If you wish to shut offers, you want gross sales decks.
The demo-only method doesn’t work anymore. With a median of 6.8 folks concerned in every B2B deal, you want gross sales decks that may carry your message from the champion you met to the client you didn’t.
Along with 18 of the highest minds in gross sales, I’ve assembled this entire information to gross sales decks that wow and convert.
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Desk of contents
What’s a gross sales deck?
A gross sales deck is a slide presentation which is produced in PowerPoint or Slides, which is proven in conferences with prospects to assist clarify your organization’s product and why they should purchase. It’s used to complement a gross sales pitch and a demo.
What ought to a gross sales deck embrace?
A gross sales deck must say who you might be and what downside you are attempting to resolve. It wants to stipulate the “earlier than” state when the prospect has an issue, and the “after” state when that downside is solved. The presentation wants to indicate how you’re going to get the prospect from one state to the opposite.
We’ll look in additional element at how that’s accomplished, under.
What are the important thing components of nice gross sales decks?
Gross sales decks are crucial to accelerating your gross sales course of, and but most find yourself in crucial situation.
Right here’s how we get them incorrect:
1) Itemizing out product options fairly than telling a narrative
2) Overloading slides with an excessive amount of info
3) Presenting a doc stay that was meant to be learn, or vice versa.
That’s why we constructed this information — that will help you construct and current a extra compelling gross sales deck in three key steps.
1) Constructing out your storyline
2) Customizing and visualizing content material
3) Flexing the format based mostly in your supply technique
I’ll illustrate this recommendation from business specialists with tactical examples, so you possibly can put it into follow instantly.
Half 1. The best way to construct out your gross sales deck storyline
“Whenever you’re constructing your subsequent gross sales deck, maintain one factor in thoughts: Prospects don’t care about your product.” – Courtney Chuang, DocSend
“Story” is a buzzword in gross sales in the present day. However for good motive.
Prospects keep in mind 5-10% of statistics and 25% of pictures. However when there’s a narrative concerned, retention shoots to 60-70%.
Why?
On this age of data overload, tales — not lists of options — are the easiest way to make your message stick.
To show it, DocSend just lately overhauled their gross sales deck. Right here’s what they discovered:
“As soon as we overhauled the DocSend discovery deck, we noticed our completion fee triple.
“This meant prospects had been truly discovering our story compelling sufficient to finish your complete deck.
“This was essential as a result of it meant prospects had been able to convert to the subsequent stage of the gross sales course of.”
How have you learnt which kind of story to inform in your gross sales presentation?
It will depend on the scale of the corporate and with whom you might be assembly.
On the whole, if you’re talking with a:
C-level govt: Inform a high-level strategic story just like the now-famous Zuora deck. Use Andy Raskin’s framework as your information.
Price range Holder (VP/Director degree): Make your case with the pragmatic framework laid out by Pete Kazanjy in Founding Gross sales.
Practitioners (or a technical purchaser): Depend on defining your class and executing a well-framed demo.
You’ll be able to flex this relying on the scale of your prospect, as nicely:
The CXO gross sales deck
Your purpose right here is to get high-level buy-in in order that an govt believes not solely in your product but in addition in your imaginative and prescient. As soon as they share this perception, they’ll supply tops-down stress to speed up your deal.
What goes into the CXO deck? Andy Raskin popularized this narrative framework in his now-famous publish about Zuora’s deck entitled “The Biggest Gross sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen” (a staple for any enterprise gross sales staff).
To present a fast overview of his work, listed below are the core components you’ll want:
A very powerful piece of this narrative is your opening. What’s the large change on the planet that made your organization not solely good, however essential?
How have you learnt what that huge change is? One of the best assets are your happiest clients.
Decide 4-6 clients most enthusiastic about your product and ask them:
- What has basically modified in your online business up to now 12 months?
- If your online business fails, what would be the trigger?
- What firms do you align your self with, and why?
- Lastly, how has [Product X] impacted your organization?
From right here, you’ll begin to see patterns to indicate you how you can current your story from the angle of the client, not the vendor.
The Price range Holder Proposal gross sales deck
That is the “brass tacks” gross sales deck for the finances holder who truly makes the acquisition.
Your purpose right here is to present this individual confidence within the ROI of your resolution by de-risking the choice to speed up the acquisition.
A stable useful resource right here is Peter Kazanjy’s Founding Gross sales work outlined in First Spherical Overview. To share the highlights, listed below are the core components of one of these gross sales narrative:
On this logical promote, you have to nail your ROI argument.
The place the CXO deck is propped up on an enormous change in surroundings or tradition, this narrative is based on value of the issue in the present day:
Beginning with the price of the issue tees you as much as place your resolution as a real creator of worth, enabling your purchaser to make the worth of your resolution a no brainer.
The Practitioner’s Demo gross sales deck
With this gross sales deck, your purpose is to drive adoption from the day-to-day future customers of your product.
Don’t dive straight right into a demo! As an alternative, construct rapport and jumpstart bottoms-up adoption of your product by confirming the issue, then construct from there.
Right here’s what it appears like:
Begin by framing your demo with the issue they wish to remedy.
Then, prioritize the demo accordingly.
Orchestrate your demo as a collection of moments that immediately tackle the issues they’ve highlighted.
For instance: In case your product has 6 key options, simply spotlight the three that the majority immediately tackle the issue they wish to remedy.
Half 2: The best way to customise and visualize content material
Even in case you haven’t seen the most recent MarTech 5000 slide, you’ve undoubtedly felt the overload first hand.
With extra firms than ever competing to your buyer’s consideration, that is what you might be up towards:
How do you break by means of? Customization and visuals.
Why is customization essential for gross sales decks?
Customized emails earn 26% increased click-through charges, and ship as much as 6X increased transaction charges per e mail.
So you possibly can think about the affect of personalizing your gross sales decks.
Why are visuals essential for gross sales decks?
Over 65% of individuals study greatest visually, and visible displays are 43% extra persuasive than bullet-point ones.
If you happen to don’t consider the statistics, have a look at the habits of your coworkers:
Moments earlier than a gathering, they’re scrolling by means of Instagram, Slacking GIFs, and texting emojis. Afterward, they’re checking Snap tales, liking Fb pictures, and commenting on LinkedIn movies.
How do you count on your bullet level slides to compete?
They will’t.
The best way to customise your gross sales deck
No matter which storyline you might be utilizing, you may have alternatives to customise your deck periodically all through. A very powerful slide to do that is your opening.
“Your first slide must be about what you’ve discovered from YOUR CUSTOMERS. Use the voice of your clients to present you credibility.” – Doug Landis
To actually stand out, you possibly can customise your deck to your prospect’s model as nicely. Commonplace follow is dragging and dropping in logos, however you possibly can take it a step additional and use your prospect’s model colours as a theme all through.
The best way to visualize your gross sales deck content material
Listed here are a couple of concepts:
Use visible metaphors to inform the story
Earlier than clients purchase something, they’ve to know what it’s.
Sounds easy, however so many firms (notably extremely technical merchandise) mess this up. Massive time.
Metaphors allow your prospect to immediately grasp what you’re attempting to do.
Drift’s CEO David Cancel does this nicely when he describes Drift because the gross sales attendant in your retailer (your web site). This metaphor – and the visible to go together with it – elicits an emotional response that sticks with you far longer than a characteristic record might.
Use easy visible diagrams in your gross sales deck
As salespeople, we aren’t skilled in artwork, as a result of artwork will not be our job.
Communication is our job.
Visuals are an extremely environment friendly and memorable technique to convey info, as a result of our brains course of visible info 60,000x sooner than textual content. And we retain 4X extra info we see vs. learn.
Don’t get too sophisticated! With slides, much less is extra.
Listed here are some examples of straightforward visible layouts good for gross sales slides:
Bonus: The best way to visualize your case research
The aim of case research is to supply credibility and proof your resolution works. Nothing accomplishes this higher than a visible case research:
In different elements of your presentation, iconography might be highly effective instruments to construct a shared story.
As a result of icons are conceptual, your buyer has to do among the “work” to think about the brand new future along with your product.
In the case of the case research, although, you wish to make the examples as concrete — and credible — as potential.
Use images and videography to reveal that these different clients aren’t simply concepts, however they’re actual, relatable folks, too.
Half 3. Greatest practices for creating your gross sales deck
“Perhaps your advertising staff made you a stunning one however they’re ONLY meant for explaining stay, not exhibiting to a call maker offline.” – Cole Fox, LeadIQ
You simply gave a compelling presentation to the end-users of your product, utilizing your new practitioner’s framework. As you’re wrapping up the decision, your prospect asks, “Are you able to ship me one thing I can ship my boss?”
What you don’t wish to do is ship the deck you simply introduced.
Right here’s what to do.
Make a number of variations of your gross sales deck for various supply modes
By no means ship somebody your presentation deck to learn.
Why?
Slides for presentation decks ought to include a most of 20 phrases. That’s as a result of the slides are merely assist to your verbal presentation. With out you there to ship the context, any reader of your presentation deck goes to be confused.
As an alternative, make a model of your deck aimed toward readers. Restrict your textual content to 60 phrases per slide for a deck to learn. Given common studying speeds, a 10-slide deck with 60 phrases per slide will take about 5 minutes to learn — the utmost you’d count on to get from a CXO.
Right here’s what this appears like in follow.
Break up your content material into two textual content containers within the unique deck design to your 60-word model:
Then, when it’s time to current, simply take away the physique textual content containers to your 20-word model:
Lastly, an increasing number of patrons are viewing content material on cell units (as much as 42% are utilizing cell units throughout the buy course of), which ought to additional restrict the textual content density of your content material.
If that is so, your targets ought to be a minimum of half the aforementioned limits (30 phrases as an alternative of 60 for a read-ahead), as studying speeds gradual considerably when transferring from a full display to a cell gadget.
Gross sales deck examples
We’ve drawn our inspiration from three examples specifically:
DocSend Gross sales Deck Instance
Zuora Gross sales Presentation Instance
Gross sales Deck Examples for Founders
Gross sales displays for founders
Lastly, listed below are some extra nice gross sales presentation examples.
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Printed Jan. 2018. Up to date Jan. 2023.
Additionally revealed on Medium.
