If you know the answer to three simple questions, you can prepare a great sales presentation.  

1) Who is the audience?  Know who will be attending your presentation.  Gear the presentation to the interests of the most important influencer (or decision maker) in the audience.  Even if the presentation was organized originally for the benefit of a particular staff member, if the President is attending the presentation tune it for Presidential interests. 

• President, CXO, executives and company owners want to see value in long term investment solutions with some protection from technological obsolescence; they are looking for long term business relationships. 
• Managers, analysts & administrators want to see immediate impact to their functional area and a solid reliable solution; they want to make sure that what ever they do… it won’t cost them their job.

2) When is this presentation used in the sales cycle?  Determine where you are in the sales cycle.  

• Early sales cycle presentations in the prospecting and qualifying phases need a presentation that clearly establishes customer need.  The sales presentation should should help customers identify problems that may exist in their current operations; these obvious are problems that your offering will solve!  
• Mid sales cycle, a presentation can be more educational, expanding on the basic needs to show implications and impact for other areas of their business.  This is a layering effect, when the customer has identified with the foundation of what your offering can do for them, they will be ready to see more and to understand some of the more subtle and elegant aspects of your offering.  
• Late stage sales cycle presentations in the proposal and decision making phases are all about results.  The sales presentation should address the payback for making the changes you are recommending and the consequences if they do not.

3) What is the purpose of this presentation?  Every sales call results in some outcome.  Know what outcome you want as a result of this presentation and make sure that it will achieve that result.  Where you are in the sales cycle and who your audience is will often be key to determining your desired outcome.

• Some presentations are designed to be highly collaborative.  This type of presentation is especially effective early in the sales cycle when you are qualifying and finding need.  It is also beneficial late in the sales cycle to build an internal advocate, coach or champion while customizing the proposal.  Collaborative presentations open topics for discussion, have questions built in to learn more about the customer’s current operations and create dialog between attendees.
• Some presentations are educational.  This type of presentation is generally effective mid sales cycle when you are expanding knowledge.  A technical audience enjoys educational presentations as a way of staying current on technology.  Administrators use educational presentations as a way to determine operational and process changes that would be expected.
• Some presentations are a call to action.  Every sales call and every sale presentation should have clearly defined next steps.  A call to action can be combined with other presentation types and the action you are building a case for will depend upon where you are in the sales cycle.  Presentations that are a call to action build a business case for why the customer needs to take a very specific action step… like involve other departmental managers (early sales cycle) or set up a team to investigate (early to mid cycle) or install a lab system (mid to late cycle) or implement a pilot project (mid to late cycle) or make the buying decision (late cycle).