5 Quick Tips for Making a Sales Presentation

Many of the presentations that we design are sales decks which are meant to be delivered in front of customers, potential customers, investors, and so on. These presentations are the vital, life-giving blood part of any sales team’s strategy, but sadly, most of them stink. They are loaded with too much unnecessary information, too much clipart, and too much boredom. Here is the advice we wish we could share with all companies before they created their sad sales presentations.

1. Do Your Research

The wrong way to begin a presentation is to ask: “what do I want the audience to know about me?” This is going to make your sales pitch sound like a villain’s monologue: self-centered, showy, and a little evil. Instead, you should start all sales decks by asking the question: “what can my product/service do for the audience?” Take this question to the next level by researching the company beforehand to discover exactly what their needs will be before you deliver.

2. Customize The Content

Don’t use the same presentation for every customer since their needs will vary. Add or remove slides as necessary beforehand, or even consider saving different versions of the same presentation. Some clients will be concerned with financials and some will merely want to hear the compelling story of your company; know the difference, and then cater to that difference.

3. Speaker’s Notes

If you won’t be delivering the presentation yourself and will be outsourcing the pitch to a sales team, keep their needs in mind as you write. We often recommend that our client’s use speaker’s notes rather than cluttering up the slide with too much information. That way the salesperson still has the information to follow along with, but clients aren’t hypnotized into sleep by reading endless bullet points.

4. Elevator Pitch

Even if you have 30 minutes to deliver your presentation, treat the on-slide information as you would an elevator pitch. Utilize brief main ideas on each slide and ditch complicated graphs, paragraph-long text, and anything that could clutter your core pitch.

5. Refine a Call to Action

Most of the sales deck we see don’t have a call to action at all. The deck leads into a traditional “thank you” slide or a crowded cluster of logos, which are all rather wimpy ways to end a presentation. Give your audience something to do once they’ve finished listening to your sales pitch. A call to action is the rally cry that represents the entire point of your presentation, answering, “what should the audience do with this information?”

Don’t let the quality of your sales presentation affect your sales: spend a little time polishing up your materials before you head into the shark tank.

Question: How can you improve your sales presentation, starting today?


New Call-to-action

Join our newsletter today!

© 2006-2024 Ethos3 – An Award Winning Presentation Design and Training Company ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Contact Us