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In your sales presentations, you will reach a pivotal point which could take your buyer either closer to or further away from agreement with your proposition. After you have reviewed the need for and importance of your product or service and made your proposition, you must seek to explain how the project will work. It is here that your powers to persuade will be tested. Can you give an explanation that helps your buyer to see how well your proposal will work, or does your explanation have the opposite effect?

When explaining how your project works it is essential that you treat this portion of your presentation like you would any other opportunity to persuade. Mistakenly believing that this explanation is meant to educate your buyer can lead to your giving an exhaustive and confusing set of details that can serve as an excuse for your prospect to say no. Focus your presentation of how your product or service works on communicating the ease with which the project can be implemented, the many functions and uses it offers your prospect and the general feasibility of the idea.

Take the following example: Betty is selling a network marketing opportunity to a group of her friends, all of whom have shown up to a meeting at her home. Betty splits the group up in two and begins explaining how the opportunity, product sales and compensation plan works to the first group. Not long after she begins a complicated explanation of a binary recruiting system, Betty looks into her audience to see a crowd of confused faces. She goes into even more detail with the sales compensation plan which doesnt seem to help. By the time the group leaves, without one person having signed up, Betty realizes that her explanation was too complicated and probably made them feel a little intimidated.

With her next group, Betty is determined to avoid making the same mistake twice. This time, she maps out a very simple explanation. She presents only the recruiting plan and does so with a watered down diagram that leaves out a great deal of information. The questions coming from the crowd about product sales, downlines and monthly quota requirements show Betty that she may have skimmed a little too much off of the details. The group leaves without signing up and Betty is sure this is because they have no confidence in the details of the plan.

Betty failed to use her how it works explanation as a tool of persuasion. First, she sought to educate the buyers with it. Going into such great detail made the buyers worry that the project may be too large an undertaking. Remember (even when you are selling to a corporation) you are always selling to an individual person. If your explanation makes the buyer in question envision having to do a great deal of work to pull this project off, it will be the quickest, easiest route to the word no.

Bettys second attempt failed because she was trying to make it look too easy. In an effort to make sure that she did not confuse the buyers with unnecessary details, she went as far as to leave out the necessary details as well. Not only did she miss the opportunity to give the buyers pertinent details that may help them feel this proposition would work, but she also lost their confidence with an oversimplified explanation that caused the buyers to doubt her ability to successfully implement the project.

Action step: Go through your explanation of how your product or service works. Break it down into three or four easily explained steps that focus on persuading rather than educating the buyer. Be sure to include all pertinent information that could help sway the buyer to a yes.

Many presentations are met with a no purely because the buyer cannot visualize how all of the elements will work together. Confusing explanations that give too much detail can have the same negative effect on a presentation as simplified explanations that leave too much unsaid. In your efforts to explain how your product or service works be sure to focus on the elements that will help you persuade the buyer to buy.

Alvin Day is a Sales Training and Personal Empowerment coach who has helped many sales professionals reach and exceed their goals. For more on Alvin Days Sales Training tools and resources visit http://www.theultimatesalesmanual.com

This article shows how you can create a photo album in PowerPoint 2007 in just six quick steps.

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While fear pervades many aspects of business, presentations consistently drive it to exquisitely high levels. We use the term "presentation" to include any important one-on-one meeting, small group discussions around a table, or speaking before an audience of thousands.

We are talking about a particular kind of fear. Some fear helps motivate you to divert time from the pounding surf of your daily schedule and prepare for your presentation. There comes a point for most of us, however, when the fear is no longer useful. It has crossed the line from excitement to dread. Instead of driving preparation, it now impairs concentration and kills energy.

Fear has a thousand faces, but we have only three basic responses:

1. Ignore it
2. Evade it
3. Transcend it

Ignoring Fear

Merely suffering through your fear is the simplest and most common response. It requires no learning, effort or practice. Negative consequences flow from this path. In addition to being very stressful, fear tends to break concentration during preparation and disturbs other obligations.

Perhaps even more importantly, these enervating fears can also have an extremely negative impact on your performance in delivering your presentation. Fear robs your ability to casually walk to the stage and be yourself. It tends to kill excitement and block the ability to connect deeply with your audience. Fear can make your body stiff, your breathing labored and your physical movement unnatural.

Evading Fear

Usually the first step in dealing with your fear of the big presentation is figuring out how to avoid the fear. Even if you are looking for a longer term solution, at least temporarily avoiding the problem is a key step in creating the space to fashion more encompassing approaches.

Transcending Fear

Creative visualization is the first step in removing yourself from the scary thoughts and consciously guiding your mind to a new space: actively imagining the desired end result.

Professional and Olympic athletes spend time imagining the desired end result and track the measurable increased performance that follows the creative visualization sessions. Fear stems from the unconscious repetitive thoughts and feelings about failing.

VISUALIZATION

The key to successful visualizations is simultaneously feeling the emotions that would naturally attach to images that you see. To drive emotion, the most powerful vehicle is music - - music that stirs you. Often it is high energy music, something like the Rocky theme, hard driving rock, or passionate jazz or classical. The key is that it drives your energy higher, actively imagining the desired end result.

In visualization, there are two distinct ways to envision yourself: either looking at yourself from the position of an outside observer, or seeing the whole event through your own eyes. While everyone is different, it is usually easier to start by seeing an image of yourself from the perspective of an outside observer. As time goes by, many find it more effective to do the visualization through your eyes as a presenter.

Imagine the room in which you will present. If you know the room location, try and visit it before hand so you can create the exact setting of your presentation. If you can't see a remote location, just imagine the kind of room it is likely to be.

VISUALIZATION EXERCISE

Imagine what you will experience prior to the presentation. See yourself walking toward the spot from which you will present.

As you see yourself approaching "the moment of truth," can you feel where in your body the tension resides?

As you continue walking to the front of the room, see if you can exchange the feelings of fear with a closely related feeling - excitement. Fear is often a part of excitement and their affect on the body is the same: pounding pulse, heavy breathing, a slight shake in the extremities.

Feel the empowering sense that this could be your break-through moment. This could be when you reach to a higher level than you ever thought possible.

Imagine yourself now in front of the audience facing them, looking calmly and intently into their faces. Take a big breath and feel relaxation welling-up within you.

See their faces. Are they interested? Do they need something to enliven them? Take a moment for some "in-flow" of information before you begin the "out-flow" of information.

Terry Gault has been a coach, trainer and consultant in communications skills for 14 years. He has trained hundreds of professionals at Oracle, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, PeopleSoft, Visa, EMC, PTC, and hundreds more in other large organizations. Terry joined the Henderson Group in 1997, where he coaches individuals and leads workshops in presentation and communication skills. Terry also develops workshops and has played a major role in the development and delivery of the online communication programs at the Henderson Group. Visit http://www.hendersongroup.com/art_pres_info.asp for more information.

This article now contains a new demo that shows you exactly how to apply a theme to your presentation. PowerPoint 2007 contains several built-in themes, which include theme colors, theme fonts, and theme effects. Whether you use an existing built-in theme, create a new theme, or modify an existing built-in theme, follow this procedure to apply a theme to your presentation.

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