What do you spend time thinking about before you walk into any sales situation? You may have thought about the many issues your product/service can resolve. You may have spent time thinking about how it can help your prospect. You may have thought about the benefits your product/service will bring to your prospects. More often, you have probably thought about the importance of closing this deal and what it will mean to your paycheck.

There is one problem. Even though you have spent hours, days or even weeks thinking about your presentation, your prospects haven't and when you walk into a sales situation armed with the best price solutions, the best examples, and the most convincing data, many times, your prospects don't even care.

Imagine the following scenario. Weeks ago you made a cold-call to Fiona, the owner of a small business that could benefit greatly from your product/service. You caught her at a good time and, after hearing a short synopsis of what your solution can do for her, Fiona set up an appointment for you to come into her office. You put time into planning, did research on her industry and crafted a great presentation.

You showed up to the meeting bright and early, but there was a problem. Through your whole meeting, Fiona was distracted. By the time you got to your bar charts and graphs (just two thirds into the presentation) she informed you that she would have to cut the meeting short and would call you if she was "interested." You left the store deflated knowing you would probably never even be able to get him on the phone again.

What happened here? You lost relevance. Let's look a little deeper into Fiona's world.

When you called weeks ago, she was in the middle of a crisis that was directly related to your product/service. In fact, while you were on the phone she told you a little about it and why your product/service "would help me out a lot right now." On the day of the presentation several things happened: she found out her credit card was erroneously charged with a purchase she had cancelled almost a month ago, she had to dismiss an employee, one who made quite a scene and threatened to sue for unfair termination, one of her most important vendors announced a change of ownership and with it a new procedure that created a very big issue, one that your product/service could not resolve.

As she sat in that meeting, Fiona was not thinking of you or the crisis that occurred weeks ago when you called her. She had moved on to several other small crises since then and had completely forgotten why she even had you in her office taking her away from the million things she had to do at that time. When you begin your presentation it is your job to bring Fiona back to the state of mind she was in when she last needed your product/service desperately.

Action Step: Begin each presentation with a "Situation Review."

A Situation Review is a brief recap of the situation that your product/service resolves. Remind your prospect of the problem that your product/service resolves right at the beginning of your presentation. Tug on emotions by using real stories as examples of times when product/service is needed. If you have an example from the prospect, just as Fiona had previously given an example, use it to bring yet more relevance to your presentation.

When you succeed in conjuring up the emotions your prospect has when faced with a situation your product/service can resolve, you get closer to a proposal that he or she actually cares about, one that he or she is more likely to act upon.

Alvin Day is a Sales Training and Personal Empowerment coach who has helped many sales professionals reach and exceed their goals. For more on Alvin Day's Sales Training tools and resources visit www.theultimatesalesmanual.com.