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Sales Pitch Q&A Tips: 4 Reasons to Master Negotiation

Posted on by Rick E

Your sales pitch is the last hurdle before you can seal the deal, but even that has a final step: the Q&A.

In every pitch, clients always have questions or concerns. These can be about how your company does business or the package options you have to offer.

Listening to and clarifying their questions will help them understand your position, making them more likely to trust you and close the sale. Experienced sales executives will always plan for these scenarios for 4 main reasons:

1. Clients Always Want Options

People will always look for a better deal to get their money’s worth.

You could be the best supplier of electronic gadgets in the industry, but if you don’t have any favorable options to offer your clients, like a bundle purchase deal with lower price points, or gadgets that they need, chances are they’ll give their money to the competition.

This is why having a fixed set of options rarely works: If you say you can’t give something to a client, you will have a harder time convincing them to invest in you. According to business consultant Larry Myler, giving alternatives is one of the negotiation techniques that salespeople use as a common ground for both their desired outcome and the clients’ desires.

2. Listening Lets You Learn Their Expectations

Our last article talked about knowing your audience’s expectations to help you give a more understandable pitch. While it’s good to know these beforehand, nothing beats getting these firsthand when you need to address their questions on the spot.

This lets you come up with better responses, whether it’s clarifying your previous statements in the pitch, or suggesting alternatives to the options you offered them. Listening also helps you get a better handle on what your clients expect from business partners.

For example, they may have objections to the pricing of your mobile service provider package, but if you let them explain why, you might have the advantage of using that information for either justifying the package or offering them something that fits their budget.

3. You Control the Argument

Learning to say no is another important skill in the Q&A. As the presenter, you need to be clear on what you can and cannot offer to remain in control of the deal. Let’s go back to that example of the mobile service provider: Your package may only be offered at a certain range, but a client might want to lower it further.

If your company knows that the proposed discount is unacceptable due to cost reasons, it might be better for you to refuse and suggest another package. While it’s true that you need to think about your client’s expectations, your company will most likely have their own standards to uphold, making an ultimatum necessary.

By dictating the terms of the offer, you make the deal profitable for both sides. It also boosts their perception of you as a reliable seller.

4. You Project Yourself as a Partner

In every pitch, the objective is all about offering solutions to a problem. This is why every seasoned sales executive takes time to know their clients as much as they can in order to solve their difficulties.

Getting clients to talk about what they need is always a good starting point. Keynote speaker Sherrie Campbell lists presenting yourself as a partner who’s willing to listen among her strategies for mastering sales negotiations. .

If your client can’t agree with your offer, you can always ask why, or replace your offer with a better one. This leaves a better impression than using a “take it, or leave it” approach because you involve clients in coming up with a solution.

The Lesson: Listening Always Helps

Handling the pitch’s Q&A is just as important as giving it. This lets you know your target market and what will convince them to invest in you. Listening to their concerns lets you adjust your offers as needed.

Instead of simply handing out a limited set of options, you give them more possibilities that can sweeten the deal for both sides. At the same time, you have to make it clear that there are things that you can’t compromise on, like a lower price for quality goods.

At your pitch’s last stage, you can impress your clients with your delivery. If you can give them that last nudge to bite into your offer by hearing them out, jumping that final hurdle will be easier for you. Handling this step needs every advantage you can get.

To sharpen your selling edge, take a few minutes to get in touch with a professional pitch deck designer and spice up your pitch deck.

References

Campbell, Sherrie. “7 Psychological Strategies for Mastering Sales Negotiations.” Entrepreneur. November 6, 2014. Accessed August 7, 2015.
Myler, Larry. “Four Ways To Win Any Negotiation.” Forbes. June 1, 2015. Accessed August 7, 2015.

Featured Image: “Signed Contract” by Mads T.F. on flickr.com

Don’t Fluff, Buff: Avoiding Filler Words in Your Pitch

Posted on by Rick E

Even the most complex ideas can be sufficiently explained using simple terms.

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As American founding father, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Never use two words when one will do.” Keeping things short and concise keeps a pitch from rambling and confusing people.

As we’ve discussed previously, the conversational tone works when presenting to an audience. However, our everyday speech doesn’t always translate well into written form.

Avoid using words that may work in everyday situations but not in writing slide content.

Here are ten common filler words to remove from your deck:

Got

You’ve got to stop using “got.” Say it properly: stop using “got.”

See the difference?

The latter sounds more certain, succinct, and direct.

Just

If you just can’t stop, then you’re just not doing it right. Unless you’re not speaking in the context of justice, avoid using “just.” It needlessly lengthens your writing.

This is also sometimes used in combination with “got.”: “You’ve just got to learn proper etiquette.”

Keep it simple. Say “Learn proper etiquette.” instead.

Really

Really? Avoid using “really” in your slides.

It’s okay to use it in everyday conversations when insisting on and emphasizing a point. However, using it in writing makes you sound like you’re trying too hard to convince someone to take your side.

Remove it, and you’ll sound more believable and credible. No, really.

Then

If you’re narrating a sequence of events, then you can use this word.

Readers easily understand that sentences in succession are connected, with or without bullet points. Your flow will remain the same without it.

Maybe

Nothing reeks of uncertainty more than “maybe.” It works for lightly declining a party invitation…maybe.

Remove it to sound more certain.

Basically

It basically doesn’t contribute anything to your sentences, except for one useless adverb to add to your word count.

Even if you mean to imply that the statement is a summary, it still sounds condescending to your audience. You’re implying that they wouldn’t understand what you’re talking about in its non-basic form.

Unless you’re writing a college paper and your professor is strict about word counts, remove it entirely.

Literally

The word literally means “without exaggeration or inaccuracy.”

Unfortunately, people use this word when they should be saying “figuratively.” Its use as an intensifier is both totally incorrect and terribly irritating.

If something is what it really is, remove it or use an appropriate adjective instead.

Amazing

Amazingly, its overuse the main cause of its decline.

Simply saying that something is amazing convinces nobody. It’s in no way superior or even equal to substantial explanation and demonstration of a truly amazing thing.

Things

When you’re talking about things, no one really understands what you’re talking about.

Be specific when writing for your deck. Use a noun that describes a specific object or concept. Otherwise, just remove it.

Stuff

The difference between stuff and things is minimal, except that stuff is even more general and overused. It’s commonly used to give conversations a warm and informal feel, as if you were speaking with friends.

In a professional setting, it makes you sound like you don’t know what you’re saying. Free yourself of stuff.

Conclusion

Just because they work in everyday life doesn’t mean you should use them in your pitch deck slides.

Keep your writing style different between speaking and writing to optimize your message’s effectiveness and your audience’s engagement.

Check out our pitch deck portfolio for some effective examples, or contact us now for a free quote!

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Featured Image: “Writing? Yeah.” by Caleb Roenigk on flickr.com

3 Corporate Pitch Deck Tips: Maximizing Board Room Pitches

Posted on by Rick E

Presenting to executives and other high-powered decision makers can have unbelievably high stakes. Corporate pitches of this significance can be absolutely nerve-wracking. You should expect no less from a possible career or life-changing opportunity.

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Achieving success here isn’t a Herculean task. Use these three tips to become a more confident and effective presenter for when it most counts:

Put the Spotlight on Your Core Message

Executives and board members are busy individuals who have no time to do long conversations. Simplify your pitch and break down your message so that it’s easily digestible.

Keep your discussion on the right track.

Avoid using industry-specific jargon and focus on explaining and expounding on your core message. If you have too much important data that clutters up your deck, put them in an accompanying report or handout.

This doesn’t mean your deck has to be plain and bare. Engage your viewers’ eyes with the right visuals. Despite their status, executives are people too, and would appreciate a good pitch that stands out from the numerous other pitches they encounter daily.

Rely on Evidence and Actual Data

Rhetoric tools are still useful in this situation, but the higher-ups need actionable data based on tangible evidence. You can’t expect them to make high-risk decisions based on unconvincing or misleading information.

This is where research comes in handy. Conduct a thorough and comprehensive study on the subject of your current report. If you can’t do it alone, try mobilizing other departments in your company and ask for help.

At the same time, according to entrepreneur John Rampton, you can also outsource and tap into other references to access the information you need. This may even save you the time and cost.

In terms of deck design, don’t saturate your slides with content. Minimize the amount of text to streamline your corporate pitch deck. If your data relies on showing numbers, then explain them in visual ways like charts, graphs, and diagrams.

Rehearse the Nerves Away

These are high-stake affairs, so your preparation should correspond to the predicted benefit of succeeding.

Be self-critical of your own pitch, determine possible weaknesses in your arguments and prepare for your audience’s possible concerns. Consider the proper clothing choices to match your purpose and the occasion.

Opt for an attire that’s not too flashy or formal. Go for something that won’t throw your audience off but give them a memorable impression of you.

It’s natural to feel more nervous than usual but you can get rid of your fears with constant practice. Practice breathing techniques and a few warm-up exercises to put you in the right state of mind during your pitch. You’ll want to be at the top of your game in front of this crowd, after all.

Conclusion

Getting through and impressing the big leagues requires an even bigger amount of preparation.

Fortunately, sticking close to your message, relying on hard data, and dedicated practice prove vital in getting the best out of your pitch. Keep these tips in mind for when that big break comes.

For these opportunities, you need to be at your best. Get a corporate pitch deck to match the occasion with pitchdeck.com. Contact us for a free quote.

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References

Rampton, John. “How Outsourcing Can Save You Money.” John Chow Dot Com. Accessed June 26, 2015.

An Effective Probing Strategy for Your Sales Pitch

Posted on by Rick E

Lack of probing questions can be one reason why sales proposals are often rejected by clients.

Many presenters forget that throwing open-ended questions such as “How are you doing?” or “What are you up to?” successfully convinces your clients to share the information you need to meet their needs.

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First, build rapport and connect with them to get their attention and establish trust.

Briefly introduce yourself to highlight your pitch’s importance. This compels clients to answer your questions without question.

Why Probing is Important

In sales pitches, your main goal is to persuade your clients to take action.

Study your clients’ objectives and how they should be met. Know their needs and wants to craft an attention-grabbing pitch. Doing so makes them realize that you’ve made thorough research about their company, showing them that you’re just as interested in them as you want them to be interested in your proposal.

More than presenting your products and services’ features, advantages and benefits, make your clients feel that you care about them by meeting their expectations. Satisfying their needs makes them see that you value them above anyone else. This gives them reasons to listen and share their side of the story once you ask them probing questions.

When to Probe

A good sales pitch and ample presentation skills can make an effective sales proposal, but probing is an equally important technique. Your clients look for products and services that satisfy their company’s needs.

Probing is important when relating their needs with what you’re offering. Knowing their concerns prepares you to connect them with your products and services’ benefits, making them think that your idea can achieve their desired outcome.

Start by asking open-ended questions such as, “What are your plans for reaching your objectives for this area?” and “What strategies are you going to implement to make this happen?” to delve into more details.

When you notice that your clients have objections, ask whether they understand what you’re trying to emphasize. This can help clarify some concerns before they make their decision.

How Probing Becomes Effective

Probing encourages your clients to talk more, convincing them to share their thoughts and give you more information that can help you motivate them.

The “who, what, when, where, why and how” questions tell you more about your client’s concerns, letting you better understand their needs by asking:

  • “Who will…”
  • “What, specifically…”
  • “When will…”
  • “Where, exactly…”
  • “Why does…”
  • “How does…”

Know whether you’re asking appropriate questions or not. Be careful not to overdo it by asking more questions than necessary. Going overboard results in data that might not be relevant at all to your proposal, wasting both your time and theirs.

Prepare possible questions to quickly address any issues they might have, preventing them from delaying their decisions.

Conclusion

Applying this sales pitch technique makes clients more likely to approve your proposal. Once they realize how much you’re interested, how much you care about meeting their concerns, and how much you’re helping them achieve their expectations, you’ll convince them that your offering best suits their organization needs.

Knowing what and how to ask makes your sales pitch effective. This is because clients will see that you understand how probing helps satisfy their needs, showing that you’re serious and dedicated about what you do.

Clients are more confident to hire somebody who goes out of their way to give them a satisfying experience. Be the person that your client would never hesitate to go to for solutions to their needs.

pitchdeck.com can help you make your sales pitches more effective!

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References

“21 Powerful, Open-Ended Sales Questions.” RAIN Group. Accessed June 25, 2015.
“Probing.” Changing Minds. Accessed June 25, 2015.

Limit the Numbers: Designing Financial Sales Pitch Decks

Posted on by Rick E

Including financial data in your sales pitch decks is both a blessing and a curse. Numbers undeniably give your statements much-needed weight, while their mere presence creates a life-sucking void in your pitch deck.

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Have you tried copying awkward-looking spreadsheet data straight into your slides before? According to Think Outside the Slide‘s Dave Paradi, plugging the holes in your deck with endless numbers is about the least helpful you can be.

Here’s how to make effective and compelling financial pitch decks:

Limit Numbers to the Ones That Help Tell Your Story

Before inputting data, ask: “What numbers tell the story?”

Pick the most important supporting figures. Endless stream of numbers will make your audiences’ eyes glaze over. Cut it down to the most relevant information that conveys your message clearly.

Just because you have numbers doesn’t mean you should use them. Including every single piece of information disrupts your pitch flow. Curate only the most vital data, that is, your main argument’s supporting information.

Illustrate Numbers Through Diagrams, Charts, and Graphs

Illustrate your numbers through diagrams, charts, or graphs to create an easier-to-follow visual narrative for your figures or statistics.

Since majority of the population are visual learners, your audience will probably appreciate and understand images better than blocks of text or numbers.

These visual representations let your audiences see the patterns and trends that you wish to explain. Instead of treating data as the pitch deck’s heart and soul, consider them the supporting details in a story you’re trying to tell.

Keep Text to a Minimum

Don’t include explanations or descriptions for your images, as you may risk oversaturating slides. Minimize the amount of text on your slides to avoid distracting your audience with unnecessary information. The effects of information overload involve inhibiting your audience’s memory. Too many things on the slide will make them forget about your main points.

Include only labels for the figures’ different sections. The rest of the explanation falls on your shoulders. Expounding on data verbally will not only ease your viewers in on your slides, but it also lets you establish much-needed rapport.

Conclusion

Too many numbers bore the lights out of even the most business-savvy audiences, but just enough data supports your message or even tells the whole story for you.

Put the right amount of numbers and determine the right way to represent them.

Still confused? If you’re looking for somebody to optimize your sales pitch deck, we have a team of pitch deck specialists who can make your financial slides the way you need them. Contact us for a free quote!

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References

“Spreadsheets Don’t Belong on Slides.” Think Outside The Slide. December 20, 2011. Accessed June 23, 2015.
“The Visual (spatial) Learning Style.” Learning Styles. Accessed June 23, 2015.
“Using Excel Data in a PowerPoint Presentation.” Think Outside The Slide. 2014. Accessed June 23, 2015.

The Secret to an Effective Sales Pitch Rehearsal

Posted on by Rick E

The best sales pitches are planned weeks in advance, with rehearsals taking several hours.

Presenters refine several factors such as speech tone, body language, hand gestures, demonstrations, and even slide timing.

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The Secret

What’s the overarching secret to getting the most out of your rehearsal?

Deliberate practice.

According to brand communications expert Carmine Gallo, this is a form of training which involves setting specific goals (say, giving a sales pitch in five minutes), asking for feedback, and continuous improvement during your career as a professional presenter.

Setting Goals

Using this method of training means being specific down to the last detail.

How powerful will your tone be? What sort of emotions do you need to use for presenting? How long will your speech take per slide?

Gallo presents Steve Jobs as an example because of his meticulousness. Jobs spends several hours practicing the sales pitch’s every aspect, right down to how much lighting to use for showing his products.

Similarly, a skilled presenter notes his pitch’s every detail and how they’ll work during the actual show date. This lets you plan how your deck work, including your speech’s timing, for an effortless sales pitch.

Properly Using Feedback

Do the pitch rehearsal with your team, supervisor or even in front of a mirror.

If you have someone or something to help spot your errors, take note of your mistakes and avoid doing them during the actual pitch.

Note if there were likable things you did (ex. building rapport with the audience, poking good-natured fun at yourself) that you can repeat.

Sales strategist Marc Wayshak suggests that another effective way of getting feedback would be to ask prospects what works for them or what doesn’t. This won’t diminish your credibility. In fact, it will make you seem even more determined to connect with them and understand their needs.

Continuous Improvement

As simple as this sounds, improving yourself can take years. Practice is essential to a sales pitch, especially if you want to sound spontaneous.

Over the course of your career, improve yourself by studying both your performance and your audience’s feedback.

Combined with rigorous deliberative practice, you’ll eventually define and improve your mix of personal pitch techniques, letting you sell better than you ever could before.

The Bottom Line

Practice everything, down to the tiniest detail. If you’re as passionate about giving a pitch as Steve Jobs and the top TED speakers are, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

Learn from your mistakes and strengths to reach your fullest potential as a presenter.

Once you’ve honed your skills, work with a pitch deck design specialist to give you the right selling tools!

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References

Gallo, C. The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010.
Wayshak, Marc. “5 Tips to Giving the Perfect Sales Presentation.” Salesforce Blog. January 23, 2014. Accessed June 19, 2015.

Sales Pitch Tips from The Art of War: Know Your Craft

Posted on by Rick E

In their breakthrough book, The Art of War for Managers, business veterans Gerald and Steven Michaelson cite one of history’s greatest military tacticians, Sun Tzu.

Drawing from one of Sun Tzu’s famous lines, “…the general who understands war is… the guarantor of the security of the nation,” these business gurus suggest that if you spend time knowing your business well enough, you’ll lead it effectively.

The same principle applies to sales pitches.

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CEOs and sales teams take time to know their businesses and products before pitching. They also have a firm grasp of the public speaking techniques they need to sell.

As a presenter, here are three aspects you should master:

Your Product

Knowing your tools is the first step to building a selling idea. According to renowned author Jim Aitchison, learning every aspect of your product or service lets you explain its features correctly. It also helps you outline the benefits your prospects are interested in.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • What is it?
  • How does it work?
  • What benefits does it give to clients?
  • What situations can they use it in?

These should lead to what clients need to know, more specifically: how the product or service help their business.

Your Pitch Techniques

Once you know how your business and products work, rehearse. There is no shortcut.

As brand communications expert, Carmine Gallo, says, even some professional presenters spend several weeks rehearsing for a single pitch. They also take note of what works and what doesn’t so they can improve their public speaking.

Professional presenters deliberately practice until they get their pitch just right, almost as if their work was effortless.

Learn how to use the techniques and tools at your disposal before entering the boardroom to give yourself an immense advantage over others.

Your Pitch Deck

Once you know everything about your product or service and have spent hours rehearsing your speech, it’s time to prepare your third and most crucial component: your pitch deck.

Your deck is not a script, but it’s there to help your audience visualize what you have to say, so keep it as simple and understandable as possible.

You can even hire professional pitch deck specialists to help you design a deck that effectively sells your pitch.

Learn the Tools and the Trade

Pitching skills and techniques are acquired over time. Some spend hours practicing to gain them, while others have built them up over their careers. The same thing goes for knowing your business well enough to sell it.

Know every aspect of your product first. There’s nothing to pitch if you don’t understand your own offering. Rehearse until you master your tone, gestures, and timing. All the information you have is useless if you can’t deliver it clearly.

Finally, make your deck simple but packed with meaningful content. Don’t use them as your cue cards. Instead, use them to emphasize what you want to say. With enough practice, you’ll know how to best persuade a crowd by combining all these factors into a great sales pitch.

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References

Aitchison, J. Cutting Edge Advertising: How to Create the World’s Best Print for Brands in the 21st Century. Singapore, New York: Prentice Hall, 2004.
Gallo, C. The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2010.
“Knowing Your Products and Services.” Queensland Government. Accessed June 15, 2015.
Michaelson, G., and Steven Michaelson. Sun Tzu: The Art of War for Managers: 50 Strategic Rules Updated for Today’s Business. 2nd ed. Avon, Mass.: Adams Media. 2010.
“The Secret to an Effective Sales Pitch Rehearsal.” pitchdeck.com, Inc. 2015. Accessed June 15, 2015.

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Tips for Using Incentives to Sweeten Your Sales Pitch

Posted on by Rick E

Incentives are one way to sweeten the deal when you give your pitch.

Clients are always looking for the best benefits whenever they invest in potential business partners. According to marketing professors George and Michael Belch, offering them something extra gives them a reason to buy into your proposal.

Offering incentives is a special type of marketing tactic used in sales promotions. Often used to add value to the product or service that you want to sell, these help speed up your clients’ purchase decision.

At the same time, make sure to differentiate between features and benefits. Features are facts about the product being promoted while benefits are the results that consumers get in return.

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Here are four sales pitch ideas on how to include incentives in your proposals and to maximize your offers:

Keep It Specific

Discounts and rewards for purchases made within a set of time are some examples that allow companies to target different kinds of people.

In the same way, presenters need information about their clients’ expectations before they can offer the right kind of sales incentive.

For example, will your client be purchasing your products by bulk? Offer them a discount to save up on their expenses.

Is your client looking for a long-term partnership for supplying electronic parts? Offer them a discounted rate or free maintenance.

Knowing what your client needs is the first step to finding the right mix of sales incentives.

Brand Loyalty

Sales promotions are used to give occasional incentives that keep customers loyal.

Clients can sometimes invest in other presenter’s ideas if they see that the offers are equal.

To outsell your competition, offer your clients something others cannot.

This tactic is effective especially for clients that you’ve worked with before.

If there are special loyalty incentives that you can offer in your sales pitch, use them.

Encourage Them to Try Something New

Trial incentives are a good way to encourage investments from clients.

This works well especially if you have a new offer to present.

Even something as simple as a money-back guarantee goes a long way to establishing your credibility to your clients.

Whether you’re pitching a new product to loyal clients, or a startup company with a new product, offering them an incentive to try out your new offers are a good way to generate an interest.

Measure the Results

One benefit of using incentives is that they’re easily measured.

Try keeping a database to measure how effective your offers are for you to stay accountable to your clients.

This should contain a list of clients that accepted your incentives.

As you build this up, use this info as proof to other clients that your offerings are better than the competition’s.

—

As effective as incentives are, they’re only used to sweeten the deal. Clearly state the benefits that your basic offer has to give.

No amount of extra offers makes an unsatisfactory pitch worthy of investment.

To get more out of what your presentation has to offer, get in touch with a professional pitch deck partner for free! All it takes is 15 minutes to get a better pitch deck presentation.

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References

“Ad Agency Tricks: Outsell Competitors in Sales Pitches.” pitchdeck.com, 2015. Accessed June 11, 2015.
Belch, G. & Belch, M. Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. (6th ed). Singapore: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2003.
“Marketing Features Vs. Benefits.” Entrepreneur. Accessed July 9, 2018.

3 Pros of Professional Pitch Deck Design for Medical Fields

Posted on by Rick E

Most aspiring professionals choose the medical field because they want to save lives. As with other disciplines, this requires constant improvement to keep up with the constantly evolving scientific challenges. Novel breakthroughs in biotechnology and healthcare continue to increase life expectancy and quality of living for everyone.

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However, all this research requires ample investment, timely upgrades, and modest adoption rates. Here’s why professional pitch deck designs can help you achieve your goals in the medical field:

They break down important information.

A professional and well-planned pitch deck condenses information for easier digestion and dependable action on the audience’s end. When you have the ultimate goal of improving lives, then it’s even more important to make every communication opportunity count.

It also allows for a more focused and convincing discussion, which accentuates a well-researched, decisive, coordinated, and persuasive pitch that relates your message in a concise manner.

Visuals explain data better.

It’s important to demonstrate trends and improvements when trying to sell new technology. Establishing its superiority over existing ways increases chances for investment or upgrades, whichever you’re aiming for.

Unfortunately, data wholly represented by numbers —or worse, spreadsheets—can make slides unconvincing and unattractive. Pictures appeal to their emotional needs better, while also providing an easy to follow narrative to explain the main message. This is why the concept of data visualization or the data display through engaging diagrams and images is so catchy.

Templates are readily available.

PowerPoint has been a standard for designing pitch decks with its wide-ranging available templates that can be used for diverse medical fields. You can effectively tackle a variety of specializations such as cardiology, radiology, neurology, or oncology, as long as you have the right template.

There are even available slides which allow easy graph or diagram inclusion, saving you time when you need a deck ASAP.

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When selling or proposing industry-changing improvements, professional pitch deck design condenses complicated information into terms that even laypeople can easily understand. The more easily you can communicate your idea to somebody else, the more likely they’ll accept and implement it into their workflow. It’s hard for most people to digest complicated facts or numbers. Using strong visuals will not only make the information easier to understand, but it’ll also help them retain the information more effectively.

Since medical professionals rarely have time to spare to design a pitch deck, having templates done by presentation experts saves time and money which can be directed towards more important healthcare efforts. If you need help revising your deck so that it’ll convince more of the people you want to assist, contact our experts for a free quote. You, your colleagues, and your patients will be thankful you did.

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References

“3 Secrets to Make Numbers Interesting in Sales Pitches.” pitchdeck.com, 2015. Accessed June 10, 2015.
Few, Stephen. “35. Data Visualization for Human Perception.” Interaction-design. Accessed June 10, 2015.

4 Sales Pitch Ideas from Radio Advertisement Writers

Posted on by Rick E

According to ad veteran, Luke Sullivan, presenters and radio ad writers come up with ways to get customers to listen and buy what they advertise.

While presenters have the advantage of more time (ten to twenty minutes of presentation time vs. a thirty-second radio ad) and a pitch deck to provide visuals, the majority of the pitch depends on how the presenter talks.

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Voice tones, hand gestures, and even body language contribute to how effectively you deliver your sales pitch.

Brand communications expert, Carmine Gallo, suggests that you can either give a listless pitch deck with notecards, or you can study your product long enough to come up with an interesting idea that sells itself.

Because radio ad writers and presenters share a common problem, there are solutions that are applicable to both parties:

Use words to paint images.

Telling a story is one effective way to make a compelling pitch, but using words to describe a picture can effectively engage your audience, letting them visualize what you have in mind.

Your sales pitch deck is there to provide a visual image for your audience when you give your speech.

This becomes even more effective when the deck applies the right design methods to enhance your core message.

Use speech ideas you can describe in a sentence.

Simplifying your topic gives your clients a clearer picture of what you have to offer.

The same thing applies when you craft your pitch deck speech. The first question you need to ask is: “What is my pitch all about?”

Once you answer this, start writing your script and practice it.

Whether you want to present a car that gets you to where you want to go, or an impressive quarterly sales result for your brand, boil down your topic into one simple idea.

You’ll have more freedom to write your script.

Use the right tone for your pitch.

While using a conversational tone works for most professional pitches, there are times where you need to bring your passion into your pitch, particularly when building hype for a new product or celebrating a new sales record and making new recommendations.

The key is to know your client’s expectations.

Once you do, stay relevant to those expectations in order to connect with your clients.

You may want to use humor in your speech, but that won’t work if the client expects you to be serious and professional.

You can be funny, but you need to be interesting.

While some presenters like to poke fun during their pitches, remember to be professional and take your clients seriously so you can sell.

If the situation calls for you to poke fun at your product, then it’s fine. Sullivan reiterates that every presenter needs to be “interesting.”

Being interesting means having an idea.

Fortunately, as renowned author Jim Aitchison suggests, every product has a story to tell.

Maybe it has something that no other competitor has, the way it was made puts it above others, or maybe it has benefits that no other product has.

Whatever your speech idea, always go back to what you want to talk about. Chances are, there’s an interesting story to tell your clients.

That story might be your ticket to selling your pitch.

—

As with every story, getting someone to look it over gives you room for improvement, increasing your chances of selling.

Just as radio ad writers need editors, every presenter needs the help of a professional pitch deck specialist to give them that selling advantage.

pitchdeck.com Blog Module Two

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References

Aitchison, J. (2004). Cutting Edge Advertising: How to Create the World’s Best Print for Brands in the 21st Century. Singapore ; New York: Prentice Hall.
Gallo, C. (2010). The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. New York: McGraw-Hill.
“Sales Presentation Skills: Stay Relevant to Pitch Ideas.” pitchdeck.com, May 11, 2015. Accessed June 9, 2015.
Sullivan, L. (2008). Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This! A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Hoboken, NJ – J. Wiley & Sons.

Featured Image: “Radio ZRK Eroica cropped background” by Tomek Goździewicz on Wikimedia Commons

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