I’m jubilant with pride – just got off a call with a client who won a million-dollar contract (actually much bigger, but her profit will be that). I’m taking you through how she presented, what she did, and what she wishes she did. I can’t disclose who she is yet because they’re finalizing details, but you will want to know how it was done.

Number one: she did not start the presentation talking about herself or capabilities (she credits me with this). Start with them – in fact, start with their challenges. Go straight in like going into a movie’s juiciest scene instead of sitting through credits. Most companies start talking about themselves. First slide: talk about them and their challenges.

Phoenix Rising Story and Case Study Formula

Before challenges, we came up with a Phoenix Rising story (a story of how you overcame the same challenge they are hiring you for in your own life). This sets you up as the person who faced the problem they came to you with, how you solved it, and why you’re doing well now.

My client intentionally married the prospect’s number one pain (use of AI and how another company had really fallen down because of over-reliance on it). She talked about when she was on the client side being serviced by someone and how it all went wrong mid-campaign and how she could find nobody to help her. This got their attention, gained trust, and was relevant because she incorporated the story of her personal “why” for starting this company -she built trust with a huge bond right at the beginning.

Then the case studies started. The case studies revolved around the exact challenges they had solved for similar clients.  My client talked about granular methodology details as part of the case studies, always formed as: what was the challenge, what did you do as methodology, what was the result. No others did that from feedback they got.

They also incorporated actual testimonials into case studies – for example, one event they drove traffic to was so successful that extra chairs had to be brought in. This made the story really credible and added visual dynamics into seeing what it would be like to work together.

Strategic Demonstrations Without Giving Everything Away

Another strategic success point was in how my client demonstrated how they would combine two competencies together – ie. buying media and doing the creative, showing how different media and creative went together and had to be strategized together. One caveat to demos and giving too many solutions is that it is a common  mistake many clients make that sometimes doesn’t close. For example, when I was a brand manager at Pepsi, agencies would come in and deliver a whole slew of work we didn’t use. In fact, if the prospect client isn’t trustworthy, they could take all your ideas and give them to be implemented in-house or to the incumbent who wins.

Next, my clients demonstrated why they were different: campaigns that turn on a dime, ability to change once the campaign was set because something in the news changed or became less relevant or went wrong. That reactive responsiveness was demonstrated in those stories.

Lastly my clients showed a live dashboard demo of reporting (requested) to the prospect. But the biggest kicker that won the prospects over was something their current vendor wasn’t giving them – the transparency of their margins and how much they were taking off of third parties they used.

All this won them the business, and the meeting went way longer than budgeted.

What She Would Do Differently Next Time

When I asked my client what she could have done better or differently, she said two things.

First, as part of the five-step sales conversation I teach (the critical part many companies never get to): find out the cost of not having a solution for why they’re looking for you. What’s the cost of the pain? What’s the consequence of the pain both for the company and the person hiring you (hiring manager or purchasing manager)? That was something they could have asked, but in their case it didn’t hurt much because the company already expressed urgency and pain. My client admitted to never asking them to quantify this pain – something that could have been the next step to increase urgency, but honestly it luckily wasn’t necessary. But if you’re going into a sales meeting wanting to increase or find out the urgency of the problem, you cannot miss this question: “How much is this problem costing you right now? How much is it costing you and the company and yourself?”

The second thing she thought of was to maybe hide the identity of case study companies in case they had to leave materials behind. The ideas instead is to use numeric results – you can use percentages if you don’t want revealing actual financial data, but unless you have permission from current clients, don’t use their name. Just talk about what industry the case client was in, what was their size, and give details making them similar to the client you’re presenting to so they understand it’s an apples-to-apples comparison.

All you’re trying to do is to say: I know your pain, I’ve worked with your pain, I’ve solved that pain, here’s what happened to the company I helped. That’s all your presentation needs to be to win the business.

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