Tips & Tricks Archives

9 Simple Rules for an Effective Sales Pitch

Posted on October 8, 2014May 3, 2023 by Rick E

There’s a lot at stake when delivering a sales pitch. After cold calls and endless follow-ups, you now have the opportunity to meet with prospects and have a worthwhile discussion with them. You get to showcase the service or product you’re offering and all the benefits attached to it.

In order to succeed, you can’t just throw a pitch deck together and deliver a haphazard pitch. Instead, you need to be mindful of the correct techniques, making use of your creativity to leave a lasting impression.

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Here are 9 simple rules to make sure your pitch goes according to plan:

1.) Keep it short and simple

It’s easy to lose interest in a pitch that seems to go on forever. Even with an extremely engaging topic, most audiences have a hard time focusing their attention for more than a couple of minutes.

The first step to improving your sales pitch is by cutting down the content. Focus only on the points that are crucial to the message you’re delivering.

2.) Hook the audience with a story

There’s nothing more compelling than a good story. Instead of presenting your pitch in a traditional, matter-of-fact way, you can spin it into a narrative. Following the dramatic arc of ancient Greek plays, or use the AIDA method as a guide.

With a specific and structured narrative, you can easily determine which points are crucial to your message, and which ones feel excessive or unnecessary. This technique can also lead to a stronger connection between you and your audience.

3.) Create tension by identifying challenges

All the best stories are able to build tension for conflict and suspense. The same thing should be true for your sales pitch. Briefly show your prospects just how crucial your product or service is. Let them know that you’re aware of the problems they encounter. Describe a scenario that enumerates the challenges they face. Aside from making your pitch more compelling, this will let your prospects see how much you understand their current situation.

4.) Release tension by detailing your solution

Of course, you’ll need to do more than talk about the problems. Too much suspense can also kill engagement, so balance your story out by bringing attention to positive details as well. Delve into the features of your product or service, and focus on the opportunities it can give your prospects. Show them how your solution is the best way to overcome their challenges.

5.) Showcase your accomplishments, expertise, and experience

Another thing you can’t miss is to showcase the value of your brand and company. Build audience trust by enumerating your key accomplishments and relevant industry experience. Let your prospects understand the culture and logic behind your product or service, but don’t spend too much time blowing your own horn. Majority of your sales pitch should be spent on connecting with your prospect and showcasing the benefits of your offer.

6.) Emphasize your message with slides that incorporate your brand

Your brand encapsulates your entire company identity. By creating a pitch deck that mirrors your brand, you can help your pitch become more unique and distinguishable. The easiest way to go about this is by using a color palette that’s similar to your logo. You can also incorporate the overall theme of your product into your design. These examples can serve as inspiration.

7.) Prepare for the difficult questions

You can never tell how the audience will react to your pitches. Your prospect might ask you questions that are difficult to answer. They could also bring up points you weren’t made aware of in your previous conversations. For situations like this, it’s always better to be prepared. Get ready to improvise. It will also help if you list down and answer all the possible questions that your audience might ask. Consult your colleagues and other members of your team to expand your list.

8.) Close with a specific Call-to-Action

The Call-to-Action (CTA) is perhaps the most crucial part of your sales pitch. It summarizes the purpose of your pitch in a bold statement that urges your prospects to take positive action. In other words, the CTA puts the ball on their side of the court. To be effective, a CTA needs to be direct, precise, and straight to the point.

9.) Don’t forget to follow up

Your work doesn’t stop even after your sales pitch ends with positive feedback. You can’t assume that your prospects will immediately act on your pitch. The people in your audience, especially the key decision makers, often have busy schedules. To make sure the impact of your sales pitch doesn’t dwindle, send an email to your prospects and reiterate your points.

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Featured Image: Ted Eytan via Flickr

Your Quick 7-Step Plan for Better Pitch Deck Design

Posted on October 3, 2014May 3, 2023 by Rick E

The success of your pitch relies so much on how well you prepare. That’s why the days leading up to a big speech can be quite stressful. There’s just so much to accomplish in order to deliver an engaging pitch deck. First, you’ll need brainstorm and figure out everything you have to say. After drafting your ideas, you have to carefully choose which points are the most significant to your core message. And after all that, there’s still the challenge of designing a memorable pitch deck.

If you’re running the last mile of pitch preparation, we’re here to make things easier for you. Here’s the pitch deck design process condensed to 7 quick steps:

1. The Internet is the best source for inspiration

If you’re not sure how you want your slides to look like, you can find some inspiration by browsing through these links:

Top SlideShares – Browse through pitch decks that were featured in SlideShare’s homepage
Prezi Staff Picks – Look at the uploads curated by the Prezi staff
Note & Point – Find inspiration in a gallery of user-uploaded pitch deck and Keynote presentations

2. Pitch deck experts have great ideas to share

You can also read the advice of pitch deck design experts. Read these blog entries for a creativity booster:

“Martha Graham Showed the World How She Felt” by Nancy Duarte
“Story structure, simplicity, & hacking away at the unessential” by Garr Reynolds

3. Figure out a general style for your slides

Once you’ve absorbed the best pitch ideas, it’s time to decide what pitch deck design style to use. You can go for a minimalist design, which focuses on the use of typography and white space. On the other hand, you can choose to have a more image-based pitch deck. Learn more about design basics by reading our Design 101 posts here and here.

4. Start with an analog approach

Take the time to sketch out how you want each slide to look. It doesn’t have to be neat. Just draft out where you want to place different elements to see if everything works nicely. In other words, create a rough storyboard first.

5. Think of what your audience wants

You should also consider what your audience wants to see. Try to look at your pitch deck through the eyes of the audience by asking these four questions.

6. Focus on a single task at a time

You might think multitasking is an efficient way to finish your pitch deck, but it’s not. When designing your slides, focus on one thing at a time. If you have to look for images, do it before typing your content and arranging the layout.

7. Remove any distraction

Aim for an uninterrupted pitching session. The less you bother with other things, the faster you’ll finish designing your slides. But since you’re working on your computer, distraction is easy to access. Stop yourself from checking your email or social media accounts. Switch off your phone if you can. If you need extra help, you can make use of tools like StayFocused to block distracting websites.

You can ensure a great outcome if you take the time to prepare all the details of your pitch deck. Follow these 7 tips to create pitch deck designs that are effective and memorable. You can also work with a pitch deck design expert to get the best results.

Featured Image: UVF Graphic and Digital Design program via Flickr

Prezi Feature of the Week: Present the Big Picture with a Mind Map

Posted on October 2, 2014May 3, 2023 by Rick E

When presenting, it’s important to show the big picture, as well as its minute details. For this week’s “Prezi Feature”, learn how you can create a mind map to do just that.

Ideas usually come to us in clusters, and it’s hard to separate one from the other. When we’re brainstorming, we can come up with a whole web of ideas from just a single concept. One idea will branch out to a new one, and two more will branch out from that. Before you know it, you have a complicated map of interlocking chains of thought. It’s usually chaotic, but it also perfectly shows how ideas are related to each other.

chaotic mind map sample — A chaotic end to brainstorming. (Image: Flickr/Tim Regan)

When it’s time to turn your ideas into a pitch deck, it can be hard to trim the big picture. Do you focus on a single line of thought? Which one? What happens when an idea overlaps with something else? How do you turn creative chaos into a neat, linear narrative? Sometimes, you don’t have to. Visualize how a single topic can branch out into a web of ideas by creating a mind map with Prezi.

Finding order in the chaos

The challenge to mind mapping is that complex topics can easily turn into a huge, dizzying mess. To create some order, you’ll need to practice a bit of discipline. Your main goal is to make sure your mind map remains concise, while keeping all the important details. In other words, you’ll need to do some revisions.

As you would when building a slide deck, start with an analogue approach. Grab a notepad and draft your mind map first. Start by writing down your main topic, and then let your ideas branch out across the page. Once you’ve written everything down, condense each idea into key concepts. This step is similar to how you’d create a pitch deck storyboard. Let the ideas flow freely first, and then edit out excessive and repetitive details.

Creating a mind map in the Prezi canvas

Once you’ve condensed your draft, it’s time to turn your ideas into a free-flowing pitch deck. Mind mapping involves combining colors, shapes, and images, plus the strategic arrangement of all these elements. Prezi is the perfect canvas for that. You’re free to move around each element and create a layout that suits the flow of your ideas. To accurately visualize your topic, take note of these tips when arranging your mind map:

1.) Use different frame types to organize your mind map

You can make use of different frame types to show how your ideas progress into different “levels”. In this example, the main topic is contained inside a rectangle frame. The two diverging ideas that branch out from there are inside a circle frame.

2.) Create hierarchy by manipulating frame size and changing arrow width

You can also represent hierarchy in your mind map by manipulating the size of your frames. The farther you are from the center, the smaller your frames should be. Do the same thing with your arrows. Decrease thickness as you branch out across the canvas.

3.) Group specific parts or branches with an invisible frame

Add an invisible frame to group certain parts of your mind map together. This is useful if you want to focus on a specific branch before discussing each idea.

4.) Set the path carefully

The final look will depend on how you set the path. Once you’ve completed building the mind map, set a path that will allow the audience to see how everything works together. Give the full view at the start of your pitch deck, then make use of the zoom tool to focus on specific details. To illustrate, click here to view a mind map of a previous blog post called “3 Ways to Creativity”.

Conclusion

The flexibility of Prezi’s canvas allows you to create pitch decks that defy the usual one-track narratives. You can present the big picture and pan through the entire landscape.

Show your audience how the core message relates to your main points by creating a mind map.

Featured Image: Featured Image: Death to the Stock Photo / Prezi logo via Wikimedia Commons