The top dog among the providers?
The sales process has been digital for a long time. Using software solutions, salespeople have been presenting documents about their products or services to potential customers for many years. PowerPoint is certainly the best-known presentation software on the market. As the top dog among the providers, PowerPoint offers numerous advantages as software for your sales at first glance.
PowerPoint motto – “We’ve always done it this way”
First and foremost, there is the advantage of habit. Based on the motto “We’ve always done it this way”, companies of all kinds have been using standardized PowerPoint presentations for many years for reasons of simplicity. Following the same pattern, standardized slides about one’s own product or services in the corporate design of the brand or company were already created several years ago. Packed with information and spruced up with some pictures and nice transitions.
Without much room for interaction and active participation, the presentation has since been presented in its static form to changing potential customers.
The advantages of PowerPoint presentations at a glance:
- High level of awareness
- Presentation is easy to create
- Standardized slide sets
- Embedding of image content and videos possible
- Nice effects for smart transitions
PowerPoint for business talks?
What is really missing is interactivity and flexibility, because the practice of the modern sales conversation now looks different.
A modern sales talk must be well prepared. The first step is to do your homework and gather in-depth information about your counterpart before each sales meeting. According to the principle of the “buyer persona,” the counterpart must be closely examined in order to determine which sales arguments are really important in the respective conversation. Is the potential customer concerned about the price? The technical features? Or perhaps the product variety and alternative models?
Assessing the potential customer correctly in advance is an art in itself. If you go into a sales talk with a standardized sales presentation, you run the risk of boring your counterpart with superfluous information and static content.
The limitations of PowerPoint presentations:
- Little room for flexibility
- Technically limited possibilities in preparation & presentation of content
- Hardly any technical possibilities for active participation of the audience
- Standard of presentation, no wow effect with the audience
Imagine the following scenario: A customer who is important to you and whom you absolutely have to convert in order to meet the required quarterly figures enters your web conference on a Monday morning. Visibly in a bad mood and still thinking about the weekend, this customer is now expecting a 45-minute presentation about your product or service. What if you could exceed this expectation and surprise your customer, guaranteeing that he or she gets your full attention?
Instead of PowerPoint, modern sales thus demands an alternative.
