If you wish to shut offers, you want gross sales decks.
The demo-only strategy 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 embody?
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 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 achieved, under.
What are the important thing components of nice gross sales decks?
Gross sales decks are vital to accelerating your gross sales course of, and but most find yourself in vital situation.
Right here’s how we get them flawed:
1) Itemizing out product options relatively than telling a narrative
2) Overloading slides with an excessive amount of data
3) Presenting a doc stay that was meant to be learn, or vice versa.
That’s why we constructed this information — that can assist 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 primarily based in your supply methodology
I’ll illustrate this recommendation from business consultants with tactical examples, so you may put it into apply instantly.
Half 1. Methods to construct out your gross sales deck storyline
“Once 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 right this moment. However for good cause.
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 one of the simplest ways to make your message stick.
To show it, DocSend not too long ago 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 have been truly discovering our story compelling sufficient to finish your entire deck.
“This was essential as a result of it meant prospects have been able to convert to the subsequent stage of the gross sales course of.”
How have you learnt which sort of story to inform in your gross sales presentation?
It relies on the dimensions of the corporate and with whom you’re assembly.
Usually, in case you are 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.
Funds 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 effectively:
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 additionally in your imaginative and prescient. As soon as they share this perception, they will 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 crew).
To present a fast overview of his work, listed here are the core components you’ll want:
An important piece of this narrative is your opening. What’s the large change on this planet that made your organization not solely good, however mandatory?
How have you learnt what that huge change is? The perfect sources are your happiest clients.
Decide 4-6 clients most captivated with your product and ask them:
- What has basically modified in what you are promoting previously 12 months?
- If what you are promoting fails, what would be the trigger?
- What corporations 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 tips on how to current your story from the attitude of the client, not the vendor.
The Funds Holder Proposal gross sales deck
That is the “brass tacks” gross sales deck for the price range holder who truly makes the acquisition.
Your purpose right here is to present this particular person 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 Evaluate. To share the highlights, listed here are the core components of such a gross sales narrative:
On this logical promote, you should 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 right this moment:
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 want to remedy.
Then, prioritize the demo accordingly.
Orchestrate your demo as a collection of moments that immediately handle the issues they’ve highlighted.
For instance: In case your product has 6 key options, simply spotlight the three that almost all immediately handle the issue they want to remedy.
Half 2: Methods 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 corporations than ever competing in your buyer’s consideration, that is what you’re up in opposition to:
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 may 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 shows are 43% extra persuasive than bullet-point ones.
Should 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 count on your bullet level slides to compete?
They will’t.
Methods to customise your gross sales deck
No matter which storyline you’re utilizing, you’ve got alternatives to customise your deck periodically all through. An important 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 essentially stand out, you may customise your deck to your prospect’s model as effectively. Normal 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.
Methods to visualize your gross sales deck content material
Listed below 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 corporations (significantly extremely technical merchandise) mess this up. Large time.
Metaphors allow your prospect to immediately grasp what you’re attempting to do.
Drift’s CEO David Cancel does this effectively 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 function checklist might.
Use easy visible diagrams in your gross sales deck
As salespeople, we aren’t skilled in artwork, as a result of artwork is just not our job.
Communication is our job.
Visuals are an extremely environment friendly and memorable approach to convey data, as a result of our brains course of visible data 60,000x quicker than textual content. And we retain 4X extra data we see vs. learn.
Don’t get too difficult! With slides, much less is extra.
Listed below are some examples of easy visible layouts good for gross sales slides:
Bonus: Methods 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 examine:
In different components 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 a few of the “work” to think about the brand new future along with your product.
In terms of the case examine, although, you need to make the examples as concrete — and credible — as doable.
Use images and videography to show 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
“Possibly your advertising crew 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 need 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 comprise a most of 20 phrases. That’s as a result of the slides are merely assist in 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 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 count on to get from a CXO.
Right here’s what this appears like in apply.
Cut up your content material into two textual content bins within the authentic deck design in your 60-word model:
Then, when it’s time to current, simply take away the physique textual content bins in 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 so, your targets must 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 screen to a cell system.
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 shows for founders
Lastly, listed here are some extra nice gross sales presentation examples.
Try the complete SlideShare model of this information right here
Revealed Jan. 2018. Up to date Jan. 2023.
Additionally revealed on Medium.
