Visual Selling

Visual Selling provides salespeople with tools to sell in an increasingly image-oriented culture. More so than ever before, the way a salesperson looks and acts, the images on a screen or in handouts, and even room environments can impact people’s trust, satisfaction and willingness to buy. The authors believe that, to sell most effectively, the seller must be the visual focal point. This book draws on 25 years of experience coaching individuals and organizations in the art of visual selling, sharing stories and techniques used in big-dollar competitive presentations and pitches to senior management. Divided into three sections (the Seller as Focal Point, Getting Ready to Sell and Selling Situations), Visual Selling will appeal to a wide variety of business readers because it can be used to help salespeople sell one-on-one, as well as to assist corporate presenters at selling new programs or products in-house.

Section I – The Seller as Focal Point

Section II – Getting Ready to Sell

Section III – Selling Situations

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xvii

Part I The Seller as Focal Point

1 What Is Your Buyer Looking At? 3

2 Now That You Have Their Attention, What Should You Do? 17

3 Q&A: Thinking Visually and Verbally in Post-Pitch Situations 41

4 The Big 12 Derailing Details 57

5 Eliminating Decks and Delaying Handouts 77

6 Images: The Perfect Selling Partner 85

Part II Getting Ready to Sell

7 Thinking Up and Evaluating Images 103

8 Advanced Image Making 129

9 Organizing Content with Images 155

Part III Selling Situations

10 Selling to Different Groups and in Different Situations 173

11 Seeing the Range of Image Options: Seven Sample Presentations 199

12 How to Sell Doctors on Washing Their Hands and Other Final Insights 233

Afterword 239

References 241

Index 243

Paul LeRoux is the founder of Twain Associates and has been coaching salespeople on visual selling for more than twenty-five years. His specialty is rehearsing executives for high-stakes competitive presentations, outside funding pitches, and large audience addresses.

Peg Corwin handles sales and marketing for Twain Associates. She has extensive professional experience in sales, having worked with financial services, investment consulting, and real estate firms.

PowerPoint® has turned selling on its head. Sellers have become projectionists, rather than persuaders. They recite sentences from laptops or room screens—often word for word. Viewers, in turn, disregard the presenter and instead read the screen or handout. Most pitches are driven by wordy text slides and a tedious delivery. Sellers have unwittingly undermined their own influence. Prospective buyers used to judge a seller's product by how well the seller presented it. Now it's what's read, not what's said.

Visual Selling shows you how to regain control. You'll learn how to radically change your visuals so viewers look to you instead of the screen for answers. You'll understand how your delivery dramatically biases the sale. It should. You are, after all, the most important visual in the room. Your every move and what you show, from clothes to body language to the room setup to your slides and handouts, shapes the buyer's decision. Visual Selling explains that what the pro-spect sees is as important as what you say—often more so. This book shows you exactly how to visually switch gears and pull ahead of your peers or competitors.

Drawn on the authors' years of experience as renowned consultants to those giving competitive pitches, this book explains the art of visual selling, sharing stories and techniques that are proven and effective. Whether you sell one-on-one or to large groups, the strategies you find here will guarantee that your visuals never muddy your message. You'll learn how to:

• Put yourself and your message at center stage

• Never let a handout upstage you

• Eliminate PowerPoint® text and use powerful visuals instead

• Choose and use appropriate images to persuade

• Manage the visual effect of your selling environment

• Control your body language for maximum visual impact

Visual Selling covers virtually everything you need to know to make sure all visual elements enhance your presentations and your selling ability. It's the perfect resource for anyone who gives sales presentations, no matter what they sell or who they sell to.

PRAISE FOR VISUAL SELLING

"The lessons found within Visual Selling nearly jump off its pages. This book is chock-full of reasoned insight, proven technique, and compelling logic. Perhaps most importantly, it challenges the seller to return to the center of the selling process."
—John J. O'Connor, Chairman and CEO, DMJM Aviation, Inc.

"I actually read Visual Selling straight through, because I found it so relevant to my job as an investment banker. Literally, the day after I read it, I used many of Paul's suggestions. I have also had the pleasure of seeing the highly successful output of the authors' advice in presentations to Wall Street and the scientific community. . . . Those seeking outside funding would be wise to read Visual Selling."
—Grant Harshbarger, Managing Director, Caris & Company

"It's ironic that as architects, we're trained to think visually but we rarely use visual selling ideas in our presentations. After successfully using these concepts, I'm only afraid of what will happen when my competition reads this book."
—Peter Schlossman, AIA, Senior Associate Principal, Loebl Schlossman & Hackl