Thoughts on Thought Leadership
Building a Winning Sales Deck
Few tasks are more important in professional services business development than delivering a sales presentation to a qualified prospect. Unfortunately, firms often fail to fully capitalize on these opportunities because of an ineffective sales “deck.” Although some work is won in spite of poor presentations, more often than not such decks actually worsen a firm’s chances of convincing a prospect that it understands the prospect’s problems and has the expertise to solve them. Creating an effective sales presentation requires being vigilant about both content and graphics.
Content
In our experience, many presenters forget that a sales deck must tell a story, and that story logically unfolds through three sections:
- Authority. This section sets the tone for the discussion by demonstrating an understanding of the prospect’s industry, competitive and customer pressures, and business issues. Solid background research is necessary to develop this section, especially on the prospect company and its competitors. Discussion of industry trends drawn from studies and other research reports is also helpful in demonstrating authority, especially if such research has been conducted by the presenting firm itself.
- Expertise. Once the deck establishes the presenter’s credibility, it must demonstrate that the firm has the expertise to solve the problems that the prospect faces. The presentation must lay out how the firm would approach the project, including a review of any proprietary capabilities (e.g., methodology, center of excellence, tools and frameworks) that gives the firm a unique ability to solve the prospect’s problems. Importantly, this section should be free of jargon and terms that are primarily internal to the firm and mean nothing to the prospect.
- Results. The third section of the deck concludes the story by illustrating how the firm’s approach and unique capabilities have helped other companies address similar problems. Several mini case studies of successful projects—with hard numbers on business benefits achieved—will help establish the fact that the firm does what it says and that its approach has generated genuine business value for other companies. Without this section, the prospect will likely view the preceding messages as untested sales claims and will be skeptical of the firm’s ability to deliver.
Graphics
Even the best-organized, most content-rich deck can fall flat if its material isn’t presented in a clear, easy-to- follow way. The following are some of the biggest mistakes we’ve seen firms make in trying to spice up the visual impact of sales presentations:
- Too many words. A presentation is not a novel. The slides are visual aides meant to prompt discussion, so you shouldn’t try to impart everything you know via the text. If you do, your slides will look like the newspaper classified ads—and be just as readable from across a table.
- Fun with colors. Just because PowerPoint offers 500 colors doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. Too many colors become very distracting. Pick two or three colors for your text and graphics that complement your corporate colors and stick with them throughout.
- Too much animation. Nothing will distract your prospect more than the visual cacophony of flying charts, spinning headlines, and crawling bullet points. Keep the transitions between slides simple and minimize the effects used to introduce text and graphics.
- Dense, complicated graphics. Tables, charts, and graphs should illustrate a point, not confuse prospects further. It will be of no help to insert on a slide the flow chart of your latest methodology, reduced in size by 50% so that it looks like the electrical blueprint for a 747 cockpit.
- Too long. Limit the deck for an hour discussion to about 20 to 25 slides. This will be more than enough to cover your key messages. You can always follow up with additional information after the presentation.
In our experience, the best sales decks are collaborative efforts among the presenter (who’s also the content expert), a writer with good instincts for how to tell a story, and a capable graphic designer who understands the nature of the presentation medium. Such a team will help ensure that the critical areas of content and graphics are addressed. They also will undoubtedly create a more powerful and effective presentation than the salesperson who whips the deck together on the plane ride to the prospect’s site.