Should You Present First or Last?

When a client asks you to make a sales presentation, you may wonder whether there’s any advantage to going first or last. Of course, you don’t always have a choice. But if your buyers will be listening to more than one sales presentation, try to choose when you speak.

Researchers have found that the order of presentations does make a difference in audience responses. When buyers listen to sales presentations from multiple sellers, presenting last, especially if it’s close to the time of the buyers’ decision, confers a powerful advantage.

Your ideas gain influence from the “recency effect,” meaning that the information people hear last makes the biggest impression. The study also found that sellers who presented between the first and last sellers—in the unmemorable middle—were the least likely to have any advantage over the others.

However, in some competitive situations, clients may identify a clear market leader and a “me-too” seller, that is, one with a similar offer but less market share. If that’s the case, listener reactions to the order of presentations may change.

The market leader still benefits from going last, but enjoys almost a comparable boost from taking the first slot. When market leaders present first, they tap into the principle of “primacy,” which affords more credence to the information people hear first from sellers they already perceive to be the best. A lesser-known competitor doesn’t achieve a similar benefit from speaking first.

If you are sure you represent the market leader in a sale, you should try to present either last or first. Whatever your relative position in the market, you don’t want to present in the middle of the pack.

Research study: “Who Wants to Go First? Order Effects within a Series of Competitive Sales Presentations,” by Judy A. Wagner and Noreen M. Klein, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management (vol. XXVII, no.3, summer 2007).