Win More Deals With These 10 Sales Presentation Tips from Comedians
As grizzled stage veterans, your favorite comics know how to connect with an audience and deliver value — let them be your guide.
My wife speaks three languages. I speak only one.
As she leaves town on a business trip I reassuringly tell her: “Don't worry about it, hon, I got this. I got the kids. I can take care of it. You can trust me.”
She hasn’t been gone for 10 minutes and I’m trying to get my three-year-old son's shoes on so we can run a few errands.
He’s not in the mood for footwear, and it’s quickly becoming an absolute nightmare. In the midst of the struggle, he looks me straight in the eyes and says, “No, Shoua!”
With that, I finally give up, throw his shoes in the backseat, strap him in his car seat barefooted, and off we go.
That evening I’m making him some chocolate milk and again he’s not having it.
As I’m stirring the Nesquik into his mug, I tell him: “C’mon, buddy, if you want to get big and strong like Captain America you gotta drink your fuel.”
Again he looks me right in the eyes and very loudly and confidently shouts “Shoua!”
Arrrgh! What is he saying to me? So frustrating! Regardless, I know he isn't going to drink his milk tonight. Defeated again, I give up.
A few days later, when my wife comes back into town, my son says “Shoua” to me again for a third time.
I quickly say to my wife, “Babe, what is this ‘shoua’ he keeps saying to me? At first I thought he was talking about his shoes, but now I have no idea!”
My wife looks at my son. Then she looks at me and then back at my son and says, “Monkey, do you mean ‘Fique na sua’?”
He eagerly nods yes and says, “Yeah, Shoua!”
She then grins at me and excitedly says “Oh Jay, he's been telling you in Portuguese to mind your own business!”
The real question here isn’t, “Who’s in charge at my house?” but rather, when it comes to great presentation skills, does everyone on your sales team speak the same language?
I’ve learned a ton of great lessons the hard way during my career as a stand-up comedian (and as a dad trying to put shoes on a toddler) that will forge a common language your sales team needs when presenting to clients. I know this because I’ve shared these tips with the teams I’ve worked with for the last 20 years.
Here are your Top 10 Lessons from Comedians to differentiate from the competition, build stronger connections and win more deals.
LESSON #1
Always begin with a story.
Have you ever seen a live comedy show, laughed hysterically for 60 minutes straight, then woke up the next morning unable to remember a single joke you heard the night before?
Me too. Demetri Martin, for instance, is one of my favorite comedians, but my retention of his one-liners is ridiculously low.
But if I asked you to tell me the basic plot of your favorite movie, I bet you could do that without much effort.
That’s because great stories are memorable. They form an emotional connection and affect the part of your brain that releases oxytocin, a hormone that helps us feel a greater sense of empathy and connection to one another.
Think of what you love about your favorite stand-up comedian. Chances are, you admire their fearlessness—the vulnerability they show on stage in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people. They say things on stage that you wouldn’t admit to your best friend in private, and we love them for it.
Now imagine how your prospects feel when you present an endless onslaught of data, industry stats, features, and functionalities. It just doesn’t stick, and it certainly doesn’t differentiate you from your competition.
If your story doesn’t have a conflict it’s not a story; it’s merely a series of events.
Memorable and emotional are two characteristics that will differentiate you whether you’re on a comedy stage or standing in a boardroom in front of your dream client.
“Storytelling for salespeople” has been a buzz-worthy topic for years now. Early in my career I always heard you have to tell stories to win deals, but I never actually knew what a great story consisted of.
The truth is that there is a framework for everything. Especially storytelling.
The “aha!” moment for me in improving my storytelling was understanding the importance of conflict. All great stories have conflict.
So your simple, go-to storytelling framework is this. Every great story consists of:
Setup
Conflict
Resolution
That’s it. If your story doesn’t have conflict it’s not a story, it’s merely a series of events.
Here’s the thing with captivating stories: They don't have to actually be about your product or service in order to engage your audience.
You can glean what I mean from my “shoua” story above. It's about my personal life. But at the end of the story I'm able to segue with a single line into the topic I want to talk about:
When it comes to great presentation skills, does everyone on your sales team speak the same language?
This is what great comedians do on stage. They seamlessly jump from one subject to another using segues. This lets them change topics a bunch of times in 45 minutes without feeling like they are abruptly changing the subject.
So when you think about storytelling, it doesn't necessarily have to be about business or clients or your product or service. It just has to be a great story that, at the end, you can connect back to whatever you actually want to talk about.
LESSON #2
Speak authentically; never memorize a script.
The first few times I got on the stand-up stage I literally had no idea what I was doing. I only had a handful of blue jokes in my arsenal, and all of them were memorized word for word.
I quickly found out that the main challenge with memorizing your set word-for-word is that you are never truly present on stage. How can you be in the moment if you’re reading a script off of the back of your eyeballs?
To make matters worse, if there were any interruptions in the room—I mean anything at all—I would immediately lose my place in the “script” and panic because I couldn’t get my act back on track.
Crowd ruckus, beer bottles crashing, and hecklers were all my kryptonite because anything that would distract me from my thought process was going to kill my set.
I quickly learned that while you do have to nail your punchline
Authenticity rules when building connection. Ditch the script.
every time, getting to the punchline should be fun for the comic and sound natural to the audience. This way you can stay in the moment, sound more conversational, and not have a heart attack if you have to deviate from your joke (which you always will.)
I see this same thing happen all the time with pitches. Presenters are so wrapped up in the perfection of what they are saying that they come across as terribly robotic. They aren’t present in any way because every single word they’re saying is memorized.
Bottom line: never ever memorize a script. Speak naturally. Your audience knows the difference. Throwing away your script will show up as confidence in your next presentation.
If you’re memorizing a script as a crutch, here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Have you really practiced enough? Done enough reps? Put in the work?
Often we resort to scripts when we don't know enough about what we’re presenting to speak naturally. If you’re in that situation try turning it into a team sell.
Bringing along a subject-matter expert will help you focus on what you do best, and your teammate will do the same.
Authenticity rules when building connection. Ditch the script because your audience doesn’t care about perfection. They just want connection.
LESSON #3
Prepare less content.
My first-ever stand-up gig was at the beloved Comedy Works in Denver. It was New Talent Night and the house was packed.
Comedy Works gives all first-timers a two-minute maximum set. That doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but those two minutes can feel like an eternity when things don’t go right. Trust me.
To enforce this two-minute rule, when your time is up Comedy Works “lights you," if you still don’t stop talking they will cut the spotlight and mic on you. It doesn’t matter if you are Chris Rock-level killing the room. If you go over your time, you will be abruptly cut off and embarrassed on stage. Standing there in the dark holding a dead microphone.
My first time on this stage—the biggest comedy venue in the state—was a huge opportunity. Maybe I’ll get noticed and the owner will ask me to open for Dave Chappelle next time he comes back to town, I imagined. I really need to show my stuff!
So what did I do?
I decided to show all of my stuff, cramming two minutes and 25 seconds worth of jokes into my two-minute set. I couldn’t bear to kill my darlings. I thought it was all good material and I needed to showcase as much as possible!
The result was a ridiculously rushed set. I stepped on all my laughs because the audience’s laughter was taking up precious time! Imagine that.
The whole reason a comedian gets on stage is to make strangers laugh, but I didn’t want to hear it. I had to get through these jokes.
When I finally got off stage, one of the veteran comedians asked me, “Are you late to catch a train or something? Man, you were going fast up there.”
I didn’t pause once (see Lesson #10 for more on this). My set suffered and I didn’t show up nearly as well as I could have.
I see this happen all the time with pitches. Salespeople think every slide is important. Every bit of info on their company, product, service, and case study is invaluable, so they cram an hour’s worth of content into a 30-minute pitch.
Great presenters always prepare less content than time allotted to present. When you do this, you are allowing for organic conversation, improvisation, opportunities to break the 4th wall, and, most importantly, room to breathe.
LESSON #4
Know when to use a “pitch deck” and a “leave-behind deck.”
A comedian’s greatest enemy is a distracted audience. This is why open mics are the worst. They usually consist of “pop-up” stages in places not conducive to comedy.
Early in my comedy career, I tried to hit as many open mics as possible. Repetition alone will make you better, but if the audience isn’t actually listening, you aren’t really getting the feedback you need. Bikers shooting pool, bartenders loudly serving drinks, drunk hipsters’ side conversations—these are all distractions that prevent an audience from paying attention.
While the boardroom may not be the same sort of loud obnoxious venue as dive bars that feature open-mic stand-up comedy, you’re still competing for your audience’s attention (when was the last time you checked your email in a meeting?)
With so many available distractions, why would you bring any more to your pitch?
A pitch deck is a collection of slides that you deliver in real time that consists of mostly imagery with very little text.
Yet this is exactly what many salespeople do with their slides—cluttered abstractions with a wall of text on each slide.
Everyone’s heard it before (yet very few take it to heart with their own presentation decks):
Your audience can’t read the text on your slide and listen to you talk at the same time.
Worse yet is the salesperson who puts a ton of text up on the slide and then reads it to their audience verbatim. Ridiculous.
Why be your own distraction? I do believe in presenting with slides. But only if they complement your presentation.
My definition of a pitch deck is a collection of slides that you deliver in real time. These slides are mostly imagery with very little text. If text does appear on the slides, it appears as a few bullet points with minimal words. More words on a slide never helps your presentation.
The ideal slide is an image that supports your talk track, or minimal text that your audience can consume in less than two seconds to get the gist of the slide and re-focus their attention back on you.
But what if you absolutely have to use a lot of text on a slide? Maybe you want to tout a client quote to support your solution. Perhaps showing a lot of data is absolutely necessary to make your point.
Here’s your takeaway:
Once the text-heavy slide appears on screen, pause and give your audience the chance to completely read the slide in silence. When all eyes are back on you, only then should you resume speaking (see Lesson #10 for more on this).
A leave-behind deck, however, is what you send to your prospect after the pitch. It’s meant as a follow-up to share internally with the rest of the decision makers and stakeholders. This deck is emailed and can have as many words as you want on it. It’s fine because it’s meant to be read while you’re not there with them.
One last note: never email your presentations until after you’ve delivered the content live (via video or in-person). No one in the history of sales has ever closed a major deal with a new client by “emailing them information or a proposal.” Seriously. Never email a proposal. Always present it live. The instant feedback you get—verbal or non-verbal—is invaluable.
LESSON #5
Lead with value for your audience.
In comedy, having an opening line that never fails to get laughs is a must. The audience only takes a split second to decide if they like you and if they are going to give you a chance to wow them with your set.
Opening lines like “How’s everybody doing?” and “It’s so great to be here” always fall flat because there’s no value to the audience. Simply put, this type of opener for a stand-up comedian is a sheer waste of time.
If you don’t woo them up front, you have to work twice as hard to win the crowd over. And in a short set this is next to impossible.
The most successful comedians get a solid laugh right out of the gate. This quick win is not only a validation for the comic but gained trust from the audience that this comedian is worth listening to.
The other thing you’ll notice is a great comedian never gets on stage and starts talking about his or her accomplishments. That’s what an emcee is for. They build up the hype, read the comic’s
Your prospects should always be given value for the time they’re spending with you.
credits and then welcome the comic on stage so she or he can get right to work.
Then why do so many salespeople mess this up?
As we discussed in Lesson #1, start with a story, not self-promotion. Gaining engagement up-front is a MUST. What are you going to say in the first few minutes that will help your likability and trustability factors?
In these split seconds, your prospects decide if your presentation is worth listening to and investing time, energy, and money into.
Yet I still see so many so-called “customer-centric” organizations front load their presentation decks with a bunch of information about themselves. Not information about their prospects.
These banal slides include but aren’t limited to: how many cities they’re headquartered in, how many awards they’ve won, how long they’ve been in business—everything but quick value to their prospect.
It’s nothing more than a lame attempt at building credibility, which is something you should have done by asking great questions during discovery. Discovery is your emcee intro. The presentation is the big show.
Your prospects should always be given value for the time they're spending with you – even if they never do business with you.
How is this done?
There are two main ways to successfully pull this off and guarantee upfront engagement.
The first way is to open with a slide that reads “What We Heard” and/or “What We See.”
These slides signal the opportunity for a great presenter to confirm everything they’ve heard in the discovery process so far and provide some insight on a new approach based on the things they see for improvement.
I’ve seen a lot of digital marketing firms do this well. With less than an hour of kicking the tires, they are able to recommend a handful of strategies to improve their prospects’ marketing results.
The other tactic is to provide key insights into some type of trend that you believe—based on your industry experience—will help your prospect either grow revenue or reduce costs over the next year or two.
But what about all of your “About Us,” “Locations,” “Awards Won” slides? Either move them further back in the deck or better yet, stick them in the Appendix. If anyone asks about your company you have them, but they sure as hell aren’t providing value during your presentation.
LESSON #6
Communicate the value right before the investment.
The very first thing I did after I decided I would try my hand at stand-up comedy was buy the book Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy by Jay Sankey.
This book is a classic how-to guide for beginners, but the most important idea this book brought to me is there is a framework to telling jokes:
Setup + Punchline + Tag = Successful Joke
Setup: Info given to establish initial context or premise
Punchline: Final information given to alter the meaning of the setup in a surprising fashion
Tag: Additional comment to build on punchline
This is pretty much the key to great stand-up comedy. Effective jokes have a clear “aha" moment the audience experiences. It’s where the given information in the setup comes together as a surprise due to the punchline.
Sankey calls this a “click moment.” The more powerful the click, the more powerful the laugh.
An example:
“If you’re a battery, you’re either working or you’re dead. It’s a shit life.” – Demetri Martin
Let’s break this joke down using our framework:
Setup: If you’re a battery,
Punchline: you’re either working or you’re dead.
Tag: It’s a shit life.
I love the simplicity of this joke (thinking back to Lesson #1, it’s one of Dimitri’s jokes that I can always remember). And as you can see, without the setup, the punchline has no meaning.
Same goes for the value of the solution you’re presenting vs. the investment estimate.
Price is only an issue in the absence of value. Great presenters understand this and always outline their solution’s business and personal value in the slide directly before delivering the investment estimate.
Never say “price.” The money your client spends is an “investment.” Call it as such.
This way the investment has context up against the value.
I don’t want to diverge too far off topic here, but early in my sales career I always had a hard time delivering the investment portion of the pitch because I thought what I was selling was too expensive.
Over the years, I’ve learned not to assume your prospect understands the value your solution provides. It’s up to you to sometimes spoon-feed this (especially during times of uncertainty when belts are tight.)
Don’t assume. Do a better job asking the right questions during discovery to uncover and clearly communicate the value your solution brings. Then present this info back to your prospect right before delivering the investment estimate.
One final note: during a presentation, never call it a “price,” “cost,” or “fee.” The money your client spends is an “investment.” Call it as such.
LESSON #7
Manage your nerves.
Looking back, I wish I would have gotten onstage more without a buzz. Stand-up comedy has always been a terrifying proposition. Like skydiving-level scary (without the risk of physical harm, of course).
It’s just you up there. Alone. Blinding spotlight in your eyes. No ensemble to rely on. Folks in the crowd betting their evening on your ability to entertain them.
So instead of managing these complicated emotions, these butterflies if you will, I decided to kill them. With beer and vodka.
To its credit, alcohol did the job to take the edge off. But looking back, I did myself a huge disservice. Instead of working on my stage fright multiple times a week, I took the easy way out and numbed my feelings.
It’s no wonder that when I started running Pitch Lab workshops years ago I had to practically start from scratch to build up the skills of managing my pre-show anxiety. I hadn’t made much progress during the entire decade I was performing in bars and clubs.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned about stage fright. Everyone gets it. If not always, at the very least from time to time.
And if anyone ever tells you they never get stage fright, they’re lying. Put that person in the right context, where the stakes are high enough, and they will get stage fright.
Don’t try to “beat” stage fright. Reframe it as excitement instead.
We get stage fright because we want to do well and be accepted. We get stage fright because we care.
I’ve read and heard a ton of strategies for beating stage fright. Some work. Unfortunately, most don’t.
The most successful strategy for me personally has been reframing the anxiety as excitement:
It’s not about getting rid of the butterflies, it’s about getting the butterflies to fly in formation.
Accelerated heart rate, rapid breathing, feeling faint, flush face, upset stomach, trembling hands. Name a symptom, I’ve had it.
The best way to make the fear-to-excitement transformation is to say these three words over and over: I AM EXCITED. I AM EXCITED. I AM EXCITED.
This changes your perspective about stage fright. Instead of a threat, this is an opportunity.
The wrong thing to do before your presentation is to try and calm down, though. These symptoms of nervousness and anxiety are actually more closely related to excitement than being calm.
Caution: from a physical standpoint, you’re not going to feel much different at first. Your worst symptoms will remain.
However, what science shows us is that reframing performance anxiety as excitement leads to feeling more in control—and ultimately a better performance, whether it’s stand-up comedy, speaking in front of your team, or pitching your dream client.
Plus, a moderate amount of anxiety before you present is a good thing. It will help keep your energy high and your delivery energetic.
I’m to the point now in my career where I’m more concerned when I’m not nervous before a workshop or gig because I’m going to come off as low-energy.
Of course, it’s also always worth asking yourself, am I truly prepared for this presentation? There’s a difference between anxiety because you want to present well— you want to win—and anxiety because you’re unprepared.
Preparation is key to a great presentation and coming off confident. As we explored in Lesson #2, that doesn’t mean memorizing word for word, but it does mean knowing your stuff.
Nothing beats repetition. Get out there and practice. Once you’ve got your pitch down, reframe your remaining anxiety as excitement.
LESSON #8
Be fully visible.
Being on stage alone under a spotlight is a feeling like no other. You’ve got nowhere to hide, no instruments to play, and no podium to clutch.
It’s just you, your ideas, and your fresh perspective to share—hopefully in exchange for a few laughs.
I quickly learned the most engaging comedians don’t stand in front of the mic stand and tell jokes. They immediately pull the mic out of the stand and move it off to the side of the stage.
These comics choose to be fully exposed and vulnerable. Both physically and emotionally. And this is why we love them.
The science here is your audience needs to see you to fully trust you. Human beings tend to make decisions about trust rather quickly:
Is this person safe or does she/he pose a threat?
Unfortunately, more often than not, buyers perceive salespeople as a threat, asking questions like:
Can I trust this salesperson’s word?
Will she/he deliver the value promised?
Am I being swindled?
Visibility subtly conveys confidence and trustworthiness.
Breaking through your prospects’ cognitive bias is no easy task. Great salespeople do what they can during the sales process to remove as many doubts as possible, even from an unconscious standpoint.
Great presenters understand this and do everything they can to be fully visible.
For this reason, never stand behind a podium. If you need to, pull the mic out and stand to the side. If the cord isn’t long enough, bring your own as backup.
Always have a monitor displaying your slides downstage from you so you don’t have to turn around to see where you’re at in the presentation. Continually turning your back on the audience is a terrible, amateur look. And worse, each time you turn away you’re losing eye contact and breaking your connection. Again, if the cord isn’t long enough, bring your own as a backup.
(Note: I carry a 25-foot HDMI cord + HDMI extender in my car wherever I go. This has served me well, especially when I’m not able to scope out a location and have a proper A/V walkthrough before my presentation.)
Let your audience see your hands. That doesn’t mean you have to gesticulate wildly in an unnatural way, it just means don’t hide your hands behind your back, in your pockets or under a desk. Our primitive lizard brains want to see open, empty hands. It unconsciously conveys that you are not a threat.
As my fellow Pitch Lab instructor Daniel Reskin likes to say about forcing gestures while presenting:
“If you’re trying to be human on stage, you’re failing at it."
Stand up whenever possible, whether in-person or on video conference. It will make you look and feel more energized and allow more of you to be visible.
If you have to present sitting down (which is rarely recommended) don’t hide behind your laptop and present over the top of it like it’s a game of Battleship. Move the laptop away to the side to open up your physical connection.
And if you’re using a laptop to take notes, don’t. Never do it. Always take notes in a notebook and transfer them later. It’s much more polite—prospects know you aren’t multitasking. The act of writing things down longhand also has the added benefit of making it easier to recall than if you had been typing them.
And finally, during the pandemic we’re all practically 100% on video. During video presentations, turn on your video. Even if it’s just in the beginning before you jump into the slides so your prospects can see you. Turn your camera on, regardless if others turn theirs on or not in return.
LESSON #9
Know when to improvise.
One of my favorite gigs as a stand-up comedian was to host, or emcee, the show. The emcee basically has three jobs:
Make the comedians look good
Keep the show rolling and the energy high
Occasionally “call the room” from the audience’s point of view. (If they’re thinking it, you get laughs for calling it out.)
Job #3 is basically a fancy way of saying improvise.
The simplest definition of improvisation is performing without any preparation or planning.
I’ve always admired David Letterman and frequently tried to emulate him when I emceed a show. He was a true host at heart and loved crowd work. He knew that even bad ideas can be a bridge to better ideas if you are open to letting go of your plan and stay present in the moment with your audience. He believed chaos wasn’t something to eliminate but rather something to relish in.
Stand-up comedy emcees have a golden opportunity to improvise during every comedian's outro (hopefully in a fun, playful way that’s never mean-spirited, no matter how hard the comic bombs).
Unlike when you’re a feature or headlining act, improvisation as an emcee is expected and part of the job description.
Improvisation is your easiest path to differentiate from the competition and build stronger connections.
Improvisation is generally more difficult as a featured comic because most of the time you’ve crafted your setlist ahead of the show. You’ve timed it out and have a certain flow to your jokes that you believe will serve your comedy best.
This is a lot like a sales pitch during a clutch presentation. We spend hours on our slides. Obsessing over every word, image, phrase, even the order of the slides. We practice repeatedly and hopefully get to a point where we believe we have a compelling enough pitch to beat out the competition and win the deal.
Then the presentation happens, and you start reading your buyers’ body language and know you’ve missed the mark. This deck isn’t meeting your prospects’ expectations.
Or worse, the main decision maker doesn’t want to see the slides you’ve prepared and needs a question answered NOW. A question that you’ll address in slide 12 but you’re currently only on slide 4.
What do you do?
If you’re like me early in my career, you ignore it and keep plowing on. You’ve spent countless hours on this presentation and by God these folks are going to shut up and listen to every second of it. But this is when, like great comedians, great presenters see a problem as an opportunity.
While you sometimes need to stick to your guns and control the presentation, more often than not you should read the room and go with the flow. That means letting go of your agenda and all the hard work you’ve put into your slides.
The worst thing you can do is not listen to your audience’s feedback and plow on with your slides “because you’ve invested a ton of time on the deck.” Here’s the truth any senior salesperson will tell you. A slide deck in and of itself has never closed a deal. YOU close the deal, not your presentation.
In today’s commoditized marketplace, unfortunately it’s not always your product or service that sets your company apart and gives you the competitive edge. You, the salesperson, are the differentiator. That’s why we believe how you sell is more important than what you sell.
Next time you read your buyers’ non-verbal cues and you know you’re off track, ditch your slides and call the room.
It’s okay to break the 4th wall and say, “I feel like I’ve lost you. What are your expectations for our time together and how have I missed the mark?”
Then you have the opportunity to address your prospect’s concerns.
Great presenters never ignore negative body language and blindly press on because they know that going off script often leads to magic.
LESSON #10
Use dramatic pauses to truly be heard.
There are few people on this planet who know how to capture the power of silence better than comedians. Sarah Silverman is famous for staring at a crowd with nothing more than a winsome smile and getting huge laughs.
Coming up in the Denver comedy scene, I always admired Ben Kronberg for a similar ability. When you hear Ben’s jokes, it’s obvious his genius comes from the unique way he perceives the world. What makes him truly special though, is how he uses silence to build an almost unbearable tension in the room. Tension that begs to be released by a punchline only Ben can deliver.
Ben has a practice he frequently follows when he's introduced onto the stage by the emcee. He walks up to the mic and he just kind of stands there and says nothing. It's different from the approach of any other comedian out there. And it’s awkward.
After about a minute the crowd starts freaking out a little bit, wondering things like “What is this guy doing? Is he terrified? Is he nuts?” but Ben doesn't care. He understands what he’s doing. He lets that tension build and build.
Being silent in front of an audience is brutal because mere seconds feel like minutes. It's a very vulnerable feeling to do and say nothing in the face of expectations. But Ben is able to face it down like few others.
Finally, when the tension is unbearable, he looks up at the crowd with a slightly annoyed look and says:
“What? Like you start working right when you get to your job?!”
The joke is hilarious, and the laughter is especially explosive because it's a needed release from the tension that has been expertly built.
Good comedians are fantastic at using silence as a tool because they lay out their setup, create tension with their silence, and then come in over the top with the punchline.
Over the course of my first year of comedy, I began to notice the longer the pause between my setup and punchline, the louder the laughter.
Pausing creates rhythm, allowing you to be heard and your audience to process what you’re saying.
When you’re looking for validation from your audience, a dramatic pause can feel like a waste of time, but it’s anything but that.
There’s a ton of power in silence, and not just as a tool to build tension. Being silent while presenting also allows you to punctuate critical points and truly be heard.
Have you ever been told you talk too fast during a presentation?
Well, you don’t talk too fast. You’re just not pausing enough. I’m from the school of thought that it's okay to talk fast. Especially if you're enthusiastic, you're excited, you’re passionate about what you’re presenting.
I believe that type of energy can come off really well. But you’re doing your audience a disservice by fast-talking—by talking, and talking, and never giving them a chance to catch up.
By using dramatic pause you're creating a rhythm, allowing yourself to truly be heard, and giving your audience a chance to catch up and actually process what you're saying. Give the room room to breathe during your presentation.
And finally, there’s one ultimate place to pause during your sales presentation–after you deliver the investment estimate.
As a junior salesperson I’d nail my entire presentation, and then when it came to the slide with the price tag I'd say: “And your investment estimate is $60,000 a month for the next six months, but if you don't like that and you think that's too expensive, we'll go back I'll get with the team and we’ll rescope it and come back to you with something cheaper!”
I stated the investment estimate and didn't even give it a minute to sit. I was doing myself and my company a disservice by not just giving my prospect a chance to react first.
Over the years, I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. After you deliver an investment estimate ALWAYS pause ... and wait for a reaction. If you can sit in the uncomfortable silence, you’ll be rewarded with valuable feedback.
Ready to Take the Stage?
If this seems like a lot of information, that’s because it is.
But just like your presentations, the more you practice these 10 lessons, the easier it will become to put them into action. With enough repetition they’ll even start to come naturally.
Great comedians bookend new jokes between their tried and true material. Don’t try to change everything overnight.
In the meantime, here’s a quick recap:
Start with a story.
Speak from the heart instead of memorizing a script.
Prep less content than you think you’ll need for your allotted time.
Don’t kill off engagement with text-heavy presentation slides (save those for your leave-behind deck).
Kick off with value for your audience, not boasting about your company.
Present the value right before you present the investment.
When stage fright hits, remind yourself how EXCITED YOU ARE!
Get out from behind that mic stand, podium or laptop so your audience can see and trust you.
Know wonderful things can happen when you let go of your agenda and improvise.
Don’t ... forget ... to pause.
Voila. Now that you have all the lessons, the only thing left to do is learn Portuguese so you can properly communicate with my son.
That, and reach out to us if you want to shake things up with our one-of-a-kind workshops. Pitch Lab is the perfect icebreaker to kick off your next sales strategy meeting.
We teach client-facing teams how to improve their confidence when presenting, differentiate from the competition and win more deals.
Funny training. Serious results.
Want to Learn More? Let’s Chat!
About the Author
Jay Mays is a 20-year sales veteran, comedy producer and recovering stand-up comedian.
As Managing Partner of Pitch Lab, he combines the worlds of comedy and sales to help sales teams differentiate from the competition, build stronger connections, and win more deals.
Throughout his career he’s worked with numerous marquee clients including AT&T, TEDx, Live Nation, and the Miami Marlins.
His passion isn’t limited to sales, he’s also into cortados, ‘90s alt rock, the beach, The Onion, Larry David, dry socks, dark chocolate, and, of course, his family.
Connect with Jay on LinkedIn here.
