Nine Steps to Building a Written Sales Presentation

A written presentation should always be preceded by a needs assessment of your target prospective client. The written presentation should have a direct reflection on that needs assessment.

1. Your prospect’s logo and name should be prominently placed throughout the presentation, especially on the front page. My suggestion is to have it on every page next to yours to infer the two companies working together.

2. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them. This is the presentation outline or table of contents. As true as this rule applies to speeches, it also applies to written presentations. Imagine your prospect going back and reading the presentation for a second time, without you in the room. You need to make sure they feel your presence with or without you there.

3. What you know about them- Let the client know you were listening to them during the needs assessment by feeding back to them everything you know about their business. You may feel this is a waste of time, but I’m telling you this may the most important part of the presentation. As Zig Ziglar said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care... about them.”

4. Now it’s time to list the three biggest challenges your prospect is facing. This is one end of a thread that will continue over the next several pages of the written presentation, as you show your prospect solutions to these challenges.

5. Your objectives are naturally directly tied to the challenges faced by the prospective business. Each objective will be targeted b the options in the proposal.

6. The proposal options should be given one page at a time. Do not put all options on one page. You want the prospect to consider all options independent of each other, and then as a group later in the presentation.

7. Identify on the next page the investment levels needed for each of the options you have presented.

8. The benefits page should directly tie again to the business challenges and proposal objectives from earlier in the presentation.

9. Finally summarize what the outcome would look like if your company and your prospect were working together. Ask for the order in writing, as well as orally.

What are your challenges when it comes to written presentations? I look forward to hearing your comments.

Until next time …