Inevitably, fearful emotions bubble up and panicked salespeople propose overhauling your sales presentation. That’s OK, says Tom Searcy, CEO of Hunt Big Sales (huntingbigsales.com), a sales consultancy.
“Sometimes, breakthroughs happen when frustration gives way to a release of creative energy. But don’t count on it.” His tips for avoiding eleventh-hour anxiety attacks:
Be ruthless in preparation. Insist on giving all of the data to all members of your team as early as possible in the process. That includes a dossier on the target company, a profile of all participants in the buying process, and a copy of all communications regarding this deal.
Pick your team early. Don’t do the majority of the work and then bring them in. The team shapes the story, the key pitch points, the chemistry, the manufacturing process and more.
Set three meetings, minimum. That includes meetings to discuss deal strategy and prepare the pitch, along with a dress rehearsal or final review. You need these to be long enough to allow for vigorous discussion, a healthy fight and brainstorming.
Assign roles. People need to know up front what they will be responsible for. Who is handling communication with the client before and after the presentation? Who is responsible for creating the documents and pitch decks? Who will be the conductor during the pitch? If you assign these duties early, people will do a better job of handling the job and of planning time to do a good job.
No mind reading allowed. This leads to people seizing on the tiniest scrap of information about people on the prospect’s team and making enormous inferences based on what they want to believe rather than the way things really are. Start with the facts you know, evaluate the opinions you have heard, and finally take a moment to consider the gossip. Just make sure you don’t do it the other way around.
“This won’t completely fix things,” Searcy warns. “But taking your team through different kinds of maneuvers ahead of the real sales meeting will guarantee that everyone will know what to do. This is priceless.”
