Sales Presentation Tips

Pitch Deck Necessities: The 3 Things Your Presentation Should Always Have

Posted on July 31, 2019July 22, 2024 by Rick E

What makes a successful pitch deck?

Is it the speaker that makes it more effective? The way they speak and present themselves in front of a crowd? Or is it the PowerPoint that is sure to leave your audience in awe?

The short, definitive answer is that for a sales presentation to be successful, you need to devote time and effort to get both right.

Here at SlideGenius, we specialize in presentation design. Since 2012, we’ve helped more than 3,000 clients. In fact, we’re the world’s leading presentation design firm.

We know what it takes to make a pitch deck that works.

If you want to know the three things that make a killer pitch deck, here are the fundamentals that should never be left out:

Address the Problem

Ideas for new products and services stem from issues that need to be addressed. With a sales pitch, you can present this new concept and see if it piques the interest of potential investors and customers. But to be successful, you need to really understand the problem you’re looking to solve.

Not everyone you’re pitching to will understand the problem. Many investors may not know anything about it. You need to make it clear to them, help them feel the pain of those dealing with this problem.

Show situations where your product could help in a significant way. If your presentation is using bullet points, make sure you’re not filling the slide with it. After all, context can help with the bigger picture. When using images, remember that it must be relevant to what you’re talking about.

Pitch Your Solution

Once you’ve made your audience realize how your product or service can help them, the next challenge would be illustrating why it’s worth investing in and why they should choose you over other companies. Your potential investor knows there’s a problem. So why would they trust your brand to solve it?

Point out the unique aspects of what you’re doing make you stand out. Pitch the facets that you are most excited about. Genuine emotion inspires confidence. You know this opportunity better than they do. If you’re not jumping out of your socks, they’ll look for investment opportunities elsewhere.

Address these things early in the pitch and build on them throughout the middle portion of your pitch deck.

Statistics provide clear, quantifiable evidence of the benefits you’re offering. A study can establish legitimacy. Surveys or testimonials demonstrate social authority, the idea that it’s a safe investment based on the reception of others.

Customers want to know how your offering will help make their lives easier. This will tell them that you’re offering a solid investment opportunity.

End Your Pitch Deck with Dollar Signs

The first two parts of any good pitch deck can be very visceral, emotional, even abstract dependent upon what you’re doing. But by the end you need to be ready to talk about finances. Every potential investor or customer needs to know the value.

Every presentation is an opportunity to grow

For investment decks, this will look like your predicted revenue, timelines, and use of funds. The more they believe you know what you’re doing and that you’ve done it before, the easier it will be for them to make that decision.

For sales decks, discuss your pricing structure, guarantees or delivery fees, cost versus savings. If they can see the money they will have in the long run and not the money they are parting with now, it will be easier for your presentation to drive sales.

Your Presentation Must Be Perfect

Just because you’ve filled all your slides with the necessary information doesn’t mean it’ll fly with your audience the first time. Practice—unless the design and words are stellar, your delivery will struggle.

The content of your pitch deck must be clear, concise, and coherent for it to be considered a success. Combine that with tasteful design and a confident speaker, and you’re ready to go.

At SlideGenius, we help you do exactly that.

We provide copywriting and presentation design services to clients worldwide. We’ve helped more than 3,000 brands tell their stories and raise hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and sales.

If you need help perfecting your pitch deck, we’re only a call away!

For more information about our services, don’t hesitate to contact us today!

What Makes a Killer Sales Presentation?

Posted on July 3, 2019July 22, 2024 by Rick E

Sales presentations play a crucial role in growing your business. Having a well-crafted deck is an absolute must in landing new buyers, business partners, and investors.

However, despite the proven results of good presentations, many professionals still idly neglect the effort to make an effective sales deck.

At SlideGenius, we’ve worked with many of the world’s biggest companies. We know what makes a successful sales presentation. Having spent years creating decks that bring out the very best qualities of companies like yours, we know a little something about motivating clients to start buying ASAP.

Here are some tips on how to transform an ordinary deck into a sale-generating machine:

Bring Storytelling into Your Sales Presentation

Who doesn’t love a good story? In the complex world of sales, stories can leave lasting impressions on clients even more than facts. Statistics often lack context. Stories provide the context that make statistics real. A good PowerPoint presentation is the summer blockbuster of the business world.

Your presentation’s story tells your audience how you can help them be the hero. More than wanting to know the hard data, they want their problems to be solved in some amazing way, their performance to improve beyond belief. Your presentation shows them how your company will make that happen. This will help clients relate with your business on an emotional level.

Consider the three-act structure when building your PowerPoint. The first act is your introduction. It is where compelling problems are raised to contextualize and dramatize your presentation. These should be problems fine-tuned to be recognizable by your intended office. If they don’t feel the pain by the end of the first act of your presentation, they won’t connect to the story.

The second act of your presentation is your where things change, how you help your potential customer defeat this problem. Detail how your business solves the problems established in the introduction. Try pairing your solutions with real life scenarios to clearly illustrate the effects your business creates.

The third act is a strong call to action, how everything in your story begins. You’ll want to discuss financials. If this is an investor deck, talk about projected revenue and your milestones. If this is a sales pitch, discuss your pricing model and guarantees. Above all, know what action you want this person to take next and tell them to do it.

People retain information better with context. Developing the story of your presentation creates that context.

Be Smart with Your Words

Your choice of words says a lot about who you are. But how much you say determines how much people listen.

Don’t fill your deck with too much information. It’s hardly engaging when your audience is spending most of their time mentally interpreting all the information you’re spewing. Give your key points some room to be properly understood. It will allow you to speak at a controlled pace, making it easier to guide your audience as the presentation progresses.

Well executed sales presentations will boost your business

A tightly written deck also gives you the space to inject impactful visuals into your slides. Some clients may have difficultly visualizing what you are offering. Do that job for them. Pairing your content with the right visual aid will effectively amplify your message while also raising retention rates.

Design Brilliantly

Simple PowerPoint designs can deliver the biggest impact. We’ve all seen slides that are jam packed. When things start to look too cramped, don’t be afraid to break up the information into multiple slides. This gives your content room to breathe. Overcomplicating designs only creates unnecessary clutter, thus jeopardizing the clarity of your message.

Consider the color, layout, and imagery of your slides as amplifiers to your message. Striking visuals will always be more memorable than bland blocks of text. You can make bits of information easier to understand by translating them into tables or graphs. Having more visually oriented slides also removes the crutch of “script-reading”, a common mistake that happens when presentations are text heavy.

This doesn’t come easily for everyone. In order to get the job done right the first time, it may be best to hire someone. Professional help with your sales presentation can be both affordable and tremendously beneficial in terms of your long-term investment.

SlideGenius Creates Sales Presentations for You

When your work starts to pile up, and you just don’t have the time for it all, let SlideGenius take care of designing your next sales presentation! Whether it’s an animated marketing video, or a PowerPoint presentation, we deliver professionally crafted pitch materials that will help your business grow.

Our work is possible thanks to our phenomenal team of designers, writers, and animators. We’ve worked with over 3,000 clients, honing our design skills to always create exciting presentations that are consistent with unique standards.

The work we do has helped our clients raise hundreds of millions of dollars for their businesses. The achievements earned by our clients are our measures of success. Together, let’s bring your company up to brand new heights! Reach out now to get a free quote on how we can help.

3 Small Talk Habits That Delay Professional Presentations

Posted on September 17, 2015July 22, 2024 by Rick E

Don’t boring scenes make you want to press fast-forward?

If you’re bad at entertaining your audience, then they’ll want to fast-forward your professional presentations, too.

But what makes a scene boring?

There are many reasons for a dull presentation, but one of the most notorious is because the presenter is trying to cover up a lack of preparation.

Here are 3 delaying tactics you should avoid:

1. Overdoing Background Information

Introductions are where you engage audiences so that they’ll listen to you from start to finish.

However, taking too long to get to your main point will bore them to death.

Avoid including too much background information in your script.

Anecdotes are a great way to start a pitch, but make sure it’s directly related to your core idea, or else you’ll just go off-track.

Instead, go straight to your main points point and work on particular details that best inform and educate the crowd.

2. Stating the Obvious

Everybody knows that the Earth is round and the sky is blue.

Why tell your audiences information that they probably already know?

If you’ll be mentioning well-known facts, make sure that you have follow-up questions or points for discussion.

For instance, look for the reasons behind the fact, concrete examples that demonstrate that data, or ways how you could take advantage of it.

Otherwise, skip that piece of information altogether.

3. Delaying the Solution

Your audience is there for a reason: they’re looking for something beneficial that you can give them.

If you fail to deliver, then you’ve failed your audience.

Build-up is important, but spending too much time hyping up your offering could cause your audience to doze off from boredom.

Worse, they may get annoyed and think that your pitch was a waste of time.

Caring about your audience involves giving them what they expect from you. Offer something that makes them think that they’re your priority. Don’t give them the opposite of what they’re looking for.

Get Straight to the Point

Why would you end up delaying your presentation in the first place?

Often, this is a result of not preparing for the big day.

Careful planning allows you to craft and organize your script. It helps you recognize what is valuable to your audience.

When you plan for your next presentation, instead of talking about how significant your topic is, make sure to go straight to delivering your main point.

Remember: avoid including too much background information, stating the obvious, and delaying the solution.

Avoiding these delaying tactics is your ticket to the fast-lane of engaging, convincing, and sales-worthy presentations.

5 Sales Presentation Tips You Can Learn from Infomercials

Posted on August 28, 2015July 22, 2024 by Rick E

An infomercial is a type of TV commercial used to generate sales and increase a product or service’s demand. It can last from two minutes to thirty minutes, offering a persuasive approach to influence viewers’ purchase decisions. Advertisers use this method to sell and leave its audience with lasting impact, convincing them to take action.

Besides AIDA, you can also rely on infomercial sales methods to capture your client’s attention and turn them into leads. Here are some techniques to include the next time you make your sales pitch:

Understand the Market

This involves presenting your audience with problems for which you have solutions. It’s important to position your product as something that’ll make their life easier and more convenient. People are continuously looking for something that satisfies their needs. This leads advertisers to find ways to take advantage and capture their attention and connect with them.

This is similar to how Alan Monroe’s motivational sequence views fulfillment of needs. Since people avoid the feeling of discomfort, they’re more likely to look for a solution that’ll help them feel at ease.

Show Striking Visuals

There’s nothing more effective than displaying powerful visuals and letting them speak for you. This is an efficient and effective approach that allows sales professionals to demonstrate how a certain product works.

When giving your sales presentation, use appropriate and striking images instead of walls of text to explain important information. Remember, a picture paints a thousand words.

Highlight the Client Benefits

Caring about your audience means prioritizing their needs over yours.

When you deliver your pitch, emphasize your product or services’ benefits to let them think that they need it. Focus on the results provided to generate interest.

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Include Testimonials

At first glance, people are more likely to share their opinions if a product is effective or if it’s worth buying. This involves showing your audience how customers share their experience when they began using the product or availing the service.

The Jones Theory is one of the sales impulse factors that convince your client based on others’ opinion of your product or service.

Inspire Action

Providing your audience with incentives shows a sense of urgency, convincing them to act immediately. Once you provide reasons that interest them, they’ll be convinced to act on their impulses.

Including an effective call-to-action takes advantage of the built up desire and increases your chances of positive results.

Conclusion

Applying these selling techniques from infomercials will benefit you and your audience. They allow you to satisfy their needs, while also helping your message get across. Open your presentation with a question that emphasizes their problems to get their attention. Keep their attention and complement your message with interesting and powerful visuals.

Keep them interested by concentrating on your product’s key benefits and unique features. Demonstrate your product’s value by showing them testimonials of satisfied clients. Encourage them to take action and take advantage of what you can offer with a top-notch Call-to-Action.

The next time you present, use these strategies to reel more clients in. To help you craft a more persuasive PowerPoint presentation, let SlideGenius experts assist you!

We redesign PowerPoint presentations.

Get your free quote now.

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References

“Monroe’s Motivated Sequence: Perfecting the Call to Act.” Mind Tools. Accessed June 10, 2015.
“The Sales Advice Website for Direct Salespeople.” Door to Door Salesman, 2015. Accessed June 10, 2015.
“Use AIDA for Persuasive PowerPoint Presentations.” SlideGenius, Inc. May 27, 2015. Accessed June 10, 2015.

9 Simple Rules for an Effective Sales Presentation

Posted on October 8, 2014July 22, 2024 by Rick E

There’s a lot at stake when delivering a sales presentation. After cold calls and endless follow-ups, you now have the opportunity to meet with prospects and have a worthwhile discussion with them. You get to showcase the service or product you’re offering and all the benefits attached to it.

In order to succeed, you can’t just throw a PowerPoint deck together and deliver a haphazard presentation. Instead, you need to be mindful of the correct techniques, making use of your creativity to leave a lasting impression.

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Here are 9 simple rules to make sure your pitch goes according to plan:

1.) Keep it short and simple

It’s easy to lose interest in a presentation that seems to go on forever. Even with an extremely engaging topic, most audiences have a hard time focusing their attention for more than a couple of minutes.

The first step to improving your sales presentation is by cutting down the content. Focus only on the points that are crucial to the message you’re delivering.

2.) Hook the audience with a story

There’s nothing more compelling than a good story. Instead of presenting your pitch in a traditional, matter-of-fact way, you can spin it into a narrative. Following the dramatic arc of ancient Greek plays, or use the AIDA method as a guide.

With a specific and structured narrative, you can easily determine which points are crucial to your message, and which ones feel excessive or unnecessary. This technique can also lead to a stronger connection between you and your audience.

3.) Create tension by identifying challenges

All the best stories are able to build tension for conflict and suspense. The same thing should be true for your sales presentation. Briefly show your prospects just how crucial your product or service is. Let them know that you’re aware of the problems they encounter. Describe a scenario that enumerates the challenges they face. Aside from making your pitch more compelling, this will let your prospects see how much you understand their current situation.

4.) Release tension by detailing your solution

Of course, you’ll need to do more than talk about the problems. Too much suspense can also kill engagement, so balance your story out by bringing attention to positive details as well. Delve into the features of your product or service, and focus on the opportunities it can give your prospects. Show them how your solution is the best way to overcome their challenges.

5.) Showcase your accomplishments, expertise, and experience

Another thing you can’t miss is to showcase the value of your brand and company. Build audience trust by enumerating your key accomplishments and relevant industry experience. Let your prospects understand the culture and logic behind your product or service, but don’t spend too much time blowing your own horn. Majority of your sales presentation should be spent on connecting with your prospect and showcasing the benefits of your offer.

6.) Emphasize your message with slides that incorporate your brand

Your brand encapsulates your entire company identity. By creating a PowerPoint deck that mirrors your brand, you can help your presentation become more unique and distinguishable. The easiest way to go about this is by using a color palette that’s similar to your logo. You can also incorporate the overall theme of your product into your design. These examples can serve as inspiration.

7.) Prepare for the difficult questions

You can never tell how the audience will react to your presentation. Your prospect might ask you questions that are difficult to answer. They could also bring up points you weren’t made aware of in your previous conversations. For situations like this, it’s always better to be prepared. Get ready to improvise. It will also help if you list down and answer all the possible questions that your audience might ask. Consult your colleagues and other members of your team to expand your list.

8.) Close with a specific Call-to-Action

The Call-to-Action (CTA) is perhaps the most crucial part of your sales presentation. It summarizes the purpose of your pitch in a bold statement that urges your prospects to take positive action. In other words, the CTA puts the ball on their side of the court. To be effective, a CTA needs to be direct, precise, and straight to the point.

9.) Don’t forget to follow up

Your work doesn’t stop even after your sales presentation ends with positive feedback. You can’t assume that your prospects will immediately act on your presentation. The people in your audience, especially the key decision makers, often have busy schedules. To make sure the impact of your sales presentation doesn’t dwindle, send an email to your prospects and reiterate your points.

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Featured Image: Ted Eytan via Flickr

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