and letting them tell you is one of the easiest ways for both of you to find out what you can offer.

Listening plays as much a role in presentation strategies as it does in every other part of business. Not only will you engage the customer more with this method than with a long inflexible sales presentation about your products, you might work out a new product or feature which will help you seal future deals with greater success.

Prepare For Anything

One of the core presentation strategies: Be. Prepared. For. Anything. Smart salespeople don’t walk into a meeting with potential clients planning without a satchel full of presentation strategies, tactics, and just-in-case plans. While this seems incredibly obvious when stated, there is more to preparing for a meeting than going over your notes once and having a script. This has some overlap with listening to customers-know what questions to ask by researching the potentials. Do not leave anything to chance that you don’t have to-if someone asks you a question, have a solid answer ready.

Put together an outline of your presentation’s general flow, so you can move logically from one idea to another. If you have the head for it, a more advanced outline which allows for answering client questions to naturally segue into another prepared bit can work wonders. You will keep the customer’s attention and come across as more intelligent and confident-a definite plus when you’re trying to make a sale.

Know Your Next Move

Be ready for the myriad outcomes of a given presentation in advance, so you can make the smartest move toward a sale at the end. After all, not every meeting is going to immediately end in a sale-leaving things hanging on a vague promise of talking again can result in a languishing, ultimately failed sale. The best presentation strategies make the most of every situation.

Schedule follow-ups immediately-this flows into prep and listening, because if you’re truly prepared and paying close attention to the client, you won’t have to fumble for a schedule and lose momentum going back and forth hashing things out. Even if a hard meeting can’t be set up, have something ready to maintain your momentum and keep things moving forward towards a sale.

A Warning…

Don’t get so caught up in these sales presentation strategies that you forget the sales tactics which have served you thus far. After all, presentation strategies like these may win the wars, but you need good tactics to win individual battles. Just remember not to slack on the details such as careful word choice and body language.