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Month: July 2014

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Sales Pitch Follow-Up: Keeping the Momentum Alive

Posted on by Rick E

You finished your sales pitch to a warm round of applause. After addressing a few questions, your prospects seem pleased. Your sales pitch was a success, but you’ll be wrong to assume that this is where the hard work ends. You still have one more thing to do to ensure that action happens and deals are sealed: the follow-up.

Despite the positive response, you can’t assume that your prospects will immediately act on your pitch. The people in your audience, especially the key decision makers, lead busy lives. Even if they were initially impressed by your sales pitch, other priorities might end up pulling them away. Without a follow-up, the proverbial pendulum stops swinging. Your pitch loses the momentum it initially gained.

Why Following Up is Important

In his book “Brain Rules,” Dr. John Medina points out that people remember information better if they’re re-exposed to it. A strong follow-up contains more than just a simple thank you note. It should re-expose your prospects to your key points and end goal. To make sure your sales pitch gets the best results, you have to include your follow-up plans as part of your preparation.

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These are just some techniques you can consider:

1. Express your gratitude

While a follow-up is more than just a quick thank you, it’s important that you express your gratitude to those who took the time to listen to your sales pitch. If you were able to do a bit of networking, integrate the points you discussed during your brief conversations. It’s important to make your letter feel personal.

Take note of the things you talked about with different people, even if most of it was just small talk.

2. Expound on questions and offer additional resources

To make sure that your follow-up says more than just a few pleasantries, use your message as an opportunity to expound on the questions you answered during the pitch. Ask a member of your team to take note of details during the Q&A, so you won’t have to worry about memorizing who said what.

Relay the questions you were asked, your answers, and expound on the points you had to cut out due to time restraints. If you have additional resources that you can share, include them in your message.

This will demonstrate a positive impression to your prospects. It shows that you’re not only focused on your own concerns, but you’re also willing to dialogue based on the comments they brought up.

3. Link to a scrolling web pitch

Visuals are important to making an impact on an audience, so include your pitch deck in your follow-up. Your deck was strategically designed to make sure your prospects retain information better, and it won’t hurt if they get to see it again. But attaching your pitch deck to an email and asking them to download it might a bit too cumbersome.

Try a scrolling web pitch instead. Schedule a free consultation and we can help you convert your slides into an interactive web experience.

4. End with another Call to Action

Your follow-up is a great way to reiterate your message, so don’t end it without a strong CTA. Don’t recycle the same CTA you used for your pitch deck, but you can tailor it to fit the flow of the message you composed. You can say something like “We very much look forward to working with you on this project, we will achieve the results that we discussed and presented, and we ask you to give us the opportunity to be part of your team.”

Start making follow-ups a few days after your sales pitch. Definitely, you shouldn’t pester your prospects by following up constantly every single day. Wait for a response after your initial contact. If you don’t receive it, try again after a couple of days. This is where it can get a bit tricky. You can’t wait too long nor can you make constant contact.

Conclusion

Despite the success of your sales pitch, you should never assume that your prospects will immediately take action.

Your pitch is only one side of the conversation, and they still need to time to ponder on your message and make up their minds. Make sure your message doesn’t get cold and follow-up as soon as you can.

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Reference

“How to Say Thank You After Your Big Sales Presentation.” The Sales Blog. 2010. Accessed July 25, 2014.

Featured Image: Evonne via Flickr

Business Storytelling: Turn Pitch Decks into a Powerful Marketing Tool

Posted on by Rick E

Business storytelling has been helping brands add more impact to their online content, and it can do the same for your pitch decks.

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: Your pitch decks have the potential to become one of the most powerful marketing tools in your arsenal. During pitches, you’re directly talking to the people you want to reach out.

So don’t waste a good opportunity by boring potential clients with bad delivery. Engage them with a simple technique that’s ‘as old as time’. Tell them a great story.

What is business storytelling?

According to Mike Murray, business storytelling is basically about “brands sharing their messages in ways that engage audiences and drive them to a desired action.” It might sound similar to the definition of content marketing we gave previously, but Murray maintains that they are two separate, but related things.

“Business storytelling is a distinct content discipline that leverages well-crafted narratives in a diverse range of content types, while content marketing is much broader and speaks to the collective efforts that companies use to communicate with their audiences in informative and engaging ways.”

To frame it, content marketing refers to a collection of things you do to reach out and engage consumers and potential clients. One of the ways you can do that is through pitch decks that reveal the core identity of your brand and company.

What business story should you tell?

In her book, “Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins,” Annette Simmons identified six kinds of stories that can help facilitate business communications:

  • “Who am I” Stories
  • “Why am I here” Stories
  • Vision Stories
  • Values-in-Action Stories
  • Teaching Stories
  • “I know what you’re thinking” Stories

While Simmons uses these stories to help frame interactions that are more straightforward, her insights can also be helpful to marketing pitches. Particularly, it’s the first three that are important to business storytelling in your pitches. These are the type of stories that help reveal insights to build trust and establish rapport between you and your audience.

Obviously, you won’t be telling stories from your own personal experience. Instead, think of answers to “Who am I”, “Why am I here” and “What do I envision” in terms of your brand and company identity. Here are a few specific questions, courtesy of Content Marketing Institute, to help you narrow it down:

  • What’s your reason for being?
  • What’s your history?
  • Who are your main characters?
  • What’s your corporate mission?
  • How have you failed?

Humans have always been storytellers. It’s our way of connecting with each other. In whatever form, the core of all our communications is the primordial impulse to tell and hear stories. Why not use that to improve your pitches?

References

Murray, Mike. “Business Storytelling: Key Questions.” Content Marketing Institute. April 23, 2014. Accessed July 24, 2014.
“The Six Kinds of Stories.” Annette Simmons. 2014. Accessed July 24, 2014.
Williams, Debbie. “Find the Heart of Your Brand Storytelling with These 6 Questions.” Content Marketing Institute. June 19, 2013. Accessed July 24, 2014.

Featured Image: UNE Photos via Flickr

Storytelling: The Secret to Great Pitch Deck Content

Posted on by Rick E

Everyone loves a good story. Everyday books are read, movies are watched, and events of the afternoon are shared over the dinner table. Stories are an intrinsic part of our experience as people. It’s a vital part of how we communicate with one another.

Remember this fundamental truth when you’re set to give your next pitch deck. Your pitch deck content has to be more than just a barrage of information and numerical data. Make your pitch deck interesting and relatable. There is nothing more compelling than a good story. It’s the secret recipe you’re missing in your pitch deck content.

Keep these things in mind when you’re working on your pitch deck content:

1.) Every story has a beginning, middle, and end

Your pitch deck content should follow a clear and organized structure.

Just as Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, had a great fall, and was unable to be put back together by the King’s men, your pitch deck content should be presented in a pattern that’s familiar to everyone.

Start with an introduction, delve into the issues after that, and then end with a summary and conclusion.

2.) Introduce your topic with an anecdote or two

Let your audience see that there’s a genuine and relatable story behind what you’re presenting. Don’t just settle for being informative.

Show your audience why the information you’re presenting is important to them. Tell them a few stories that will allow them to relate your topic to their own experiences.

3.) Create context for data

Cold, hard facts can seem impersonal at times, and thus a bit alienating. In order to pull your audience into the main part of your pitch deck content, you have to give them some context.

When presenting any kind of data, don’t focus too much on the figures. Instead, focus on explaining what they mean and where they fall into your storyline.

4.) Try for an emotional response

Don’t be afraid to show some heart. Try your best to evoke the emotions of your audience in a positive way. Illustrate your points with heart-warming examples, or tell a few jokes as you go along your pitch deck.

Go for what feels natural to you, your topic, and the people in the audience.

Conclusion

Delivering a pitch, no matter how formal, doesn’t need to be boring. Using storytelling as a creative means to leverage your pitch can attract you a wider range of audiences and introduce your brand to a bigger public.

It can also serve a double purpose as something to give structure to your pitch deck with a solid hook, line, and sinker. Organize your content with a story to deliver in mind, and you’ll be surprised how much easier everything else will follow.

Need help crafting your pitch deck story? Contact our pitchdeck.com experts today for a free quote!

Featured Image: matryosha via Flickr

How to Turn a Business Plan into a Great Pitch Deck for Investors

Posted on by Rick E

It’s not always easy to raise capital for a new idea. Whether you’re just starting out or have been in the game for quite some time, you need significant preparation in order to make a favorable impression on potential investors.

You need time to research the validity of your idea, and to work out its details and technicalities. When you already have a comprehensive and viable business plan, the next step is to create a pitch deck that will make investors sit up and listen.

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Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of including too much information in their investor pitch deck. They take their business plan, slap it into PowerPoint, and end up with a ridiculous amount of slides. Guy Kawasaki shared his experience of having to sit through pitches as a venture capitalist. He wrote,

…sixty slides about a “patent pending,” “first mover advantage,” “all we have to do is get 1% of the people in China to buy our product” startup. These pitches are so lousy that I’m losing my hearing, there’s a constant ringing in my ear, and every once in while the world starts spinning.

If you were in his place and you had to sit through a pitch that’s not only uninteresting but seems never-ending, wouldn’t you feel the same way?

We can’t allow investors to keep falling over due to vertigo, so here’s what you need to know about creating a powerful investor pitch deck:

What should a pitch deck contain?

pitch deck-target

A pitch isn’t about closing in on an investment just yet. Instead, think of it as an introduction. Just as you would with someone you just met, your pitch should serve as a conversation that will allow investors to learn more about your plans.

Your pitch deck doesn’t need to contain all the data from your research. According to Kawasaki’s own 10-20-30 rule of PowerPoint presentations and Chance Barnett‘s model for investor pitch decks, it shouldn’t have lengthy paragraphs or complicated graphs. All it needs are the things investors initially want to know:

  • Problem – Discuss the problem that you’re aiming to solve. Identify who is most affected by it.
  • Current solutions – Give a short rundown of how this problem is being solved currently. Point out what’s missing from these solutions.
  • Your solution – How do you plan to solve the problem? This is your chance to introduce your product/service and its story.
  • Underlying magic/technology – Go into your main selling point. What makes your product/service different? What’s the “secret sauce”? Include a demo if you can.
  • Business model – Discuss your key revenue streams. This is where you identify your target market and show off your numbers—pricing, revenues, conversion rates, etc.
  • Marketing and sales – Go into your marketing strategy. How do you plan to expand your customer base? What’s your targeted growth rate and how will you get there?
  • Competition – Where do you stand in the overall market space? Identify your competitors and explain how you’re different.
  • Team – Introduce the other people on the project with you and the key roles that they play. Show off their credentials and relevant experience.
  • Projections and milestones – Explain your financial projections, as well as your current milestones. Highlight some press mentions, partnerships, and other accolades.
  • Status and timeline – What is the timeline of your project and where are you at the moment?
  • Summary and call to action

These are the information that investors need to know to be able to tell if your plans are a perfect match for them.

Tips to keep in mind when working on your pitch deck:

pitch deck-work

  1. Cover only the most basic parts of your business plan and be as concise as possible. There will be time to go into specifics in the future. To keep it short, discuss only one concept per slide, and limit yourself to only 10.
  2. Let the investors dive into the minute details on their own. Give them separate documents like executive summary, patent details, financial and marketing reports, and other technical explanations. They can go through these documents after your pitch.
  3. The design of your pitch deck is important. Enhance your pitch deck with color schemes, images, and fonts that are consistent with the story you’re telling. We’ve written a lot about pitch deck design in the past. Read up on some of our blog posts if you’re looking to work on the aesthetics yourself. You can also drop us a line if you want a more professional touch.

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Conclusion

An effective pitch deck doesn’t need to have every single detail of a business plan. Investors don’t have the time to sit through pitches that are too long and vague.

The point isn’t to immediately seal a deal, but to introduce your idea as something that has great potential for success. Your pitch deck should be clear and concise, showcasing only the key points of your vision. Be brief but memorable.

References

“The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.” Guy Kawasaki. 2005. Accessed July 11, 2014.
Barnett, Chance. “The Ultimate Pitch Deck to Raise Money for Startups.” Forbes. May 9, 2014. Accessed July 11, 2014.

Featured Image: ImagineCup via Flickr
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