Are your sales presentations stuck in the 20th century? Sales Presentations For Dummies rises to the challenge of guiding you through the process of engaging and persuading busy buyers in a world that's constantly bombarding them with sales pitches. Motivating today's buyers to pull the trigger on a new deal requires a certain set of skills, and this straightforward text guides you through what you need to know to create and deliver compelling presentations. Pulled from examples and experiences of thousands of actual sales presentations, the information in this innovative resource offers the tools and tips you need to keep your leads engaged from hook to call to action. Today's business landscape is competitive. When your sales presentation is being compared to countless others, it's important to stand out for all the right reasons. Instead of using dated sales approaches,, update your understanding of the art of selling—and create compelling, engaging presentations that hook audience members from the beginning. Leverage a proven, blockbuster formula that engages audiences in any industry Use the power of storytelling to connect with prospective clients and soften their resistance to your sales pitch Understand and apply customer insights to ensure that your solution is top-of-mind in purchasing decisions Update your professional skill set to encompass today's most motivating sales tactics Sales Presentations For Dummies brings your sales style into the 21st century and connects you with the skills you need to excel in today's complicated business landscape.

FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the Net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

Rule the Room is the product of Jason Teteak’s twenty-year experience as a trainer and coach. His thoroughly tested advice covers every presenter’s concerns, from hooking the audience immediately to entertaining them, and from overcoming your fears to handling questions. He covers every base—content creation, delivery, audience management— with an overview plus step-by-step instructions, review exercises, and scores of specific and practical tips. Whether you want to persuade, motivate, teach, or inspire, Rule the Room can be your guide.

Presentation Patterns is the first book on presentations that categorizes and organizes the building blocks (or patterns) that you’ll need to communicate effectively using presentation tools like Keynote and PowerPoint. Patterns are like the lower-level steps found inside recipes; they are the techniques you must master to be considered a master chef or master presenter. You can use the patterns in this book to construct your own recipes for different contexts, such as business meetings, technical demonstrations, scientific expositions, and keynotes, just to name a few. Although there are no such things as antirecipes, this book shows you lots of antipatterns—things you should avoid doing in presentations. Modern presentation tools often encourage ineffective presentation techniques, but this book shows you how to avoid them. Each pattern is introduced with a memorable name, a definition, and a brief explanation of motivation. Readers learn where the pattern applies, the consequences of applying it, and how to apply it. The authors also identify critical antipatterns: clichés, fallacies, and design mistakes that cause presentations to disappoint. These problems are easy to avoid—once you know how. Presentation Patterns will help you Plan what you’ll say, who you’ll say it to, how long you’ll talk, and where you’ll present Perfectly calibrate your presentation to your audience Use the storyteller’s “narrative arc” to full advantage Strengthen your credibility—and avoid mistakes that hurt it Hone your message before you ever touch presentation software Incorporate visuals that support your message instead of hindering it Create highly effective “infodecks” that work when you’re not able to deliver a talk in person Construct slides that really communicate and avoid “Ant Fonts,” “Floodmarks,” “Alienating Artifacts,” and other errors Master 13 powerful techniques for delivering your presentation with power, authority, and clarity Whether you use this book as a handy reference or read it from start to finish, it will be a revelation: an entirely new language for systematically planning, creating, and delivering more powerful presentations. You’ll quickly find it indispensable—no matter what you’re presenting, who your audiences are, or what message you’re driving home.

What's the secret to sales success? If you're like most business leaders, you'd say it's fundamentally about relationships-and you'd be wrong. The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them. The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades. Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors' study found that every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one-the Challenger- delivers consistently high performance. Instead of bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer's every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale. The things that make Challengers unique are replicable and teachable to the average sales rep. Once you understand how to identify the Challengers in your organization, you can model their approach and embed it throughout your sales force. The authors explain how almost any average-performing rep, once equipped with the right tools, can successfully reframe customers' expectations and deliver a distinctive purchase experience that drives higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.

True or false? In selling high-value products or services: 'closing' increases your chance of success; it is essential to describe the benefits of your product or service to the customer; objection handling is an important skill; open questions are more effective than closed questions. All false, says this provocative book. Neil Rackham and his team studied more than 35,000 sales calls made by 10,000 sales people in 23 countries over 12 years. Their findings revealed that many of the methods developed for selling low-value goods just don‘t work for major sales. Rackham went on to introduce his SPIN-Selling method. SPIN describes the whole selling process: Situation questions Problem questions Implication questions Need-payoff questions SPIN-Selling provides you with a set of simple and practical techniques which have been tried in many of today‘s leading companies with dramatic improvements to their sales performance.