One of the ways to cultivate these skills is to enroll in a sales presentation training program. These presentation skills courses provide guidelines that will help you in making successful sales presentations. They have experienced faculty to help train their students.

They also provide an opportunity to each student to practice during the sessions. This way, the students get a practical experience as well. They give students content and homework assignments that give them a chance to employ their acquired skills immediately. These courses also have a role playing session wherein the students get a feel of how they would have to perform and what difficulties they may face.

Those of you who opt for such a training course will learn the importance of making effective presentations. You will also learn how to use various techniques to get the desired results. You will be taught the working of different visual aids and the manner in which you can create effective slide presentations. These courses enable you to overcome your nervousness and deliver your presentation with confidence to inspire trust.

However, many institutes that offer sales presentation training courses take a specific time period before the program ends. To save this time, you can remember some of these tips that will definitely help you in improving your sales presentation skills.

Control your body language

During your sales pitch, make sure that you hold your body correctly. Your body language communicates a tremendous amount of information to the audience about your personality. If you show confidence in your body language, facial expressions and stance, you will be able to impress your prospects even more. The confidence of your body will motivate them to build a trust in whatever you say, resulting in good sales.

Become an enthusiastic leader

As a sales person, it is your job to lead your prospects into buying what you are selling. They are listening to you to get something from you. Therefore, if you want the audience to get excited about your service or product, create this emotion within yourself first. Do anything that excites you. Clap your hands, jump up and down. This would become a warm up for your presentation.

Prepare the prospects

You have to prepare your audience for the presentation.You can play some kind of music, depending on the audience you are going to address, before you step on the stage. This will act as an emotional warm up that will set the mood of the audience.

Following these tips can help you make a commendable sales presentation. If the mood is set and the preparations are made, there will never be a doubt of you giving a memorable presentation.

How is a job interview, an important sales call, or a big presentation just like when your turn comes in Olympic Competition? In all of these, your future hinges on how well you perform in the next few minutes. How can you increase your chances of success?

As any Olympic Athlete will tell you – it’s mostly about the work you do to prepare yourself. When it comes to that job interview, sales call, etc., it’s really no different. So, how to be prepared?

Of course it’s essential that your preparation include planning what you’ll say. However, studies show that words make up only 7% of the essence of communication. So, if you primarily prepare what you plan to say, you’ve missed out on preparing 93% of your communication. What is this other 93%? It’s your body language and your tonality. That’s right, more than 90% of the meaning of your message is conveyed not by your words, but by your body language and tone. This is what will make or break your interview. And how much time do you typically spend preparing the effectiveness of these elements of your communication? If you’re like most people, almost none.

Body language and tonality are mostly subconscious communication elements. That is, we are not consciously thinking about, paying attention to and choosing these moment by moment while we communicate. They are shaped by our mood, our inner voice, our state of being, at a subconscious level.

As the athletes know, winning is mostly a mental game. That is, believing, and actually being congruent behind your belief, are key. It’s no different in communication. To be an effective communicator, to have your tonality and body language supporting your message and your objective, is an inner, mental game.

So, how do you make yourself a winner in your “games”? How can you prepare way beyond your “script” and ensure that you get the gold – the job offer, the sale, the result you were hoping for?

Belief – The #1 Essential Winning Strategy

When you know you are the right person for the job, or that your offer can really help this person, then your body language and your tonality will naturally and powerfully communicate this. If you can’t easily visualize the outcome you desire as if it’s already happened, and see it unfolding that way in your inner view, chances are your tone of voice and your body language will reveal your doubt. Despite all the effort you put into carefully designing what you’ll say, the message you communicate will be “I’m not the right one for this job,” or “You probably don’t want to buy this.”

Imagination – Your Best Tool

To get congruent so that all of your communication elements – words, tone and body language – are projecting what you want to get across, you can use the amazing power of ….. your imagination.

If you were about to get on stage to give the performance of your life, wouldn’t you rehearse? Well – how about it? Set aside time and rehearse, much as you would if you were about to do a theatrical performance. Imagine it as vividly as you can, including the surroundings, what you are wearing, what the other person or people are like, what they say, and what you say. Imagine feeling strong and confident. Imagine it all the way through, from the very beginning, all the way to “winning” and the feelings of triumph and jubilation that accompany the win.

Your Inner Doubter Can Be Your Best Ally

Unlike a pre-scripted performance, you’ll also want to rehearse how you will deal with any “curve balls” they may throw your way. Get really creative. Here is where your inner doubter can become your best ally. All of the “but what ifs” that this inner doubter can come up with – rehearse the best possible scenario that would still move you forward toward your desired outcome. Play and have some fun with this. The more bases you cover, the less likely you are to get tripped up during the real event.

It’s especially powerful to actually speak out loud as you do this rehearsing – practice actually getting the words out of your mouth, and experience for yourself whether or not you “sound convincing.”

Practice, Practice Practice

Because your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between the real event, and this imagined one (just think of the emotions you can experience while sitting in a comfortable seat in a movie theater), each time you imagine it is real. Athletes use this all the time, going through their event in their mind hundreds of times, so that by the time they arrive at the competition, it’s just another replay, rather than “the first time”. You can do this, too, so that your next interview is just another in a long line of successes.

The more you use this technique of rehearsing, and imagining the optimal outcome, the more you can also increase your belief, your overall sense that it will turn out the way you’re hoping – for example, that you will get a job offer, or get the sale. Take your practice runs all the way through to getting the desired result and feeling the excitement of the win. This is crucial to the process, because it increases your belief, and that will show up in your communication in terms of body language and tonality that are congruent with being the winner, and achieving the desired result.

Prepare your mental game, and you’ll increase your chances of a successful outcome. Don’t wait for “real” opportunities to practice. You can master most anything with enough practice, and practice is one of the easiest things to do – simply set aside the time, and leverage the power of your amazing mind to increase your odds of winning. Run through it over and over again until you can do it in your sleep. Perhaps you know some people you can bring into your game, and have them play some of the other characters in your practices. This can be a powerful way to practice as well, but it’s not necessary – your own imagination is enough. The more times you play it through successfully in advance, the more likely you’ll get the result you’re striving for.

Would you agree that your success, in business and in life, is determined by your ability to successfully ask for, and get, what you want? It may have begun when you first asked for a cookie. Today, you may be asking for a $50,000 contract or a higher discount on supplies. The principles are the same. Yet I find people often miss the mark. Clients tell me that they fear negotiations will result in anger, so they never even ask for what they want. Or their negotiations bring about a stalemate. In every instance, we find that four specific keys are missing.

Good negotiation skills can actually increase your credibility, your communication and your business. These simple steps will make all the difference:

Begin with a clear understanding of what you want from the negotiation. Dig below the surface. If you are negotiating for a higher sale price or a discount, you could get stuck on a line item; instead, consider the total picture. What gets you the highest return? Are there tax considerations? Are there costs the other side could absorb? Are there other requests such as timing, financing or down payments to consider? Understand WHY you want what you say you want. Creativity could result in getting a vacation at the end of a conference – with your client picking up the travel cost to the event. Or you might take an equity interest in a company as part of your compensation for potential long-term return. When you recognize your short- and long-term objectives, you are in the best position to negotiate.

State your intention for a win-win negotiation up front. Remove any potential adversarial positioning by addressing it clearly. You might say, “I want to discuss some additional areas where I would like to see changes. My intention is that we reach an agreement that is unquestionably fair to both of us. Is that OK?” Get agreement for the discussion and the ground rules for openness and fairness before proceeding.

Ask questions to elicit the underlying needs of the other party. As you probably discovered in the first step, there may be many important points requiring discussion. If you were negotiating to purchase real estate, you might ask what the sellers intended to do with the money. Knowing whether they had already purchased another home, or whether they wanted ongoing cash flow from an investment, would dictate entirely different approaches to handling the transaction. Keep asking questions until you have a very good understanding of what will satisfy their needs. You are then ready for the next step.

Be flexible in meeting both parties’ needs while making small concessions. If you have done the first three steps, you now have a significant list of possibilities…and it is time to be creative. Do you have services or connections that would assist the other party? Can you offer discounts or timing flexibility? Be prepared to expand beyond your original request. Make small concessions one at a time in order to keep the conversation moving forward. Never give your final offer until you have already conceded many small points. Why? If you give a final offer without first realizing that you are giving something valuable, you may reach an early impasse. And it is entirely possible that by using this method, you will reach an agreement far more favorable to you than you originally imagined – while also satisfying the other party.

By following the four keys above, you will enjoy significantly greater success in negotiations. However, if either party is doing one of the following, the negotiation has little chance to succeed.

FATAL APPROACHES IN NEGOTIATION

Fixating on the impossible. There are times that a past event becomes an issue. Perhaps a deadline has passed, or an event was ruined. In a recent negotiation, the mother of the bride repeated the statement that her daughter was crying on her wedding day. It is important to acknowledge that YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE PAST. The point of negotiation is to agree to something that is in the present and carries forward. Both parties must agree to consider only the options available at this point. Fixation on the past can be a no-win tactic because it puts greater emphasis on the currency of emotion.

Negotiating for power or pain. In divorces or other emotionally charged situations, there is often little possibility of a win-win outcome, because one or both parties care only about bringing pain to the other side. Money is simply a vehicle for distributing the hurt – and as a result, no one can really win. If you find yourself in this situation, go back to step one. Get to the bottom of what you really want and encourage the other party to do the same.

Mastering these principles requires great introspection, listening skills and clear communication. But they can make you a skilled negotiator. Not only that, skilled negotiations can increase the confidence that people place in you.

Ready, set…negotiate!