[Video Series] The 7 Closing Mistakes Presenters Make – Part 2

10X Business Letter
July 15th, 2013
San Diego, Ca
Sunny 71 Degrees
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Dear 10X Business Builder,

In our last video in this series, we talked about Mistake # 1, which is:

Presenters develop the content of their presentations without FIRST thinking about their close or offer

In this video, you will be discovering the second mistake presenters make when closing a presentation, which is this one:

Most presenters feel uncomfortable talking about their offer at the end of the presentation.

This is SO SO SO critical to understand.

I know a lot of presenters who love speaking, have absolutely NO fear of public speaking, but when they talk about their offer, product, or service they feel super uncomfortable. Because they feel awkward, they either don’t talk about it at all, or they do a very poor job describing how they can help the audience further.

Many years ago, a professional hired me to go and watch one of his live presentations. He was using public speaking to acquire new clients but his results were terrible. He was speaking everywhere and he was hearing the “You are so great” or “I love your presentation” but nobody was buying from him.

This speaker used to be a college professor, so he was very comfortable speaking in front of a group of people and his delivery was on point.

During his presentation, he was engaging the audience, telling great stories and making the audience laugh. Everybody was enjoying the presentation, including myself.

At one point I said to myself: “that is weird, he is doing everything right, why they are not buying from him?”.

I soon learned the answer to that question when he transitioned from the body of the presentation to the close.

I literally felt the energy in room dropping. It felt like he was suffering to talk about his services.

I felt like he was being apologetic for having a solution for the audiences’ problem.

The presentation ended, people thanked him and left the room. He looked at me without saying any words but his body language was telling me: “you see, it happened again, nobody bought from me”

We sat down for our coaching debrief session, and after asking several questions about what was great about his talk I asked him:

What do you believe about offering your services in front of a group of people?

He looked at me and said: “I feel like a snake oil salesman. I love speaking and teaching, but I don’t like to sell my services in front of a group of people”

Now, with that kind of belief system, he will never be effective pitching his offer.

This liming belief was causing him to change the energy level of his presentation, so at an unconsciously level he was sending a very positive message about his content, at the same time a negative message about his offer.

Can you relate to that?

Have you ever felt awkward talking about your products and services during a group presentation?

Do you hate selling from the front of the room?

Now, during our event Influencing From the Front we teach several beliefs that help our clients overcome this challenge and present their offer with confidence. Let me share 3 beliefs that may help you:

1. If you believe 100% that your offer can help your audience  BUT you feel uncomfortable talking about it in front of a group of people, it is because you are making your presentation about you, not about your audience. You are more concerned about what the audience is going to think about you, about you being rejected then actually helping them go to the next level.

2. You will have more chances of helping your audience with your product or service than helping them with your presentation. There is so much you can cover in your presentation, the time limits what you can do. The real impact happens after your talk is done,  when they start working with you or consuming your product.

3. If you can be confident about teaching your topic, you can also be confident about talking about your offer. It is not like your confidence disappears from your body. Your confidence is always there. You are the same person, you just have to replace those limiting beliefs about offering your services in front of a group of people.

Jeff Paro
Publisher, 10X Business Letter

For more information on how you can improve your closing ratios and use presentations to increase your leads, acquire more clients and make more money, check out our event, Influencing From The Front.