Once you've finally got that sales meeting on the books, you need to create a presentation. Should you create a slide deck that aids your presentation? Should you give a live demonstration of your product? Is an unscripted conversation best? These are all things to consider when crafting your meeting agenda. 

We sought the opinion of someone who has done sales presentations throughout his career,  Jeff Ragovin, Chief Strategy Officer for Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Here are Jeff's sales presentation best practices. 

Do You Use Slide Decks During Your Meetings?

 "Personally, I don’t like using slide decks. I like going into a meeting, having an open and candid conversation, and then as that conversation is developing, having the ability to go in and showcase something that’s live."

"So if I’m in a meeting with a pharmaceutical company, or an automobile company, or in a meeting with a consumer products company, I want to be able to show real-time examples as they come up in the discussion." notes Ragovin.

"Decks are good as a follow-up, but personally, going through slides is quite boring."

Will You Only Meet with CMOs?

"When I go to a meeting, there might not be a CMO in that meeting. It could be a VP or director. No matter what, you still want to treat that individual with as much respect as you would for the CMO." advises Ragovin.

"You want to be passionate. The more people you talk to, the more people will understand your product and the need for your product. You'll get more internal advocates that way and you need to build those advocates as much as you can."

"So if you don’t have a meeting with the CMO the first or second time, that’s OK. Because there are people within organizations who are the ones running these products."

Finally, Ragovin advises to network as much as possible, and get people to love what you’re doing, and to understand that there is a real need for your product(s).