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Fed up with cut backs and downsizing messing with your plans for a great year? If you’re looking for new ideas to get more customers, don’t let little things like no money and no staff get in your way of giving effective presentations.

Scratch that. Phenomenal presentations.

Seriously.

More and more small businesses are looking for new ways to grow effective presentation skills. It’s the fastest and smartest investment you can make. If you are serious about increasing the number of leads, and attracting prospects to become customers.

But if you just try to work harder you could end up stressed out. Consider the downside: you will work yourself to the bone but not achieve your goals. Sound familiar?

If you are feeling overworked, without a family life and fed up with your presentation skills, there is a quick and easy solution.

What’s the smart way to get fresh ideas for winning more customers?

Leverage!

Here’s 4 ways to creatively leverage your sales efforts – and attract more of what you truly want.

1. Redefine
Change the way you define a lead. In many small businesses, a lead is anyone and everyone. Every business card, every contact and every trade show attendee is considered a lead.

But this is not truly the case.

Far too many people are in your contact bucket. The people who toss their business card in a fishbowl at a trade show are not really qualified leads. They just wanted your trade show freebie. They have not actually stood up and waved their arms, saying: “I want to do business with you!”

Make a simple shift. Redefine whom you consider a qualified lead.

One of the fastest ways to make this shift is to set up a series of steps involving interaction. Give prospects specific things to do: such as downloading a whitepaper, taking a video tutorial or registering for a webinar.

By tracking your prospect’s behaviors, you can redefine interest level and what is often called: ‘warmth.’ This raises your standards and can help you focus on the people who are most likely to become customers.

2. Expand
Expand your comfort zone of presenting. If you’re used to presenting face-to-face, get training and coaching for other medias. For instance, learn how to be effective virtually and on camera.

A small amount of targeted training creates a huge result. When you feel at ease in a new media, you will naturally start to use it more. And this is extremely valuable to boost your exposure to more leads.

3. Experiment
Experiment and try new things. Check out new creative approaches such as video for YouTube, a mini-series of webinars or a sequence of informative videos.

Pick new activities using a simple check system. Does the new media appeal to your target market? Is it cost-effective to create? Is it something you can do in a limited amount of time?

Try out different places to post your new videos and webinars. For instance, put new videos on your website. Experiment with creating a new microsite to host your videos. Then, promote this with emails, social media and press releases.

By experimenting with new media, you can radically increase exposure to your target market.

4. Test Vigorously!
Test your ideas. And then, keep testing. Not everything you try will work like a charm the first time. Keep testing so that you can see which kinds of presentations work best for your marketing efforts.

Many business owners and entrepreneurs are reluctant to try out new lead generation activities – because they don’t know how to give charismatic and effective presentations.

But not you! The challenge is to use leverage. Power up your sales presentations to achieve maximum impact.

If your position requires you to frequently conduct presentations, there is no argument that you must know how to give a presentation persuasively. There is also no barney that strong business presentation skills and steep career growth are directly proportional. However, public speaking is consistently ranked as the number one fear that people harbor.

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” – Jerry Seinfeld

From my experience of conducting presentation skills training program for over 1000 people, I have identified 5 tips that will help you to convert your fear to positive energy:

1. Be Organized: A good presentation begins with raw data and well- researched information and is augmented by personal opinion and colourful language. In short, a successful presentation has a distinct personality that’s structured and timed extremely well.

2. Remember The Three C’s: When you’re making a presentation, you must remember to speak with confidence, clarity and conviction. While nervousness is justified, it’s worth remembering that as the presenter, you’re the one who has control over the room, so everything you talk about must exude confidence and conviction. If you don’t believe in what you’re talking about, neither will anyone else. And remember to enunciate!

3. Make it Personal: If you’ve ever watched a TED Talk, you’ll have noticed that very few things work as well as a story does. Oral traditions and story-telling cultures continue to thrive to this day because as human beings, we connect with each other through the stories we share. To keep things interesting, and the audience engaged, support your presentations with your own anecdotal evidence. Share the process, the results and what you’ve learned from them, and for added measure, use humour to drive home the point you’re trying to make.

4. Review the Details: Deliverance is always in the details. If you’re using visual aids and slides, remember to keep things subtle. Pick a background colour that’s not too loud or too bright and use simple, sans-serif fonts. The idea is to make the audience focus on you and the information you’re sharing, not distract them from what really matters. By the way, skip the bells and whistles as well. While it’s tempting to add in graphics and fades between slides, there is such a thing as overkill.

5. Practice, practice, practice: And then go back and practice some more. Regardless of whether you’re an expert in your field or know all the statistics like the back of your hand, stage fright is a very real thing. The more you practice, the more familiarity you’ll develop with your content and be able to time it better. This is the time to decide whether you’ll want to leave room for audience questions or go straight through to the end.

Of course, if you are still stymied, signing up for soft-skills training with a focus on corporate presentation skills training will help you immensely in gaining the confidence you need. There are several organizations out there that offer these training courses, so do not hesitate to ask for help at the right time.