Sales Presentations Get Technical

The booming number of product offerings and the shortage of allowed face time with customers have distributor salespeople searching for ways to effectively simplify their sales presentations.

Most distributors are finding that simplification in the current day calls for an adoption of technology — essentially a mobile office for salespeople. Many distributors have come to terms that technological advancements are the most logical choice, while the stragglers continue to suffer from a technology phobia.

Tools
The days of lugging a briefcase into a customer’s office stuffed with brochures and product samples are all but long gone. Through advancements in technology, distributors nowadays have equipped their sales forces with presentation tools that fit in their pocket or even the palm of their hand.

For the last four years, Miami-based Dade Paper Co.’s 175 sales representatives have enjoyed the ease of using handheld devices for sales presentations, says Laura Craven, the company’s

director of marketing. These devices offer the sales reps access to the company’s online product guide and product photos, and they can also check order status, inventory, as well as place orders, all while in front of a customer.

“What they can do, for instance, is if a customer is looking for a mop, instead of carrying tons of brochures or going back to the sample room and picking samples, they can take this device and they can actually call up the image of the product in color as well as the specification sheet that goes with it and show it to the customer right there on their little screen,” says Craven. “They can go on the Web site and show customers the different products and the specs, give them a quote and if the customer says they like that one they can do a quick check of the inventory and place the order.”

Dade Paper has also provided its 35 sales managers and three regional managers laptops to use for sales presentations. Craven says the company has developed a library of PowerPoint presentations that employ interactive elements, where customer specific inputs are added to determine results such as cost in use of chemicals or labor savings of a piece of floor machinery.

The managers are also able to access the company’s Web site because all of the laptops are equipped with wireless Internet connections. By accessing the Web site, the managers are able to retrieve the company’s product guide, material safety data sheets (MSDS) and links to industry resources while with the customer. They can also use it as an opportunity to walk the customer through the Web site so then the customer can access it on their own when needed.

The advantage of using these tools, Craven says, is that the presentation becomes more personal for the customer, while quantifiable results are available on the spot. She also says that the company has noticed that the electronic sales presentations are more flexible, can have interactive features and effects, and they can be easily shared and modified for each situation.

Customers also respond positively to the professionalism of electronic sales presentations, says Dave Kahle, president of DaCo Corp., Comstock Park, Mich.

“They know what they’re doing, they got the right tools, they’re organized and professional and when the customer senses that, that’s a good thing and the customer is attracted to those kinds of vendors,” says Kahle.

Product Demonstrations
A big problem for most distributor salespeople is that there are too many products on the market to rightfully be able to both comprehend and present.

“It’s almost impossible for the average distributor salesperson to grasp the degree of products that they are able to accurately and persuasively present,” says Kahle. “It’s almost impossible to grasp the majority of products in the world today — there’s just too much stuff.”

That’s where distributors look to manufacturers for a helping hand.

Distributors are tapping into manufacturers’ pre-made product demonstration videos as well as their Web sites to help sales presentations run without a glitch. In essence, all the salesperson has to do is put a CD in their laptop or log onto the manufacturer’s Web site and click on the video pertaining to a certain product.

“A prepared presentation has been created and usually using some animation as well as a series of PowerPoint slides, and often a video,” says Kahle. “So the manufacturer’s got a hot new product and he creates a presentation and puts it into either a downloadable file from the Internet or CD. And the salesperson, when they want to make that presentation, just accesses the presentation either from the Internet or slides a CD in his laptop and turns around and has the customer watch the presentation on the laptop.”

Once the video is complete, the salesperson is left to relay the complimentary information such as pricing, availability and delivery information to the customer. An advocate of pre-made presentations by manufacturers, Kahle says it makes things simple and easy for the distributor salesperson. It also helps increase the likelihood of a sale.

“All the distributor salesperson has to do is push the button and there’s the presentation,” Kahle says. “Now the value of that is it’s a simple thing — a simple task for everybody and the power of it is that from the manufacturer’s perspective — he knows he’s getting a quality-controlled sales presentation. From the distributor’s perspective it’s the same thing — it’s a quality-controlled sales presentation and it’s simple and easy.”

As distributors look to expand their product offerings and customer-base, more will find ease in equipping their salespeople with the tools to get by.