Before a customer can buy a product, they need to understand how that product will change their existing processes and why that change is a change for the better. If the product is simply presented to the customer without them understanding why they need to change, the opportunity will frequently be lost.

Presenting is all about communication. We want to get some message across to our audience, whether this a sales pitch, a plea for investment, instructions on how to manage a task or anything else. If the message is poorly presented, then no one is going to listen to it and we are wasting our time. Think about what you stand to benefit from a great presentation and then think about how much you might want to invest in ensuring that it is a great presentation.

The Apprentice on BBC1 gets some bad press. Mostly, I think, because people think that it is a real business programme rather than an entertainment programme. However, this does not mean that we cannot learn something from it.

To be successful in sales, you need to be able to close deals. However, closing is the easy part. The hard part is getting everything right up to that point. Here are five things that you need to focus on getting right to make closing easy.

The answers obviously depends on what you are selling, who you are selling to and what experience you have. It is quite different selling shoes in a shop than it is selling aeroplanes to multinational airlines!

No matter what you are buying, you have to believe that you are going to get value from it. Two different people can easily value the same experience quite differently.

Who has not stood in line at a petrol station and thought, “You know what, I need a chocolate bar right now!” The bars are put next to the tills for exactly that reason. We do not really need the bar but we see it there and it makes us think that we need it. It is not quite so straight forward in business to business sales as this article explains.

The first thing that any sales person needs to do when they meet a customer for the first time is to establish some trust. Fundamentally, no one buys from someone that they do not trust.

When we try to sell our product to a customer, it is highly likely that they have a choice of product. There will be similar products available. As a result, you may have to persuade your customer to choose your solution rather than the competition. To do that, you have to focus on the uniqueness of what you offer.

In almost every conversation that I have with customers, I end up talking about what a good customer looks like. This is not a question of how they look physically – we really do not care if they are male, female, black, white, short or tall. The question is essentially, will I enjoy working with them and are they more likely to buy my solution than another customer?

Mark Twain is quoted as saying “It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” I love this quote. As it stresses not only the importance of preparation but that for things to look like they are unprepared takes preparation! Preparation is crucial before any presentation that you need to make.

If you are selling a product and believe that your product provides value to your customer, have the conviction to charge the appropriate amount for it. If you cannot do that, you have probably failed to convince your customer of the value of the product. Avoid ever giving something for free. It adds no value to the deal and will cause you problems in the future.

When you choose to buy something, the reason that you select one product over another is because of the features that are unique to that product. There are many similar features between products so in order to choose one to buy, we look for the things that are unique.

It is very important that as you progress through the sales process, that you find out more and more of the information that you require regarding the decision-making process. It is very difficult to close a deal if you do not know who is going to sign the cheque at the end. If you do not do this, you are likely to lose the sale.

While sales people sell products, customers buy value. This is a very important thing for any sales person to remember. Unless you can define the value of your solution to a customer, then they are going to struggle to understand why they should buy it. As the saying goes, “Value is not determined by those who set the price. Value is determined by those who choose to pay it.”

If you contact a potential customer who you believe might have a need that you can help with, simply offering a different solution can therefore be quite difficult. The customer’s in-built bias will tend to reject information that does not conform to their view. As a result, you must provide information that they do not know which either changes how they see the problem or provides different ways of solving it. Whatever you do, you must tell them something that they do not already know.

For an estate agent to successfully sell a house, they have to create the image of a home. They have to create a picture of how a family will live in the house, how the bedrooms will work, how the furniture will fit. The problem is, not many estate agents do this. They show people around a house, point to the bedrooms, point to features that probably are not of interest but seldom for they find the time to truly understand what is needed. Unfortunately, this is the same for many sales people. They fail to paint a picture of how a customer will change as a result of buying a product or service. They often fail to even understand the customer’s needs that are driving their interest in the product.

For sales people, formal training is just part of their overall development. Seldom can one training course or experience be demonstrated to have helped to close a specific deal. However, like athletes, without formal training, sales people are unlikely to develop the required competencies to close more and bigger deals. However, training is still one of the first things to get cut from a company’s budget and it can be a struggle to get companies to commit to provide it to their employees.

The sales plan is then derived from the sales strategy. It defines how you are going to go about making sales. The plan will be based on available resources, both personnel and financial. Where historical data is available, this will be used to help to guide the ideas of activity and targets that are set. Where appropriate, sales targets and goals will be defined. Without some SMART goals, it can be easy to start to only focus on some tasks rather than others.

Before you do any selling activity, you should know why you are doing it. No product will be of interest to all companies or customers. You have to decide who you are going to try to sell your product to and why you have selected them. You have to decide how you are going to go about selling your product and why you have selected that method. The strategy and plan determines all of this.