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In the last decade, the sales deck has gone through a dramatic transformation. The traditional “pitch” is now a highly refined and strategic tactic to win new business.
In the past few years, we've seen the rise of the visual deck which has led to many more engagements with potential clients. Sales decks are no longer just text-based presentations; they're video-driven storyboards that compel people to take action!
This blog post will highlight some of the most effective strategies for creating compelling sales decks in 2021 - including examples of the greatest sales deck I've ever seen like HubSpot and Slack who have been successful at using this strategy.
One of the best things about the sales deck is that it can be tailored to any business or industry.
Whether you're a B-to-B company selling complex solutions, or you're in the eCommerce space and need to convince people to buy your products, the sales deck is the perfect tool for the job.
In this post, we'll outline the key components of a successful sales deck, and then provide some tips for putting it all together.
A sales deck (or pitch deck) is a visual presentation that you use to persuade potential clients to do business with you.
It's a snapshot of your company, products, and services, and it's a way to introduce your team and the solutions you offer.
The sales deck is often the first thing potential clients see, so it's important to make a good impression. Your goal is to create a deck that is so compelling, they can't help but want to learn more about your company and the solutions you offer.
There are a few key components that every successful sales deck should include:
-An overview of your company, products, and services
-The problem you solve
-How you solve the problem
-Your competitive advantage
-Proof points (case studies, testimonials, etc.)
-Contact information
Many sales decks also include an executive summary or the company's value proposition, but the other sections are the foundation of the deck.
So now that you know how important it is to build compelling sales decks, the next question is: how do you go about creating one that works in 2021?
-Start with the problem. Your goal should be to start the conversation by addressing the potential client's biggest challenge or pain point. Why are they struggling, and how can you help?
-Show how you solve the problem. Don't just tell them what you do - show them how you do it. How are your solutions different from the competition, and why are they better?
-Include proof points. Case studies, testimonials, and other data points that support your claims are essential for building trust with potential clients.
-Make it visual. A good sales deck is highly visual, so use lots of images and videos to help explain your solutions.
-Keep it short and simple. The average person has a short attention span, so make sure your deck is easy to follow and doesn't overwhelm the viewer.
-Include contact information. Make it easy for the potential client to follow up by including your email address, phone number, or social media information at the end of the deck.
-Be consistent with branding and colors. This will help the sales deck feel more cohesive while reinforcing the brand image you are trying to create in customers' minds .
Step 1- Start with the problem.
Step 2- Be consistent with branding and colors. This will help the sales deck feel more cohesive while reinforcing the brand image you are trying to create in customers' minds
Step 3- Address the potential client's biggest challenge or pain point.
Step 4 - Keep the sales deck short and simple.
Step 5 - In the final section, include contact information. This will help the potential client to follow up with you as well as reinforcing the brand image you are trying to create in customers' minds .
Step 6 - Include proof points such as case studies, testimonials, etc., that support your claims.
Step 7 - Make the deck highly visual with lots of images and videos.
Step 8- Show how you solve the problem, don't just tell them what you do. How are your solutions different from the competition and why are they better?
Step 9- In the introduction, give an overview of your company, products, and services.
Step 10- the competitive advantage you have over the competition.
Step 11- Make it easy for the potential client to follow up by including your email address, phone number, or social media information at the end of the deck.
You now know how important it is to build a compelling sales deck and the basics of what should be included. With these tips in mind, you can start putting together a sales deck that will win new business!
Storytelling in sales pitch decks
It's all too easy to base your sales pitch deck on what you already know about your product. Perhaps your deck has a long list of high-profile clients or a sophisticated set of features that your competitors lack.
What huge names and amazing features can't do is provide an answer to the why question.
You haven't persuaded prospects to choose you if you can't explain why your product is important.
A compelling tale is the key to a sales pitch deck that closes more business. When we decided to revamp our own sales presentation deck, we learned this lesson the hard way.
Robbie Crabtree offers some excellent tips on the art of narrative and the skill of brevity from the perspective of a trial lawyer.
Examine your sales pitch deck and other sales materials.
We decided to conduct a quarterly content assessment of our sales collateral earlier this year.
We discovered something unusual after reviewing the content we'd developed over the previous three months: we had over eight separate sales decks.
Our sales team, like many others, had spent a significant amount of time developing various versions of our primary sales deck.
Our goal had been to sell more effectively to certain target audiences and personalities with each successive version.
Instead, we ended up with feature-heavy sales decks that simply looked different on the surface.
The last thing you want to do during a vital discovery call is take prospects through an in-depth analysis of your product, but that's exactly what we did.
We were putting our prospects in decks with 16-20 slides and asking them to go over the aspects of our solution.
Only about 40% of those who opened DocSend for Sellers, our most popular deck, got halfway through. Only 17.5 percent stayed to see what was on the previous page.
The goal of any sales deck is to teach prospects why your product is important, and our statistics revealed that our prospects were disengaging early and frequently.
That only meant one thing: it was time to reconsider our strategy.
A new day has dawned for your sales deck.
People are fascinated by stories. Stories capture and hold our attention, and they can even affect our behaviour.
When it came time to update our sales presentation, we concentrated on creating a compelling storey around which our product could exist.
We went back to Andy Raskin's now-famous Medium piece, "The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen," and asked ourselves, "What is the storey behind our product?"
We dropped our pitch in favour of a sales storey worth telling, using Raskin's framework as a guide.
Here's how we went about it:
Step 1: What is your most significant change?
All compelling tales begin with context, and the stories we tell as B2B marketers and sellers are no exception.
We began developing our new sales deck by considering the rise of sales enablement as a function in general.
Rather than focusing on a single problem, we concentrated on a "large, relevant change," as Raskin suggests. While addressing "the problem" has its place, doing so at the start of the dialogue can shut it down prematurely.
We set ourselves up for meaningful interactions with our prospects by delivering this tale about how sales has changed.
Sharing transformation stories brings you and your prospects closer together and allows them to imagine how that large, important change will affect them.
But here's the thing: merely recognising the shift isn't sufficient. You must still determine the business problem that this move has caused, as well as the probable outcomes for your prospect.
Step 2: In this new world, how do prospects win or lose?
Before making a purchase, B2B prospects, like other purchasers, analyse the prospective losses and gains.
We can tip the scales in our favour as marketers and sellers by defining what it means to win or lose in this new world.
We detail the business problem produced by the shift in the sales process in our new sales deck.
We explain how this "glut information economy" affects high-performing sales teams.
According to Raskin, the problem is one of size. You must demonstrate how the shift you stated previously would result in significant winners and big losers in order to incentivize prospects to defy the current quo.
Your Promised Land should provide a solution to the business issue you identified earlier. You must draw the dots between the shift in the world, the business challenge it produces, and the criteria for succeeding in order for prospects to want the solution you're going to offer.
Step 3: Does your product come with any "magic gifts"?
So far, the arc of our sales deck has paralleled the traditional dramatic arc. To get our prospects' attention, we've used tension, conflict, and the possibility of a resolution.
We've purposefully positioned our prospects as the protagonist of this trip.
We enable prospects to picture how they might reach the Promised Land now that they understand what it means to win, just like we did with our initial storey of change.
While Raskin compares storytelling to epic films and fairy tales, we prefer to think of it as a collection of strategies that can be used in any sales presentation.
To borrow Raskin's language, framing your product and its characteristics as "magic gifts" is one technique to encourage prospects to buy.
The goal of a dramatic arc in your sales deck is to offer your product meaning and worth that it wouldn't otherwise have. Prospects are more likely to remember the tale you've told and how your product fits into that storey than they are to remember the specifics of any features.
Step 4: What evidence do you have to back up your claim?
Customer testimonials are the best proof that you can genuinely assist them win in this new world. After all, you've already won with your existing clients.
It's worth noting that, despite Raskin's recommendation, we've decided to leave client testimonials off of our new sales presentation.
Instead, we've made our client testimonials available to our sales staff as independent materials to present to prospects.
We want prospects to concentrate on our product's storey throughout the discovery call. That means we've only provided the information prospects need to understand why our product is important.
The first question our sales leaders and reps asked after we started sending out our new sales deck was, "How is the new deck performing in comparison to the old deck?"
We began with the metric that prompted us to examine our sales deck in the first place: the dropoff rate.
Even we were astonished by the outcomes.
