Key Account Selling Expert Tom Searcy: Top Ten Ways Business Presentations Go Wrong

INDIANAPOLIS, May 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Bad things happen to good people pitching big deals, says author and key account selling expert Tom Searcy.

Searcy, founder of the consulting firm Hunt Big Sales (http://www.HuntBigSales.com), is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and the foremost expert in multi-million-dollar key account sales. By the age of 40, Searcy had led four corporations, transforming annual revenues of less than $15 million to as much as $200 million in each case.

"The show must go on even if people or technology let you down," says Searcy. "Be prepared to pitch even if your techno-demo turns into techno-drama. Whatever happens, be prepared to address it and move on."

Searcy has helped clients land more than $5 billion in new sales with over 190 of the Fortune 500 companies, including 3M, Disney, Chase Bank, International Paper, AT&T, Apple and hundreds more. Searcy is the author of "RFPs Suck! How to Master the RFP System Once and for All to Win Big Business" and the co-author of "Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company." His new book "How to Make a Deal Like Warren Buffett" will be published by McGraw-Hill in late 2012.

Based on his experience, here is Searcy's list of the top ten ways presentations to land key accounts can and do go wrong:

1. People. The wrong people from the prospect company come to the meeting. Some of your people can't attend the meeting at the last minute.
2. Technology. The Internet connection, your technology demonstration, the projector, the phone for a conference call. Whatever it is you need - it doesn't work.
3. Facility. Room holds eight people, and 12 are invited.  Room holds 250 people, and twelve are invited. Room is too hot or too cold. Room location has changed, and half the attendees don't know the new location.
4. Hostility. Someone has a personal agenda to damage this relationship - so that person asks distracting questions, points out tiny details, dominates the meeting - all to cast you in an unfavorable light.
5. Time. Time of the meeting gets moved at the last minute.  Hour meeting becomes half-hour meeting without notice.
6. Disruption. People arrive late or leave early. Someone interrupts to take a vote on the lunch menu. Two people whisper with each other throughout the meeting. Fire alarm means you have to exit the building for 15 minutes. Sudden summer thunderstorm forces people to leave the meeting to roll up car windows.
7. Distraction. Jackhammers break up the sidewalk outside the window. Next-door office has a raucous retirement party. Seminar-goers from down the hall stop outside your door to visit during restroom break.
8. Tangent. Someone makes a comment, and the entire conversation shifts to a totally new topic and never returns to the subject at hand.
9. Usurper. Someone feels the need to be important and peppers your presentation with asides - sometimes funny ones - that keep you off-track.
10. Preparation. Attendees are not prepared, so you waste valuable time having to establish a background they should already know.

When any of these events threatens to disrupt your meeting purpose, Searcy recommends to declare it a broken play and move on. Never pretend the problem does not exist.

Searcy recommends to say something like the following: "I'm sorry, but we all agreed upon some outcomes for today's meeting and, based on the circumstances, I think it will be difficult to get them. Let's reset our outcomes so they reflect what we think we can achieve and meet again. We want to make our time spent together valuable."

SOURCE Tom Searcy