Making a Great Presentation
Posted by the Networking Goddess in General, Networking Groups and Functions, Networking Tools
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Making a Great Presentation
Once you have found the functions you feel would best help you accomplish your goals, your next step is understanding what to say at these functions to help accomplish those goals.
In a previous article in the newsletter I wrote about the questions to ask someone about THEIR firm to get them talking with you. In this conversation, your goal was to find out EVERTHING and ANYTHING you could about this person in order to best help them. After all, if your goal is to build long-term relationships that refer business to you over and over again, these people need to know, like and trust you. The first step in that process is for you to give of yourself FIRST to them, with no expectations.
Once you have been asked about your firm, such as when someone says’ “So what do YOU do?”, you need to be prepared with something to say that IMMEDIATELY catches their attention. This
phrase should be about 30 seconds long and should highlight your best benefit that the product or service offers it’s clients.
Saying something like “I help people generate wealth”, if you are a stockbroker, or “I help people keep your money out of the hands of the IRS”, if you are a CPA, are examples. You may need to have several of these quick lines , because one may not work OR be appropriate in every situation.
After you say this, the obvious question next is “How do you do that?”. Here the answer needs to be consolidated to 60 seconds or so because that is all people listen really closely to anyway.
There are specific facts that you should consider answering when you respond to this question. The reason I suggest this is because your response should give this person you are speaking the SPECIFICS they need to help refer someone your way. The better you get at specifics, the more effective feedback to you will be. You want to help this person focus on faces and the more specific you are the easier that will before them.
One of the challenges I regularly see in my line of work then people introduce themselves, is a tendency to say things that, although nice to know, don’t really help us understand how we can help them and exactly what kind of clients they are looking for. The introductions or presentations are so general that we really can not focus on any faces of persons who we could refer to each other because “everyone in business is a good client for me”. We cannot focus on “everyone”. We need a smaller field to focus on to be able to help.
The following facts and specifics will help others find work for you. Remember, you want to speak this briefly, and SPECIFICALLY! You may not be able to incorporate ALL of this information in your introduction. Use what gets to the specific way someone can help, the fastest.
YOUR NAME
YOUR COMPANY
WHAT DO YOU SELL OR WHAT SERVICE DO YOU PROVIDE?
IF YOU OFFER SEVERAL PRODUCTS/SERVICES, IS THERE ONE WHICH YOU
OFFER MORE OFTEN?
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN THIS BUSINESS?
WHAT MAKES YOUR BUSINESS UNIQUE?
DO YOU HAVE A SPECIALTY?
WHAT IS YOUR TERRITORY?
DO YOU DO COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATIONS?
WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE/BUSINESSES WOULD BE GOOD CLIENTS FOR YOU?
WHAT SORT OF “HOT BUTTONS” SHOULD WE BE AWARE OF TO HELP GIVE
YOU LEADS?
Remember – the more you give of YOURSELF, the more you will receive.
Nancy
Your Networking Goddess
