WOW!!!: David might not have slayed Goliath the night of the 5th, but he certainly took him to the mat. Little Butler University went toe to toe with mighty Duke for the full 40 minutes of NCAA Championship roundball in a display of grit and determination that every sales manager on the planet should be praising and holding up as the standard for his or her team. While Butler did lose by two points, their very presence on the same stage as perenial powerhouse Duke tells a tremendous story.

Some people say that with a 33-5 record, Butler is nobody's underdog. Really? Duke's basketball budget is $13.9 million to Butler's $1.7 (just a 717% advantage). Duke's total enrollment is about 13,700 to Butler's 4500 (triple). And, while those numbers point to a clear edge in resources available to the program, there is the reality of talent acquisition. Duke can virtually have any player it wants WORLDwide. Every kid that has had his heart set on playing for their state university from the time they could dribble, will listen when Coach K invites them to visit Duke. When Butler calls? Cue the crickets. Which kid is chomping at the bit to play for Butler when they are also being courted by Stanford, Penn State, or LSU - all of whom drug in the back ends of their respective conferences this year? The recruiting advantage that Duke had in this battle cannot be overstated.

So what happened? In fact, what happened this entire season for Butler to do so well? Simple, and here's the parallel to selling, TENACITY. The Butler Bulldogs gave every ounce of effort they could for every minute of every game. They weren't perfect - no person is. But, they will never look back and think, "I could have played harder." That team scrapped, and scrapped, and scrapped. Does your team to this? Do you do this? Do you figure out ways to constantly keep the prospect thinking about your solution? Do you constantly find ways to get the prospect's attention? Do you fight the internal hurdles to be more responsive? Do you outshine your competition in customer education and advocacy? Do you press every advantage you have and needle your competitors' shortcomings tirelessly? That is how the spotlight is earned.

Separating Yourself from the Pack: It is very rare, if at all, that as a salesperson you do not have to make the occassional "stand-up" presentation. Below are a few keys to making your presentations as effective as possible. As is the norm on this page, I don't expect this to be new information for any of you, but more of a reminder of the critical points that can be lost in the chaos. Before getting into the highlights, let's remember what is behind this topic: If your prospect is typical, they are sitting through your presentation out of necessity, not out of desire. They look forward to a presentation about as much as you look forward to filling out expense reports. With that in mind...

1. Stay focused on the Customer's business issues you are solving. Nothing is more important to your customer. Everything you discuss should be able to be tied back to the Customer's interests.

2. Hammer the key differentiators. If you are not frequently pointing out why you and your solution are different, the prospect will assume everyone else can do what you are proposing, they just failed to mention it.

3. Prep your team and then prep them again. Everyone on your team, your boss included, should have a clear understanding of their role, what questions they will be responsible for, and what NOT to discuss.

4. Know which doors to leave closed. Some topics are best left for another day because they can derail the presntation at hand. Make sure this is part of your prep agenda.

5. Be only as detailed as necessary. By keeping the primary presentation as high-level as possible and frequently offering additional information, you give the prospect room to ask for details and foster conversation. 15 minutes of conversation is more valuable than 15 minutes of presentation any day. 9Having back-up slides to cover the details is a good idea.)

6. Confidence is huge and it comes mainly through preparation. It is a must to know what your solution/company can and cannot do. Salespeople are not usually expected to know every technical answer, but the business side is your domain.

Make sure you check out the video on PowerPoints.

Looking Ahead (Your Prospect Is): While propsects focus on getting immediate problems solved immediately, they also look ahead at future challenges and opportunities and ask if today's solutions need to be tempered by what's on the horizon. A recent article in Insurance & Technology highlighted four hot technologies. If those solutions are in one of our industry's primary trade publications, you'd better be prepared to discuss them at some level with you prospects. You don't have to be an expert in these, but you should know how your company utilizes, facilitates, will be affected by, or is intentionally moving toward or away from these technologies. They are: Cloud Computing, Mobile Computing (more from consumer hand-held access as opposed to mobile computing for field employees), Analytics (AGAIN!), and Social Netowrking. If your customer brings these up, you need a real response to where you fit in. A blank stare won't help your case.

Spring means IASA Annual Conference time. Known for strong attendance among decision-makers, IASA's conference is a great opportunity to stay abreast of the market, meet new players, compare future outlooks, network, and of course - SELL! Keynote speakers look to be outstanding - Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers: The Story of Success and The Tipping Point will be Monday's speaker. The provocative motivator Larry Winget steps in on Tuesday and former Sports Illustrated editor, Don Yeager, speaks on "What Makes the Great Ones Great" on Wednesday. Should be very interesting. Get the details here:

www.iasa.org.

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