Persuade, Don’t Explain

In your sales presentations, you will reach a pivotal point which could take your buyer either closer to or further away from agreement with your proposition. Many sales professionals loose their buyers at just this point. Instead of becoming more persuasive, more influential and bringing their buyers closer to a yes, their presentations often create confusion, lack of confidence or a general disinterest from the buyer. It is here that your powers to persuade will be tested. Does your explanation of how your product or service works help or hinder your pitch?

When explaining how your project works it is essential that you treat this portion of your presentation like you would any other opportunity to persuade. Mistakenly believing that this explanation is meant to educate your buyer can lead to your giving an exhaustive and confusing set of details that can serve as an excuse for your prospect to say no. Focus your presentation of how your product or service works on communicating the ease with which the project can be implemented, the many functions and uses it offers your prospect and the general feasibility of the idea.

Take the following example: Fran is selling a network marketing opportunity to a group of her friends, all of whom have shown up to a meeting at her home. Fran splits the group up in two and begins explaining how the opportunity, product sales and compensation plan works to the first group. Not long after she begins a complicated explanation of a binary recruiting system, Fran looks into her audience to see a crowd of confused faces. She goes into even more detail with the sales compensation plan which doesn’t seem to help. By the time the group leaves, without one person having signed up, Fran realizes that her explanation was too complicated and probably made them feel a little intimidated.

With her next group, Fran is determined to avoid making the same mistake twice. This time, she maps out a very simple explanation. She presents only the recruiting plan and does so with a watered down diagram that leaves out a great deal of information. The questions coming from the crowd about product sales, downlines and monthly quota requirements show Fran that she may have skimmed a little too much off of the details. The group leaves without signing up and Fran is sure this is because they have no confidence in the details of the plan.

Fran failed to use her “how it works” explanation as a tool of persuasion. First, she sought to educate the buyers with it. Going into such great detail made the buyers worry that the project may be too large an undertaking. Remember (even when you are selling to a corporation) you are always selling to an individual person. If your explanation makes the buyer in question envision having to do a great deal of work to pull this project off, it will be the quickest, easiest route to the word no.

Fran’s second attempt failed because she was trying to make it look too easy. In an effort to make sure that she did not confuse the buyers with unnecessary details, she went as far as to leave out the necessary details as well. Not only did she miss the opportunity to give the buyers pertinent details that may help them feel this proposition would work, but she also lost their confidence with an oversimplified explanation that caused the buyers to doubt her ability to successfully implement the project.

Action step: Go through your explanation of how your product or service works. Break it down into three or four easily explained steps that focus on persuading rather than educating the buyer. Be sure to include all pertinent information that could help sway the buyer to a yes.

Many presentations are met with a no purely because the buyer cannot visualize how all of the elements will work together. Confusing explanations that give too much detail can have the same negative effect on a presentation as simplified explanations that leave too much unsaid. In your efforts to explain how your product or service works be sure to focus on the elements that will help you persuade the buyer to buy.

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