The first stage in the Bottom of the Funnel is Presentation… How to be contextual to multiple buyers within the same organization while presenting generically about your company, about your solution or about your proposal.

Till now, you have been speaking generically with your initial point of contact. You have spoken about what sort of solutions you have offered to companies who are in the same industry as your prospective buyers are. You made the buyer connect with you and have made them believe that you are capable and have convinced them that they can include you in the list of bidders.

This is the stage where new stakeholders may surface to see how your solution will make an impact from the perspective of looking at the same solution from their point of view. A team of 4 to 5 decision makers at least to even 10 decision makers come in when they have to take a decision on a solution to a high impact problem the company faces.

The people who will be there in the meeting are from multiple departments. They may or may not have a direct impact on the solutions your solution will provide. They may also have their own perspectives on what they expect as business benefits.

Multiple Buyers will step into your sales cycle to evaluate your solution from their point of view. Click To Tweet

So, it is obvious that you do not know what their expectations are since we are meeting them for the first time. What do you present at this stage? Theoretically speaking, you have to present the solution from multiple points of view to suit each and every decision maker that would be present in the meeting.

How do you know who they are and what they might want? The ideal situation to be in is to have met all the decision makers and to have figured out what would make them buy.

The types of buyers could be as described below

• User – People who use the solution
• Initiator – People who will identify the initial gap and will find a need and a high-level solution
• Influencer – People who will check out multiple solutions/fitment and would recommend
• Decision Maker – People who will evaluate a specific solution to a fitment.
• Buyers – People who do a high-level due-diligence to give the final nod.

As you can see, each of the buyers has one way of looking at the problems and the solutions from their unique perspective. Hence, talking about one benefit or one type of benefit will not appeal to all the buyers in the meeting.

As a salesperson, you will have to position your solution from many perspectives so that the multiple buyers can connect with your offerings. Click To Tweet

Unfortunately, it might not be possible in all the cases as you might have dealt only with one person or only with one team – the first touch point. In this case, there is a fair chance that would have understood only one view or would have ideated only from one perspective of the goal.

Now, the presentation will be on your Company’s capabilities (Or) Product demo to a variety of stakeholders who your main contact has bought at this stage. They are keen to know how your capabilities or your solution can help them in achieving their goals from their point of view.

A presentation is not about seizing the opportunity of getting in front of multiple decision makers and talking non-stop about all the capabilities or all the features. It is about understanding the multiple buyer’s goals and talking about how your solution will be able to help as many goals of the buyer as possible.

In a presentation or a sales meeting, spend more time in understanding the needs of the multiple buyers rather than talking or presenting continuously Click To Tweet

Alternately, it is about understanding the goals and telling them what sort of support you would need in terms of time, investment, effort to help your solution help them achieve their goals. It is to connect with multiple stakeholders so that no one feels that their part of the goals will not be achieved if the company chooses you which could be a potential block for you.

You have to understand the types of people that are present and also to choose a set of questions and carefully ask the multiple stakeholders. You will have to get their success criteria to help you connect with them.

How do you find out who these buyers are and what they are looking at? As a consultative sales person, one of the important aspects of your job is to understand the variety of solutions you can offer – Vertical(Sets of solutions you have provided to a specific industry) and Horizontal (Sets of common solutions in an industry that can be applied to multiple industries).

A salesperson needs to understand where (Verticals/ Horizontals) they have been able to show business benefits Click To Tweet

You can begin your presentation with certain assumptions and can validate that by asking some questions.  Here are a few ways you can get to connect with multiple buyers

• You can begin the presentation by introducing yourself, your company, your solutions and ask for the priorities of the new people that are there in the presentation. They can take a minute each in talking about their priorities and can begin addressing as many of those as possible.
• If they would not open up because they are not sure about what to talk,  you can begin by stating certain issues you know companies of similar nature faces and the solutions you have offered for them. You can then check with them if these are issues that they would like to solve.

You can make them open up at some point in the time during the presentation and try finding out what their priorities are and be contextual to as many of the buyers in the presentation. You also, with practice will have to be careful about the words you use.

Begin your presentations generically and validate your assumptions as the buyer opens up with their specific issues. You will now understand the multiple buyers and their expectations. Click To Tweet

The new buyers should not perceive that their importance within the company will be lost if they buy the solution and hence may shoot down the solution. Attention to details like this from your side will give confidence to the decision making unit that you will be able to solve their problems and can make them look successful.

Do Share this in your preferred social media channels if you found this article useful..Also, Subscribe to this channel to receive constant updates on B2B Sales tips and techniques.

                                                                                      Vist our Sales Presentation Training Service

                                                Visit our youtube channel to get more insight on B2B sales and on digital marketing