Sales Presentations For Dummies

Chapter 4

Structuring a Persuasive Presentation

In This Chapter

Comprehending how and why your audience pays attention

Applying a proven persuasive structure

Creating your presentation for optimum attention and recall

Revamping your structure for the 21st century

Using a theme to focus your presentation

Like a well-crafted movie, a sales presentation must grab your prospect’s attention and continue to keep her engaged for the entire journey. Yet most sales presentations fail on one or both accounts because they aren’t designed to take into account the plummeting attention spans of today’s audiences and the changing ways that they consume information. Salespeople are operating off a dated structure put in place well before “smart” and “phone” became a noun.

Although the rest of the world has sped up in response to today’s faster pace and increased responsibilites, sales presentations seem to be the one place a prospect can count on to catch up on her email or update her social media ...