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 individuals 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 whole 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’re and what downside you are attempting to unravel. 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 point out how you’ll get the prospect from one state to the opposite.
We’ll look in additional element at how that’s finished, beneath.
What are the important thing parts 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 mistaken:
1) Itemizing out product options slightly 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 trade consultants with tactical examples, so you may put it into apply instantly.
Half 1. The right way to construct out your gross sales deck storyline
“If you’re constructing your subsequent gross sales deck, preserve one factor in thoughts: Prospects don’t care about your product.” – Courtney Chuang, DocSend
“Story” is a buzzword in gross sales at this time. However for good purpose.
Prospects bear 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 one of the best ways 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 price triple.
“This meant prospects have been really discovering our story compelling sufficient to finish the complete deck.
“This was essential as a result of it meant prospects have been able to convert to the following stage of the gross sales course of.”
How are you aware which kind of story to inform in your gross sales presentation?
It is determined by the dimensions of the corporate and with whom you’re assembly.
Generally, in case you are talking with a:
C-level government: 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 stage): 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 may flex this relying on the dimensions of your prospect, as properly:
The CXO gross sales deck
Your purpose right here is to get high-level buy-in in order that an government believes not solely in your product but additionally in your imaginative and prescient. As soon as they share this perception, they’ll provide tops-down stress to speed up your deal.
What goes into the CXO deck? Andy Raskin popularized this narrative framework in his now-famous submit about Zuora’s deck entitled “The Biggest Gross sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen” (a staple for any enterprise gross sales workforce).
To present a fast overview of his work, listed below are the core parts you’ll want:
A very powerful piece of this narrative is your opening. What’s the massive change on the planet that made your organization not solely good, however obligatory?
How are you aware what that huge change is? The perfect sources are your happiest clients.
Choose 4-6 clients most captivated with your product and ask them:
- What has basically modified in your small business up to now yr?
- If your small 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 point out you 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 really makes the acquisition.
Your purpose right here is to provide this individual confidence within the ROI of your answer by de-risking the choice to speed up the acquisition.
A strong useful resource right here is Peter Kazanjy’s Founding Gross sales work outlined in First Spherical Evaluation. To share the highlights, listed below are the core parts of this kind of gross sales narrative:
On this logical promote, you want to nail your ROI argument.
The place the CXO deck is propped up on a giant change in surroundings or tradition, this narrative is based on price of the issue at this time:
Beginning with the price of the issue tees you as much as place your answer as a real creator of worth, enabling your purchaser to make the worth of your answer 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 a substitute, construct rapport and jumpstart bottoms-up adoption of your product by confirming the issue, then construct from there.
Right here’s what it appears to be like like:
Begin by framing your demo with the issue they need to remedy.
Then, prioritize the demo accordingly.
Orchestrate your demo as a sequence of moments that instantly tackle the issues they’ve highlighted.
For instance: In case your product has 6 key options, simply spotlight the three that the majority instantly tackle the issue they need to remedy.
Half 2: The right way to customise and visualize content material
Even if you happen to haven’t seen the most recent MarTech 5000 slide, you’ve undoubtedly felt the overload first hand.
With extra firms than ever competing on your buyer’s consideration, that is what you’re up towards:
How do you break by means of? Customization and visuals.
Why is customization vital for gross sales decks?
Customized emails earn 26% increased click-through charges, and ship as much as 6X increased transaction charges per electronic mail.
So you may think about the affect of personalizing your gross sales decks.
Why are visuals vital for gross sales decks?
Over 65% of individuals be taught greatest visually, and visible shows are 43% extra persuasive than bullet-point ones.
When you don’t consider the statistics, take 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 images, and commenting on LinkedIn movies.
How do you anticipate your bullet level slides to compete?
They will’t.
The right way to customise your gross sales deck
No matter which storyline you’re utilizing, you’ve gotten 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 realized from YOUR CUSTOMERS. Use the voice of your clients to provide you credibility.” – Doug Landis
To actually stand out, you may customise your deck to your prospect’s model as properly. Customary apply is dragging and dropping in logos, however you may take it a step additional and use your prospect’s model colours as a theme all through.
The right 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 grasp what it’s.
Sounds easy, however so many firms (significantly extremely technical merchandise) mess this up. Huge time.
Metaphors allow your prospect to immediately grasp what you’re making an attempt to do.
Drift’s CEO David Cancel does this properly when he describes Drift because the gross sales attendant in your retailer (your web site). This metaphor – and the visible to go along with it – elicits an emotional response that sticks with you far longer than a function record might.
Use easy visible diagrams in your gross sales deck
As salespeople, we aren’t educated in artwork, as a result of artwork will not be our job.
Communication is our job.
Visuals are an extremely environment friendly and memorable option to convey info, as a result of our brains course of visible info 60,000x quicker 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 right way to visualize your case research
The aim of case research is to offer credibility and proof your answer works. Nothing accomplishes this higher than a visible case research:
In different components of your presentation, iconography may be highly effective instruments to construct a shared story.
As a result of icons are conceptual, your buyer has to do a few of the “work” to think about the brand new future together with your product.
With regards to the case research, although, you wish to make the examples as concrete — and credible — as doable.
Use images and videography to exhibit that these different clients aren’t simply concepts, however they’re actual, relatable individuals, too.
Half 3. Greatest practices for creating your gross sales deck
“Possibly your advertising workforce made you a stunning one however they’re ONLY meant for explaining stay, not displaying 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 offered.
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 comprise a most of 20 phrases. That’s as a result of the slides are merely assist on your verbal presentation. With out you there to ship the context, any reader of your presentation deck goes to be confused.
As a substitute, make a model of your deck geared 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 anticipate to get from a CXO.
Right here’s what this appears to be like like in apply.
Break up your content material into two textual content packing containers within the authentic deck design on your 60-word model:
Then, when it’s time to current, simply take away the physique textual content packing containers on your 20-word model:
Lastly, increasingly more patrons are viewing content material on cell gadgets (as much as 42% are utilizing cell gadgets through 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 no less than half the aforementioned limits (30 phrases as an alternative of 60 for a read-ahead), as studying speeds sluggish considerably when shifting from a full display to a cell machine.
Gross sales deck examples
We’ve drawn our inspiration from three examples particularly:
DocSend Gross sales Deck Instance
Zuora Gross sales Presentation Instance
Gross sales Deck Examples for Founders
Gross sales shows for founders
Lastly, listed below are some extra nice gross sales presentation examples.
Take a look at the complete SlideShare model of this information right here
Revealed Jan. 2018. Up to date Jan. 2023.
Additionally revealed on Medium.
