BY VICTOR ANTONIO, SALES INFLUENCE

One of my clients who I consult for sent me an article to see if they could incorporate some of the findings into their sales pitch.  My client is an Internet Marketing company that helps business use the internet to generate business leads online.  Their services ranges from Search Engine Marketing (pay-per-click advertisement), Search Engine Optimization (keyword analysis for high organic ranking on top search engines) and also, Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, et al.)  

The intent of the emailing me the article was for me to review it and find a way to integrate the findings in the article into their sales pitch.   The goal being to create a slide in their sales pitch that would further persuade their potential clients to hire their Internet services.

Using article or studies to support your point is a very powerful technique when developing a persuasive argument or sales pitch.  And better yet, they’re free.  
This article in particular was a study conducted to find out what small business are doing to generate new leads.  And naturally, people want to know what other people are doing and how they’re doing it.  This is called social proof.  We look to others to validate or reinforce what we should be doing.

Here are my basic steps when it comes to using resource material and integrating them into a sales pitch (presentation) :
Step 1: Read the article
Step 2: Get the overall message and point the article is making
Step 3: Pluck out the relevant points that support my clients objectives (sell more internet services) & Create a slide (typically with only 3 bullet points per slide)
Step 4: Develop a compelling sales script (what to say when showing the slide/bullet points)
Step 5: Make a statement that gets their agreement to what has been stated (i.e., Tie-Down) 

So let’s go ahead and walk through these five steps:

Step 1: Read the Article

Small Business, Social Media Not Mixing
Thu Oct 8, 2009 3:33pm EDT
By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Few U.S. small businesses have adopted social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for business uses, according to research released Thursday.
Three-quarters of small businesses say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year, according to a survey conducted for Citibank Small Business of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees.

Also, 86 percent said they have not used social networking sites for information or business advice. Ten percent said they have sought business advice and information on expert blogs.
The low number of small businesses using such sites for business purposes was unexpected, particularly as social media use has grown overall, said Maria Veltre, executive vice president of Citi's Small Business segment. Citibank is part of Citigroup Inc.

"We were very surprised we did not see more use of some of the social media outlets, even if just for advice," she said.

"What this survey indicates to us is small businesses are very, very focused on running their business and on generating sales and managing their cash flow and doing the things that are really important, especially in these economic times," Veltre said. "I don't think quite yet the social media piece of it has proven to be as significant."

The survey found 42 percent of small businesses have made greater use of their company websites to generate business leads and sales.
Nineteen percent were doing more advertising to attract new customers in the economic downturn, 38 percent said they were doing less and 41 percent were doing the same, it found.

Also, 28 percent were using more email marketing and 25 percent using more online advertising to generate business leads and sales, it found.

The telephone poll was conducted for Citibank Small Business by GFK Roper from August 20-27 of a sample of 500 small business executives across the United States. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.


Step 2:  After reading the article, I came away with serveral key points and observations:

SBs aren’t convinced social media will help, most likely because they haven’t used it or know how to attack it.  I wouldn’t use this article to support social media.
This article does confirm an increase in online activity by SBs in order to generate sales leads.

Step 3:  Isolate Key Points

What I then do is isolate the key points that will a) summarize key points, b) organize them for maximum effect and c) give the slide a compelling title.

<SLIDE>
What Your Competitors are Doing Today

-25 percent using more online advertising to generate business leads and sales
-28 percent were using more email marketing
-42 percent of small businesses have made greater use of their company websites to generate business leads and sales.

source: Citibank Small Business of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees, August 2009

<END OF SLIDE>

I could’ve used a title like, ‘What Other Business are Doing”.  But I wanted to create a more meaningful title for my audience.  Most businesses care what others are doing, but more specifically, they care about what their competitors are.

I also re-arranged the figures in ascending order (25, 28, 42) to give the slide a ‘crescendo’ effect leading up to an ultimate conclusion.  The last bullet point on a slide is just as important as the first, but moreso because it allows you to end on a powerful note and pivot to make your point or move to the next slide.  Let me show you what I mean by adding the sales script or pitch to accompany the slide.

Step 4: Data Points

 This final step is second only in importance to the bullets you’ve chose to show on your slide.  You can have the best data points, statistics or figures on a slide, but if you don’t now what to say and how to say for maximum impact, it does nothing to move the sales forward.  Data on a page is just data on a page; it’s the script, the sales pitch that give it force and magnitude.   Here is the sales script (noted in red) I created to accompany the title and each bullet point (revealed on at a time).

Sales Pitch:

<Opening Remarks>
 

Presenter: Many companies are finding that traditional direct marketing advertising is either ineffective or too expensive.  How many of you have found that to be the case?  Can I see a show of hands?  (Wait for a response)

But at the same time you know as business people that if you don’t market your business it isn’t going to grow.  So the objective is still to find a way to generate new leads if they want to grow their business.  Would you agree? (Wait for a response) 

<Reveal Headline>  What are Business Doing Today

Presenter: So what are other businesses like yours, your competitors to be more specific doing to offset the expensive cost of marketing?   Citibank conducted a survey of 500 small business to find out how they were using the internet to generate additional business and here’s what they found: <Reveal 1st Bullet Point>-25 percent using more online advertising to generate business leads and sales

Presenter:Some of you are doing some advertising online like PPC, if you’re not, we can help you with that.  <Reveals 2nd Bullet Point>
-28 percent were using more email marketing

Presenter:Some of you are doing some email marketing to keep in front of the client, again, if you’re not, we can help you with that.  <Reveal 3rd Bullet Point>

-42 percent of small businesses have made greater use of their company websites to generate business leads and sales.

Presenter: Rounding up, almost half of all small business are shifting their resources to where they believe it’ll do the the most good, online.   
source: Citibank Small Business of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees, August 2009

<END OF SLIDE>

Step 5
This last step is what I like to call the agreement question(s); used to get the audience to agree out loud with what has been stated.  Doing this allows the presenter to get an idea of where the audience is mentally at (i.e., mood or disposition).  These questions allow you the presenter to reinforce the point(s) and, if you choose, pivot to the next slide.
Presenter: So here’s the big question, by a show of hands, how many of you are taking FULL advantage of SEM, SEO or Social Media to help you generate new leads to your website? (wait for a response by a show of hands)

Many companies today don’t use social media because a) they don’t know where to start, or b) they simply don’t have the time or the resources to do it.   And if I were to poll this group, most of you would say both, ‘I don’t know where to start and I don’t time or the resources to do it even if I wanted to’.  Does that sound about right?  (wait for a response)
That said, let me show you...

So there you have it.  It may seem like a lot of work to create this one slide, but there in lies the key.  Too often presenters ‘dump data’ on the audience and the audience gets overwhelmed or lost because they don’t process or socialize what that data means to them.  

Sales is all about creating mental pain.  Data by itself is agnostic.  It’s up to you the presenter to show the audience why the data being presented to them is important.  
Using social proof to show your audience what their competitors are doing will cause them ‘mental pain‘ which in turn will get them to be attentive and response to the presenter.   If done correctly, by the end of the presentation they will be looking to the presenter for a solution to their mental discomfort (i.e., losing business or marketshare).  

Here again are the basic steps when it comes to using resource material and integrating them into a sales pitch (presentation) :

Step 1: Read the article
Step 2: Get the overall message and point the article is making
Step 3: Pluck out the relevant points that support my clients objectives (sell more internet services) & Create a slide (typically with only 3 bullet points per slide)
Step 4: Develop a compelling sales script (what to say when showing the slide/bullet points)
Step 5: Make a statement that gets their agreement to what has been stated (i.e., Tie-Down)

Victor Antonio, Sales influence