Sales development plays an important role in any company. Only 4% of companies have no sales development team at all! If you are planning to create a sales department for your business or already have one but it is not really effective, then read this article carefully.
We will discuss the most common things people forget when creating a sales deck. Check them out below!
1. Don’t forget to involve sales in the process of making your deck.
If you are preparing a sales deck for presenting to potential customers or shareholders, then don’t forget that you will have to sell it through your prospect.
It means that if he wants to refuse any important information in the text, he will be able to do it most conveniently by going against you instead of taking full responsibility for doing so. That is why it’s a good idea to always involve your sales team in the process of making your sales deck. You can ask them about every single change even if it seems insignificant. The worst thing that can happen is when bad content goes out on stage.
2. Don’t get too comfortable and keep updating your deck continuously.
If you are presenting a new product or service, then your sales deck is not the only thing that will be important for closing the deal. The whole process of making it happens to be very demanding. Therefore, you need to keep updating your decks continuously as well as other sales and marketing materials and campaigns.
For example, if new competitors emerge on the market, it should sooner or later be present in your sales deck together with some data that would allow you to stay ahead of them. If you don’t change anything, there is no guarantee that what you have today won’t become obsolete tomorrow.
So always keep up-to-date and let your customers know about every small detail.
3. Don’t forget about spelling and grammar mistakes.
This may be the most unforgivable mistake when doing a sales deck presentation. If you want to win the trust of your audience, then show that you’re not lazy. Let them know that you’ve put all your efforts into creating this presentation.
A spelling or grammar mistake turns people off completely!
You can always pay someone to do it for you but do present your sales decks in person; use their help only if they will see an absolutely final version of your presentation.
4. Use visuals to illustrate key points in your sales deck.
You shouldn’t use your sales decks only when presenting to investors; you can also use them when you want to educate and train members of your team on how they should go about selling an existing product or service to customers.
That is why visuals are very important here. However, you shouldn’t get carried away with them!
Only a few stick figures will be enough. They will help all employees understand what point you are trying to make at the moment without causing distractions. No one wants to listen to an hour-long speech. Instead, just try not to get lost in tons of infographics, arrows and numbers that could send anyone right into sleepiness.
5. Be careful about the length of your presentation in sales decks.
You shouldn’t stick to any rules in regards to sales deck length. It all depends on how big you are aiming for and your message.
If it’s a public presentation or investor pitch, then you will most likely need around 30 minutes to go through everything that has been written in your decks. But if this is an internal meeting, then 15 minutes should be more than enough for making all important points clear.
Also, remember that no one wants to listen to someone talking for 20 mins about something they don’t even care about. So make sure to keep it short!
6. Make use of flow charts to present your sales funnel.
A flow chart should be included in your sales deck design if you are talking about how it all works internally. You could also use this technique when asking for funding since it will help investors understand the whole process behind making money with what you’re trying to sell better.
So why not try using a flow chart in your sales deck template? It is not intimidating, hard to follow or boring; people are used to looking at them and even enjoying them! If they are properly made, then they can win an audience over before you even start your speech. Just make sure it’s understandable by everyone; don’t overload users with information which only you can interpret correctly.
If you want to get started right away, sign up with Venngage. The platform offers so many sales deck templates that you won’t have a hard time choosing sales deck examples that best fits your business. Check it out and make the best sales deck ever today!