How can you get your prospects to like you

Whenever and whatever you're pitching, dozens of factors will figure
in the final decision of your prospects. All else being equal, you
have the edge if you can establish a personal connection. Connect
emotionally and intellectually, so they like and trust you more than
your competitors. How can you get your prospects to like you? Try these tips.

Focus and be sincere. If you appear nervous or unsure, you may seem
devious or incompetent. If your presentation does not respond to
their concerns and you just grind on with a prepared pitch, they will
decide you don't care about them and their problems. Look people
right in the eyes and convince them that you stand 100% behind the
ideas, products, or services that you want to sell them. Pick up on
their concerns, and address them.

"Divide and conquer." If you're doing a presentation, shake hands
with everyone as they enter the room. Connect with them so you see
them as individuals, and you become more memorable to them too.
(People are usually more shy of groups of strangers than in
one-on-one contacts.)

Use technology to enhance your presentation, not drown it. PowerPoint
can keep you on track, but it can't establish trust.

Keep it simple and memorable! When your prospects have a debriefing
afterwards, you want them to remember what you said more than
anything your competitors pitched to them. Break your talking points
into snappy sound bites that are easy to write down and remember.
Make them interesting and repeatable.

Steer clear of technical language and jargon. Rehearse your
presentation in advance with your spouse or an intelligent
12-year-old across the dinner table. If there's anything they don't
understand, it's too complicated.

Tell great stories. People are trained to resist a sales pitch, but
no one can resist a good story. Let's say you're trying to get money
to fund your software company. Tell a story about how the prospective
investor's life will change when you bring the product to market:
"Imagine that a year from now you'll come to work and use this
software to do in 5 minutes what now takes you 45 minutes. I don't
know what that would do to your life, but in all our test markets or
pilot programs, people tell us . . . " Then add more stories.

Take a lesson from Hollywood. Give your stories interesting
characters and dialogue, plus a dramatic lesson that your prospects
can relate to. Don't say, "Certain companies have used our software."
Don't even say, "IBM has used our software." Instead, say, "Joe Smith
at IBM said to me, 'If we don't increase sales turnover by 20%, we
won't make our projections'. We guaranteed them they could if they
used our software. Six months later, Joe called and said, 'You guys
saved us.'"

If you are pitching a product that hasn't been built yet, build a
story about what it will be like for someone using it.

Everything else being equal, you're way ahead of any and all your
competition when your prospects relate to you, like you, and trust you.