This morning, Hubspot posted on their blog “10 Tweaks to Perfect Your Sales Pitch Deck”. I don’t know anyone who has a sales deck that they’re currently working on, but I figured it’s good to have around – an ounce of prevention is a pound of cure! I highly suggest you check out their post and run through their SlideShare.
The highlights are
- The sales deck should, first of all, be set up as a presentation instead of a word document. This will be more engaging to the prospect.
- To those with sales decks at their disposal they suggest that you look at the tweaks before ever sending it to others.
- The ten tweaks
- rethink your objective
- remove everything that doesn’t pertain to the objective
- make it engaging
- one idea per slide
- add some “help text”
- make an enticing title slide
- have a clear “call to action”
- ensure it to be self-sufficient
- rename the file
- upload and share the hyperlink
I think renaming the file is essential, yet often missed. It’s a small detail, but you’re looking through the prospect’s eyes, which is something they’ll appreciate. It’s perspective-taking from first glance.
I like the idea of making your sales deck a slideshow rather than a word document and only having one idea per slide. This forces the reader to become engaged in what they are reading and should provide a clear and concise idea of what you are trying to sell.