Here are 3 quick ways you can help prospects understand the value of your offering and create interest:

1.  Talk About Their Problems Instead of Your Products

Remember that prospects care more about what you know about them than what they are supposed to know about you.  They probable didn’t come to work this morning and think about your company and your services.  However, they probably DID think about their challenges, frustrations, goals, etc.  Get on their level level by relating to these things.  If you can demonstrate that you understand their problems, they’ll want to know how you can fix them.  In a typical sales call, I’ll spend 90% of my time asking LOTS of relevant questions about their problems, relating stories about others in their situation, and even talking about instances where I may have experienced the same challenges.  Then, I’ll spend only 10% of the meeting to discuss my services and how I can help them.

2. Align Your Solution With Their Problems And Objectives

After you have a deep understanding of the prospect’s situation, it’s time to tailor your presentation.  If you have an “elevator pitch” or a generic product demo you typically give, then throw it away.  Prospects only care about the features and benefits that they know they need--everything else is white noise that makes your solution seem less useful (or makes it seem like they’re paying for features they don’t want).  Here’s an easy strategy:  Have them tell you about the #1 problem they want to solve, and then focus the majority of your presentation on how you can solve this problem. Give examples of how your product will address their problem.  Tell them about other clients who have solved similar problems.  Discuss the positive results they will experience once you solve the problem.  Then, spend the remaining 2-3 minutes of your presentation covering the other, less important, aspects of your solution.

3. Show, Don’t Tell

As a child, do you remember Show & Tell at school?  Each of your friends would bring in something to talk about--a family pet, a collectible, or one of their toys.  What was the most interesting part for you?  Wasn’t it when they SHOWED you what they brought?  Most of us never even paid attention to anything our friend actually told us about their toy.  The same is true with prospects.  Instead of rambling on about your solution and what it can do, why don’t you SHOW them what you can do for them.  What illustrations could you use?  What stories could you tell?  What analogies or metaphors would help them understand the benefits?  Could you use a prop or “toy” to show them how it works?

Example:

Let's say you sell an outsourced solution that helps people offload many of their administative details so they can focus their time on more important tasks.  When meeting with them, you could take out a sheet of paper and ask the prospect to help you make a list of all the adminstrative, time-consuming tasks that burden their staff.  Then on a separate sheet of paper, have them list out all the dream projects and more critical tasks they would like to focus on if they had the time.  After it's complete, put the sheet of "trivial tasks" on top of the sheet of "dream projects" and explain that the these trivial tasks are blocking them from getting to their most important projects.  Now, crumple up the sheet of "trivial tasks" and ask them how they would feel if they could get rid of (outsource) all these tasks and focus most of their time on their list of "dream projects".  By using a visual to walk them through this, your meeting will be memorable--and they'll have a list of their dream projects to keep with them after you leave!