Top Sales Manager Blog

Who wants to remain seated for hours on end watching some guy talk on stage, using mind-numbing charts and bar graphs in PowerPoint slides about some of the most boring topics known to man? Studies show that overall, presentations don’t do a particularly good job of transmitting information, much less facilitate action.

Why is that? Because very few speakers have the ability to fully connect with a group of listeners. When you fail to make a connection you just end up with a bored audience.

But a presentation, when done right, can have a significant emotional impact on the listener and elicit immediate action. Isn’t it what sales managers want?

It’s a sad fact that only a few sales managers realize the true potential of a powerful speech or presentation to boost sales. What separates a mediocre speaker from an excellent one is what most experts call the ability to establish a “full sensory connection” with the listener. In our case here, we’ll discuss how you can do this with your sales reps.

Some very good speakers connect visually with the audience. Others connect orally, telling powerful life stories and connecting it to the topic at hand. Some speakers do both, they establish a complete sensory connection to immerse their audience and reach out to them on a deep, even personal, level.

This type of speaker makes very effective use of the space given to them to perform their speech. In addition, they are aware of their own physical presence, and use that—their movements, posture, gestures, etc.—to reinforce their verbal message.

But establishing a full sensory connection doesn’t end there. This breed of speakers is also keen to detect the audience’s desire to respond physically. Talented speakers read these signs during the speech, and react accordingly.

Now you have an idea what establishing a “full sensory connection” means, and its subsequent benefits.

Here are some tips:

1. Sound is very important in delivering a dynamic speech and making that much-needed connection with the audience. Alter your pitch, volume, speaking rate, inflection, stress and word coloring. The less monotone, the better.
2. Strengthen your point by supporting it with facts, statistics, real-life examples, testimonials, etc. It’s easier to establish a full sensory connection when the audience trusts what they’re hearing. They also connect more with your message if its relayed in a story.
3. Grab their attention. Use humor, quotations and rhetorical questions to get them thinking about your speech.
4. Move around. As mentioned earlier, a top speaker uses the maximum space given to him to deliver his speech. Use your hands and gestures to engage the audience visually. Someone who does this effectively has charisma.
5. The speech itself should also be visual – not just you moving around the stage. Think Robert Goizueta
6. Give a sense of finality by ending the speech with a clincher – a real call to action.

As a top sales manager, you need to be constantly improving your ability to create a “full sensory connection” when you talk with your sales reps. This comes in handy during sales meetings and sales calls, where your ability to impress your ideas on others and push them to initiate positive action can draw the line between failure and success.

But the skill also comes in handy for one-on-one conversations – when you need to inspire an average sales rep to start producing better results – either when facilitating a one-on-one performance review, or when dining out with an important client. Simply put, your ability to deliver speeches and presentations effectively has a direct impact on your long-term career as an aspiring top sales manager.

Aspire and work hard in becoming an effective speaker that completely immerses the sensory perception of your audience. Sales management isn’t all about putting words into action. Sometimes it’s putting action into words. 

To learn even more about motivating your salespeople, get our free video on the sidebar of this post or by clicking here.

Tell me what you think about the relationship between effective speakers and top sales managers by leaving a comment below.

Filed under: Coaching, Leading, Motivation, Setting Expectations by ralphburns