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Ian Altman: Ian, welcome to the
same side selling podcast. I am

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your host. Ian Altman, one of
the most common questions I get

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has to do with sales
presentations. And people ask

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me, What should I include when I
go to meet with a prospect, what

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should be my PowerPoint
presentation? That's what we're

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going to talk about on today's
episode. You're all set, you're

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ready to go to your meeting. You
show up, and you have your

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PowerPoint presentation. Maybe
you're really advanced using

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Keynote. Maybe instead of
keynote, you're using some other

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AI driven tool, using
beautiful.ai using pick it. It

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doesn't matter what tool you're
using, but nonetheless, you walk

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into the meeting and you're
ready to give the presentation

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of your life. Here's the
problem, your customer isn't

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thinking, Oh, wow, I'm about to
see the best presentation ever.

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Your customer, on the other
hand, is thinking, Oh, great,

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there's an HDMI cable, there's a
projector or a screen in our

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room. And this person's about to
speak, I'm going to catch up on

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some much needed sleep right
now, because it's nap time, I

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can get a good rest right now,
and this is going to be

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fantastic. In fact, this is
probably the best rest I'm going

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to get all week. I hope my
Fitbit is dialed in with this,

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and I'm hoping the presentation
goes at least three hours, so I

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get a good score on my Fitbit.
It counts. It counts towards my

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sleep. Big mistake. So part of
our challenge is that we walk

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into a meeting and we've set no
expectations in advance. So the

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client is thinking, Oh, you're
going to give us a presentation.

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The problem is, when we leave
that meeting, the client doesn't

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think, wow, they really
understood us. The client

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instead is thinking, wow, they
covered a lot of stuff in that

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meeting. And I don't know
whether or not they can help us,

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but they certainly spend a lot
of time on their slides. Because

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what's in a typical presentation
where a typical company's

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presentation includes five or
six slides about your company,

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it may even include a picture of
the building that you work in,

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like anybody cares. Maybe if you
had animation of the building

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being constructed, it might be
interesting, but otherwise,

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there's really no reason to talk
about your building. Then

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there'll be a bunch of slides
that talk about your products

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and services. We have this
product. We have that product.

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Maybe there's something that
talks about how many employees

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you have. You may as well talk
about how many memory cards you

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have, or how many spare HDMI
cables you have around the

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office, or what kind of mouse
you use. It's all irrelevant to

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the client. They don't really
care about any of that stuff. So

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you've got that presentation,
and then maybe you have a case

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study or two. And a case study
usually says, here's this

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client, and here's why we were
so brilliant in helping them. So

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I've now given a presentation
that talks about me and my

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company, maybe talks about our
buildings and number of people

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and how many widgets we have
somewhere. Then we talk about

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the different products that we
have, and then we give some case

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study examples. At that point,
our client has probably slipped

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into a coma, and maybe the hope
is we convince them to buy some

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of our stuff. What should we do
instead? If you want to get top

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results for your team, take a
look at these same side selling

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Academy. Just visit same
sideselling.com to learn more.

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Well, instead of taking this
approach of talking about

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yourself, first thing you want
to do is you want to set an

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expectation about the meeting
that says, hey, we're going to

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be out there next Tuesday from
nine to 10. I don't yet know

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that we can help you. I'm going
to spend at least the first half

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of the meeting asking questions,
to learn about your situation,

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to see if we can even help. How
does that sound? Oh, it sounds

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great. Okay, by the end of the
meeting, you and I will either

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conclude we don't have a fit
looks like we might. We'll add

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our next steps together. How's
that sound? That sounds great.

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So now I've just set an
expectation that says I'm not

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coming to give a presentation,
I'm coming to learn about them.

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It allows us to navigate through
the same side quadrants that we

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teach in same side selling. It's
in chapter four. It's on page

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76, of the actual paperback and
hardback of the book. And it

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talks about us getting
information about the client,

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about what they're trying to
solve, why they need to solve

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it. How important is to solve
that, what results or success

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looks like, and who else needs
to be involved. That way, we

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have all the information they
need to build a business case to

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make an informed decision. If
you want to have a PowerPoint,

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what you can do is you can do
what I call the Jeopardy board.

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So the Jeopardy board is similar
to the board game. Jeopardy.

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People get to pick a tile. You
can create a grid on the page

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with different topics, and then
when the client brings up a

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topic, what you can say to them
is you can have the screen blank

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the whole time and say, look,
I've got some slides. If you

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mention a topic that I have
something relevant to share with

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you, I'll turn the screen on.
I'll show you that, and then

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we'll go back to our
conversation. Has that sound

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great in that. Example, what you
want to do is then be able to

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say to them, so here's someone
else who was having a similar

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problem. Here's what that
problem was costing them, here's

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why it was important for them to
solve it. Here's what they were

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looking for in terms of an
outcome. Fortunately, we were

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able to help them. And here's
the outcome that they had. They

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ended up with this great outcome
that's really almost utopian.

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How similar or different Do you
think that would be to your

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situation? Now I turn off the
screen, and now I'm back to a

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conversation. And in PowerPoint,
you could just hit the letter B

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and it'll blank the screen, and
they'll just get a black screen.

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And once that happens, the
customer says, oh, now I'm back

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to this conversation, if I leave
the PowerPoint up. The whole

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time. We've been taught since we
were in kindergarten that it's

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nap time, and now I can catch
some z's. Remember when you're

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going out to speak with people,
it's not about you, it's about

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them. You can either show up as
someone who is there to sell

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something, or someone who is
there to solve something. We

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want to make sure we're showing
up as someone who is there to

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solve, not sell. If you look,
sound and act like a

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stereotypical salesperson,
you're likely to get the

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response, no thanks just
looking. If instead, I show up

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as someone who's there to solve.
If I navigate the conversation

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so that we're having a
discussion about what the

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client's trying to solve and how
we might be able to help them,

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that's how we shorten sales
cycles. Shift the focus from

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price to results and achieve
better outcomes across the

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board, there are topics you'd
like me to address. Just drop me

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a note to Ian at Ian altman.com
and I will see you next time on

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the same side, selling podcast.
So long you