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Sales Pitch Tips: How to Leave Your Clients Inspired

A sales pitch is the proverbial last mile. The opportunity to come face-to-face with a prospect is your last bet to make sure the sales process goes in your favor. Because of this, the stakes are high and there’s a lot of pressure to perform. It’s not enough that you’ve made sure to present your product or service in the best light. You also need a good story to share.

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Salespeople tend to focus on the particulars of what they’re offering. While it’s important to introduce the details of your product or service, it’s also important to answer a crucial question. As TED speaker Simon Sinek puts it, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Following this line of thinking, here are a few ways to make sure your story stands out and leaves prospects inspired:

Follow a compelling structure

Do without the blatant matter-of-fact way tone sales pitches typically have. This traditional technique doesn’t particularly inspire prospects to engage with you.

If you want to add an edge to your own sales pitch, follow the dramatic arc of ancient Greek plays. Scientific research has proven that narratives following this specific structure can trigger powerful emotional responses. This is exactly what you need if you’re looking to create a stronger connection between you and your audience.

Identify the challenges your prospect is facing

The conflict is perhaps the most important part of a story. In a movie, this is the point where all the tension and suspense start to build up. While you’re not looking to scare people off their seats, it’s important to create a similar feeling in your pitch.

Build a rapport by identifying the challenges that your prospects want to solve. Let them see that you’re aware of their current situation and you understand where they’re coming from. Describe to them a scenario that addresses the challenges they face to make your pitch more relatable.

Detail a solution particular to their issues

Obviously, it isn’t enough that you identify the problems your prospects want to solve. Challenges need to be solved. If you really want to leave them inspired, balance your story out by offering your own solution.

This is the part where you can bring out the details of your product or service. Delve into the features that are particularly helpful for the challenges you just presented. Make sure these solutions are specific to give your sales pitch a more personalized feeling.

Urge audience to action with a definitive statement

When you finish covering all the important points, don’t forget to end your sales pitch with a bang. Urge the audience one last time by providing them a Call to Action statement that’s simple and straight to the point.

Summarize the purpose of your pitch in one bold statement that will get prospects to commit. This final, definitive statement is your last chance to make sure the audience doesn’t forget your story and message, so make it memorable and convincing.

Make sure the visuals highlight your brand

All these tips could fall flat if you don’t have visuals that help highlight and elevate your story. Part of that story is making sure your brand is well-represented.

By creating a pitch deck that mirrors your brand, you can make sure that your sales pitch is more distinguishable and unique. Best of all, it also helps remind your audience that you’re the best choice from a range of competitors.

The best way to go about this is by incorporating your logo in the colors you use. Take a look at these sample slides for more inspiration.

A sales pitch doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. Following the right techniques, it can be an easy sprint to the finish line. Follow these tips to make sure you leave prospect clients inspired and ready to get on board.

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Reference

How great leaders inspire action. Simon Sinek. TED, 2009.
The Science of Effective Storytelling in Presentations.” pitchdeck.com, September 28, 2014. Accessed January 26, 2015.

Featured Image: PicJumbo.com

PowerPoint Karaoke: Have Fun and Improve Your Pitching Skills

I’m sure you’ve tried karaoke to wind down with colleagues after a long day of work. But have you ever thought to give PowerPoint Karaoke a try?

In PowerPoint Karaoke, participants are challenged to take the stage and deliver a pitch based on slides they’ve never seen before. The rules are pretty simple. Instead of singing power ballads, participants will need to make sense of random slides, and connect it to an assigned theme. They will also be restricted by a time limit. The results are usually pretty crazy and absurd. To give you a clue, here are some slides from a PowerPoint Karaoke event held in Seattle last 2012:

As you can probably imagine, PowerPoint Karaoke can lead to some pretty hilarious situations. The best speakers are those who are willing to step out of their comfort zone, ready to have fun while practicing their improvisation skills. It’s the perfect game for anyone looking to deliver better and more engaging pitches.

Getting started:

If you’re ready to throw your own PowerPoint Karaoke party, here are some tips to help you get started:

  • Build your pitch decks beforehand. Be creative and go for slides that will challenge the participants. If you want, you can find pitch decks online and edit them for your use. Five to seven slides per deck will do.
  • At the event, let the participants draw for their speaking order and assigned theme. This will give everyone an even playing field, and prevent people settling for topics they’re familiar with.
  • You can decide whether you want speakers to control their own deck, or have the slides auto advance.
  • Set a time limit that’s no more than 5 minutes.
  • Decide on a winner by letting the audience vote. You can prepare forms, or just ask them to choose their favorites by show of hands.
PowerPoint Karaoke is a great activity to try with your colleagues. Gather a small group in a room and start having fun. Urge everyone to test their improvisation abilities and improve their pitching skills.

Featured Image: Simon Law via Flickr

Maintaining Audience Attention in Your Pitch Decks

The British bank Lloyds TSB conducted a study on the cause of careless household accidents, and the results they gathered have some pretty broad implications. As quoted by Fortune.com, the average adult attention span has plunged from 12 minutes in 1998 to 5 minutes in 2008. Participants attributed their short attention span to stress and decision overload, both unavoidable in our fast-paced lifestyles.

With the advent of technology and the distraction of multiple screens — from our work laptops to our smartphones — holding one’s attention for longer than the usual is nearly impossible. That is, if you’re bored by the topic.

Considering this information, it seems that presenting to a huge audience has never been more difficult. Five minutes is barely enough time to make a positive impression. This is a huge challenge that presenters need to over come. Here are 3 key strategies to keep in mind:

Condense your slides

Try to present more information orally to reduce overloading your slides with too much text and data. The people in your audience can read much faster than they can listen to you talking. As we’ve discussed time and again, an effective pitch deck acts as a visual aid. It doesn’t contain every sentence you want to share. Instead, it perfectly illustrates your main points through the use of images and other multimedia elements. Instead of packing your slides with a bunch of facts and figures, spend more time illustrating and articulating your points.

An emotional and physical connection might be more effective in capturing the audience’s imagination. This bond calls the attention of people whose minds were wandering off in the crowd, and engages those who are beginning to invest in what you’re saying.

Follow an intriguing narrative structure

Structure your pitch deck in a way that will surely engage your audience. There’s a reason why we can sit motionless in a movie theater for two hours, completely enamored by what we’re watching. Movies follow a great story arc that build suspense and intrigue. Effective storytellers know how to create anticipation that keeps viewers looking forward to what happens next. Following their example, your pitch deck can also work the same way.

Craft your pitch deck in a way that presents a problem (“what is), and slowly build your way towards a solution (“what could be”). The problem-tension-solution pattern roughly mimics the structure of classical Greek dramas, which research has found to be effective in eliciting powerful emotional response.

Create “soft breaks” 

According to presentation expert Carmine Gallo, the best way to re-engage the short attention spans of your audience is by creating “soft breaks” within your pitch deck. After every 10 minutes or so, give your audience some moments to pause by incorporating videos, activities, and demonstrations. You can also encourage audience participation by posing a question they can answer through a show of hands. If your pitch allows it, you can also call up other speakers from your team to offer the audience a fresh new perspective.

The Final Word

Capturing people’s attention can be a bit of a challenge, especially during a time when attention spans are beginning to drop, and people are constantly busy. But that doesn’t mean you have to make a plain, uninteresting pitch deck.

Engage people’s senses by keeping your pitch short and sweet, weaving a narrative around your pitch deck, and giving soft breaks in between. Follow these tips and you might just win new business!

Featured Image: Oliver Tacke via Flickr

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

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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A Shot in the Arm: How to Improve Your Healthcare Pitch Deck

Pitch deck presentations are as useful in the medical and healthcare industry as much as in other fields. Whether in the academe or private practice, medical practitioners use healthcare pitch deck for various pitch purposes. Physicians, for example, may be asked to present to interns as part of a lecture or to peers in seminars. They may even present to members of the community in a volunteer program. There’s only one problem, though. Most physicians and residents are not born presenters. Because of that, they tend to turn a pitch into a note-taking and outlining exercise. They simply pick from the default slide designs without adding an ounce of design creativity.

When tasked to give a talk in front of your colleagues or potential patients in a community, the success of your healthcare pitch deck depends on two factors. These are: your ability to communicate your message clearly and the way you capture your audience’s attention. You can achieve them by keeping the following tips in mind:

Organize your pitch deck

Flesh out the specific topics that you need to discuss. Determine at least three important points and then use these points to fill up each of you slides. As much as possible, limit it to one point per slide. This will keep your slides from looking cluttered while improving readability.

Healthcare

Make it visual

Admittedly, healthcare pitch deck presentations are not exactly the most exciting type of pitches out there. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t do something about it. To make your slides more appealing visually, try to use minimal text and more images. You can pick any images you like, as long as they are relevant to your topic and of high quality. This means that you should stay away from random, pixelated, and blurred clip art.

healthcare-powerpoint

Practice, practice, and more practice

The best public speakers are usually not born with all the necessary pitching skills. Many of them are able to engage audiences, maintain attention, and present valuable information because of hours and hours of practice. Apart from practicing your delivery, you should also practice the way you intend to use your healthcare pitch deck slides. Take note of every timing and every pause. Remember, your pitch deck is merely a tool. How you wield your tool can make a difference in achieving  pitch success as a medical lecturer/trainer.

4 Steps to Mastering the Elevator Pitch

The idea behind the elevator pitch is said to have originated from businessmen who needed to pitch proposals to prospective investors as quickly as possible.

Incidentally, it also gives the investors a chance to turn down ideas promptly (especially those that are not that good or do not match their investment profile). The fast paced delivery indeed works well for both parties. If you have a plan to acquire funds from a potential investor, mastering the art of the elevator pitch will definitely work to your advantage.

In his Forbes article, Rick Frasch already provides the eight mistakes entrepreneurs need to avoid in their elevator pitch. Now here are four tips from us on how to get it right:

1. Establish your story

Set aside a time to write your story, preferably without interruptions. When you write, visualize that you’re telling the story to a family member or a close friend. This can help you put your mind at ease.

Write anything relevant to your ideas. Don’t forget to silence your inner critic and not edit just yet.

2. Let it sit for some time

Once you are done with your pitch’s rough draft, go and do something else. You may want to go for a walk or drive around the neighborhood.

The idea is to let the story sit for a day or two so you’ll have a fresh perspective when you read and work on it again.

3. Polish your hook

Start editing down your story to its barest essential. Your goal is to craft a killer 60-second elevator pitch. While you’re at it, think about adding a good hook.

The hook is the part that will let you jumpstart your pitch. It should be about 15 seconds long. This is important because those 15 seconds are your only chance to convince your prospect to listen to the rest of the pitch.

Add an element of curiosity to your hook. You may choose to start with engaging phrases such as “What if…” or “Picture this…” At this point, you should have you prospect intrigued.

4. Explain what’s in it for them

Now that you have the attention of your prospective investor, it’s time to key in on engaging the audience. Persuade your listeners into actually investing by explaining how your idea can bring in profits. P

Prove that there’s a market for it and that your solution is something that customers would be willing to pay for. Close your pitch by creating a sense of urgency.

Whether your product is only available during the Holidays or you’re racing with a rival in filing a patent, use urgency to motivate, not force people to invest.

The Final Word

Spend enough time practicing your pitch. Time yourself as your practice. Make sure that you can say whatever you need to say within the 60-second limit.

The key to a great elevator pitch is not just to pitch in a rapid-fire approach. Even if you can’t deliver a mile a minute speech, you would still be able to impress your audience.

And most importantly, memorize your lines. If you’re using a pitch deck presentation, do not read from the slides. Investors can sense if you’re not ready and just winging it, so practice extensively to perfect that pitch.

Reference

Frasch, Rick. “8 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Pitching To Investors.” Forbes. Accessed June 10, 2014.

The First Slide: What It Needs to Be and What It Has to Do

If you want to maximize your slide pitches to establish better brand recall, start at the very beginning – the first slide. Naturally, it is the first thing that your audience will see even before you say a word. So design it in a way that stands out from the rest of your slides. It will help your logo and company name make an impression on your audience, and retain your brand in their memory long after your pitch ends.

It will help your logo and company name make an impression on your audience, and retain your brand in their memory long after your pitch ends.

What your First Slide Needs to BE

As you prepare you pitch deck, it’s important that you develop a first slide that will generate interest in support of everything you are about to say. It should have a visual element that features key aspects of your organization that is consistent with the key concept of your pitch.

It could be a photo or graphic image that stimulates people’s curiosity. As this is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your business, make sure to make the most of it. When people come in the room and see your first slide, they should be compelled to want to be interested in you what you have to say.

However, it doesn’t always have to be flashy to pique the audience’s interests while informing them of your brand. According to business guru Guy Kawasaki, in his famous 10-20-30 rule, your first slide should often be the Title Slide, which contains your company name, address, your name and position in the company, your email, and work cell number.

Details like these may be straight to the point, but if you’re presenting to a crowd of busy VCs and investors, this is enough visual stimulus to let them in on your brand.

What your First Slide Needs to DO

With the right amount of texts and graphics, your first slide can communicate much more than what it appears to relate to the audience. Your audience should be able to digest the information you are sharing quickly and precisely. They should get an idea about your business even before you start to talk about what you have to offer.

It is important that each slide in your pitch deck be well-designed and engaging. The first slide, however, is crucial in igniting the spark that will make people want to hear what you have to say and get to know more about your business. Design it right and it can help you set the stage for an awesome and successful presentation.

The Final Word

Ultimately, while the first slide isn’t the entire pitch deck itself, it’s still an introduction to the rest of your pitch. In the same way that you need to make a good first impression through your physical appearance and speech, you’ll need a deck to match.

Start your pitch right with a winning opening slide. Impress people from the get-go. Don’t let any opportunity pass.

Reference

The Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch.” Guy Kawasaki. Accessed May 28, 2014.

Designing a ‘How It Works’ Slide That Works

Do you find it difficult to explain to someone how a product, service, or process works? If your business involves selling new products or you’re constantly introducing new service features, then you’ll need an easy way to explain things. This is where the “How It Works” slides come in.

Explaining how certain things work is one of the most common uses of pitch deck slides. Done right, a “how it works” pitch deck can be effective for product demos, process flow illustrations, or pitching a business idea. To help you get started out, here are some ways you can make this type of slide work:

Lay it out

Pitch deck has several types of slide layouts. The default type comes with two boxes: The text box at the top, which is for the title of the slide, and the middle box, which is a multipurpose placeholder for text, graphics, or any content types.

For this purpose, however, you may choose the blank layout type and then simply insert the content that you need. Or better yet, as with the above slide, choose the Title Only template before putting all the other elements. To enhance the effect of your slide, feel free to choose from the Shapes and SmartArt Graphics.

Be consistent with colors

This one is pretty basic although there are still those who take it for granted. Buffer‘s Leonhard Widrich writes about how color schemes can affect our perception of a brand. The more recognizable colors have effectively been associated with specific brands, while those that were more difficult to point out didn’t have such a good color combination.

Similarly, pitch deck slides should have similar color schemes as they can affect the overall impact of your message.

Using varying combinations for different slides can confuse your audience. So for best results, make the color scheme of your How It Works slide consistent with the rest of your deck. This also applies to the slide itself. Looking at the above sample, you’ll notice that the color of the iVoteLIVE logo is consistent with that of the template. Apart from that, most of the imagery (i.e., photos and graphics) have similar shades of colors. This makes the slide pleasant to look at.

Take it easy with texts

This is another common concern and when it comes to How It Works slides, we can’t stress enough its importance. The purpose of slides is to describe visually something you can’t explain verbally. Why spend 15 minutes explaining a new feature, when a couple of images will take you just a few seconds, right?

If you’re going to include some texts, make sure not to mix up the fonts and font sizes just for the heck of it. Otherwise, your slide will appear visually confusing. Take a look at the sample again. While the format of the texts describing the consumers is different from the texts indicating the features (iVoteLive computer interface, Live Program Broadcasts), they still work because each group has specific purpose.

In short, they are not randomly mixed up.

The Takeaway: Engage with imagery

In general, images can make it easier for people to understand and remember ideas. So use relevant imagery instead of text in parts where you think a visual element would work better. When using images, though, be sure that they are of appropriate quality.

For scanned images, the ideal resolution is between 150 dpi (when precise color reproduction is not required) and 300 dpi (if you need higher quality images).

As much as possible, do not take images from the Internet as they usually of a very low quality and might pixelate when projected on a screen.

Reference

Widrich, Leonhard. “Why Is Facebook Blue? The Science of Colors in Marketing.” The Huffington Post. January 16, 2014. Accessed May 20, 2014.

The Top 3 Ways to Win Over Your Boss with Pitch Deck

Presenting to your boss, in any situation, can be a very nerve racking and stressful process. Of course some of the steps you can take to win them over would be to do your homework and prepare adequately, and dealing with bosses with extreme expectations, say for example The Office’s Michael Scott can be tricky. So how do you exactly ‘wow’ your boss with a great pitch deck presentation? Follow these specific steps for a pitch deck  that will leave your boss impressed.

michael_scott_office_steve-carrel

Keep A Specific Slide Maximum

You should plan on having no more than 15 slides- maximum! Too lengthy of a pitch deck will cause your boss to lose interest-fast and as Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

Use Metrics

Utilizing the appropriate data while encompassing this information with graphs and charts is essential in broadcasting your knowledge on the particular subject. Double check your facts in research with other sources before presenting. Showing your analytical skills through graphics and visuals will allow for you as the presenter to elaborate on these ideas within your pitch deck.

Leave Behind

Always come with the essential materials, make sure you have a printable copy of your pitch deck and or a downloadable PDF for your boss to further review, this will also show them you are prepared. Professionally printed executive brochures will place you a step ahead of the rest.

Though everyone knows Michael Scott may be the most irrational boss that ever came across national television, he does encompass some ordinary superior traits we can all relate too. The more advanced your pitch skills are, the better impression you will leave on your boss, showing your technical, marketing and basic research skills.

Comment below and let us know what your favorite Michael Scott moments are!

Selling Your Wife with Pitch Deck: Why it Works

The universal question remains, “How do you win an argument with a woman?” 

Just like Phil and Claire Dunphy on ABC’S Emmy Award-winning show, Modern Familyit’s almost a daily struggle to prove who’s right and why. This timeless debacle has stumped husbands across the years as countless disagreements and failed persuasions have led to broken compromises.

We may believe that the common day pitch deck presentation is merely just for business lectures but the marketing and persuasive ability of pitch deck slides may actually be one of the best explanation tools. When dealing with certain difficult issues such as mapping out your financial plans for the year, a pitch deck presentation has the capability to share information in the most persuasive and simplest way possible; therefore allowing for more agreements- and fewer arguments.

1. Starting Off Your Pitch with an Attention Grabbing Quote

Just like in any persuasive essay or speech, the appeal of pathos (or emotion) when presenting your idea will catch your wife’s attention from the beginning. Your quote can also be a personalized statistic, say if you were trying to either sell or buy a substantial item or place that sums up a main purpose.

2. Utilize Visuals and Graphs

Images speak louder than words, too much text will cause anyone to lose interest fast. Using bar graphs and pie charts to explain your financial forecast or using graphics will make for any explanation to be easier and allow for more efficient points to be made. Talking numbers make for more confusion- but showing numbers allows for more information to be digested easily and this is essential in any great pitch deck presentation. 

3. Minimal Bullet Points

The simpler, the better. Bullet points are acceptable in family pitch decks and allow for direct and specific statements to be made without too much wordiness. You as the presenter are responsible for elaborating these ideas, but visually they should be presented in the simplest form.

4. Using If/Then Analogies

Creating an if/then scenario within your pitch will give you the ability to show your wife why your point is valid and using examples will assist in positioning your argument.


Convincing somebody of anything is not an easy task, and just like Phil and Claire try to make sure their points are the “correct” ones, you can utilize pitch deck to share your ideas with your spouse and explain them in the most effective way possible.

Comment below and let us know if you’ve used pitch deck to persuade your wife.