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What Makes a Killer Sales Pitch Deck?

Sales pitches play a crucial role in growing your business. Having a well-crafted deck is an absolute must in landing new buyers, business partners, and investors.

However, despite the proven results of good pitchs, many professionals still idly neglect the effort to make an effective sales deck.

At pitchdeck.com, we’ve worked with many of the world’s biggest companies. We know what makes a successful sales pitch. Having spent years creating decks that bring out the very best qualities of companies like yours, we know a little something about motivating clients to start buying ASAP.

Here are some tips on how to transform an ordinary deck into a sale-generating machine:

Bring Storytelling into Your Sales Pitch Deck

Who doesn’t love a good story? In the complex world of sales, stories can leave lasting impressions on clients even more than facts. Statistics often lack context. Stories provide the context that make statistics real. A good pitch deck is the summer blockbuster of the business world.

Your pitch’s story tells your audience how you can help them be the hero. More than wanting to know the hard data, they want their problems to be solved in some amazing way, their performance to improve beyond belief. Your pitch deck shows them how your company will make that happen. This will help clients relate with your business on an emotional level.

Consider the three-act structure when building your pitch deck. The first act is your introduction. It is where compelling problems are raised to contextualize and dramatize your pitch. These should be problems fine-tuned to be recognizable by your intended office. If they don’t feel the pain by the end of the first act of your pitch, they won’t connect to the story.

The second act of your pitch is your where things change, how you help your potential customer defeat this problem. Detail how your business solves the problems established in the introduction. Try pairing your solutions with real life scenarios to clearly illustrate the effects your business creates.

The third act is a strong call to action, how everything in your story begins. You’ll want to discuss financials. If this is an investor deck, talk about projected revenue and your milestones. If this is a sales pitch, discuss your pricing model and guarantees. Above all, know what action you want this person to take next and tell them to do it.

People retain information better with context. Developing the story of your pitch creates that context.

Be Smart with Your Words  

Your choice of words says a lot about who you are. But how much you say determines how much people listen.

Don’t fill your deck with too much information. It’s hardly engaging when your audience is spending most of their time mentally interpreting all the information you’re spewing. Give your key points some room to be properly understood. It will allow you to speak at a controlled pace, making it easier to guide your audience as the pitch progresses.

A tightly written deck also gives you the space to inject impactful visuals into your slides. Some clients may have difficultly visualizing what you are offering. Do that job for them. Pairing your content with the right visual aid will effectively amplify your message while also raising retention rates.

Design Brilliantly   

Simple pitch deck designs can deliver the biggest impact. We’ve all seen slides that are jam packed. When things start to look too cramped, don’t be afraid to break up the information into multiple slides. This gives your content room to breathe. Overcomplicating designs only creates unnecessary clutter, thus jeopardizing the clarity of your message.

Consider the color, layout, and imagery of your slides as amplifiers to your message. Striking visuals will always be more memorable than bland blocks of text. You can make bits of information easier to understand by translating them into tables or graphs. Having more visually oriented slides also removes the crutch of “script-reading”, a common mistake that happens when pitch decks are text heavy.

This doesn’t come easily for everyone. In order to get the job done right the first time, it may be best to hire someone. Professional help with your sales pitch deck can be both affordable and tremendously beneficial in terms of your long-term investment.

pitchdeck.com Creates Sales Pitch Decks for You

When your work starts to pile up, and you just don’t have the time for it all, let pitchdeck.com take care of designing your next sales pitch deck! Whether it’s an animated marketing video, or a pitch deck, we deliver professionally crafted pitch materials that will help your business grow.

Our work is possible thanks to our phenomenal team of designers, writers, and animators. We’ve worked with over 3,000 clients, honing our design skills to always create exciting pitch decks that are consistent with unique standards.

The work we do has helped our clients raise hundreds of millions of dollars for their businesses. The achievements earned by our clients are our measures of success. Together, let’s bring your company up to brand new heights! Reach out now to get a free quote on how we can help.

Contact us today!

Creating an Effective Financial Presentation

At some point in your career, you’ll have to give at least one complex and data-heavy presentation. It’s inevitable for entrepreneurs to venture into the financial side of business and deliver fiscal reports such as those involving business charts that reflect the company’s performance against goals and financial analyses.

But the thing is, financial data can be boring. They may appeal to analytical brains, but what about the rest? In order to hold your audience’s attention, you need to make your financial presentation interesting. Don’t just conduct a data dump. Explain where the figures come from and how they affect your audience. Provide examples as to how those numbers can be relevant in their lives.
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In other words, harness the power of financial storytelling. Present a narrative-driven angle that will give your presentation a new light. Show the numbers but let the story behind them shine through.

Mastering the Art of Financial Storytelling

Financial presentations don’t have to be dull. Here are some tips to successfully deliver an intellectually-stimulating yet engaging presentation.

1. Pattern your presentation after the GPS approach

Organize your facts and figures by planning your presentation. Create a structure so your message will be clear from start to finish. One method you can apply to achieve this is the GPS approach.

First of all, identify who your audience is. What’s the extent of their knowledge and the level of their expertise? Once you know this, you have the starting point. You can then proceed to identifying the goal of the presentation. What would you want the audience to think, feel, understand, or do when you step out of the limelight? What end point are you trying to achieve? This is the destination.

From there, it’s just a matter of choosing the best route. How do you go from Point A to Point B? Outline your main idea first, then follow it up with the supporting ideas. You can create a script to help you with internalizing the flow of the presentation.

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2. Establish credibility from the outset

Since you’ll be presenting critical figures, it’s important to appear trustworthy. Cultivating credibility and cementing a good reputation will make it more likely for your audience to believe in what you’ll say. If necessary, use supporting materials to validate your claims.

3. Outline your goals to build anticipation

If you inform your audience about the goals of your presentation, they’ll be more prepared to process any chunk of data you give them. It helps them to follow along since they already know what to expect and what material you’ll cover. It allows them to focus on the goal and take part in your presentation. 

4. Follow the three-part story structure

When communicating the story behind your data, it’s good to divide your narrative into three parts: the beginning, the middle, and the ending.

Start your presentation by describing things as they are. This is key to creating a bond with your audience. If you tell them something that they already know or can agree with, you ignite a small fire of recognition in them. Naturally, that will make them more interested in your talk.

After establishing the facts, you can show them how things could change. Establish a gap between what is and what could be. Make sure your claims hook and intrigue them enough.

Finally, when concluding your financial presentation, don’t forget to include a call to action. Introduce what presentation expert Nancy Duarte calls the “new bliss,” a state where your audience’s world can be a lot better if they adopt your ideas and follow your suggestions.

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5. Employ visuals instead of spreadsheets

Don’t limit yourself to Excel. Embrace the perks of technology so you can create a financial presentation that drives home with your audience. Present numbers, graphs, and tables using pitch decks.

However, if you really want to take your presentation to the next level, you can ask a presentation design specialist to do the job for you. Let an expert turn your numeric data into graphics and visual images that are equally credible-looking and interesting. Your audience will be able to better make sense of your presentation this way.

6. Use simple and effective design elements

To make your slides more visually appealing without going over the top, use a sans serif font instead of a fancy one. Also, choose a template that isn’t too loud. Observe a good balance of colors to avoid design clutter. If you can, use a color contrast calculator to make sure that the colors in your presentation match. 

7. Reiterate your claims repeatedly

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, you need to be exposed to a piece of information three to five times for you to absorb it and act on it. Also, you need to hear it from different sources for your brain to validate the information. Repeat your message throughout the presentation, but say it in different ways.

Keep Calm and Speak Like a Pro

With the proper tools and the right techniques, you can be more confident in delivering a good financial presentation. All you need is some storytelling and a few basic design skills. If you prepare well, you can get your message across without losing your audience in the process.

Resources:

Duarte, Nancy. “Structure Your Presentation Like a Story.” Harvard Business Review. October 31, 2012. hbr.org/2012/10/structure-your-presentation-li

Jeavons, Sheri. “Financial Presentations That Won’t Put Your Audience to Sleep.” Sales Gravy. n.d. www.salesgravy.com/sales-articles/presentation-skills/financial-presentations-that-wont-put-your-audience-to-sleep.html

Mogilner, Geoffrey. “Perfecting the Art of Financial Storytelling.” Edelman. February 2, 2015. www.edelman.com/post/perfecting-art-financial-storytelling

Piontek, Katelyn. “7 Ways to Make a Financial Presentation Interesting.” Turbine HQ. September 9, 2014. turbinehq.com/2014/make-a-financial-presentation-interesting

Riggins, Nash. “15 Ways to Create Effective PowerPoint Presentations.” Small Business Trends. July 5, 2016. smallbiztrends.com/2016/07/effective-powerpoint-presentations.html

Sullivan, Sarah. “Financial Presentations That Really Stand Out.” Talisman. October 10, 2016. www.talismansolutions.co.uk/blog/stand-out-financial-presentations

Theriault, Michel. “9 Tips for More Powerful Business Presentations.” Forbes. November 4, 2013. www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2013/11/04/9-tips-for-more-powerful-business-presentations/#55621b7043a0

“Creating Effective Financial PowerPoint Presentations.” 24Point0. January 16, 2014. www.24point0.com/financial-statement-presentation

“Don’t Start by Copying Previous Slides.” Think Outside the Slide. June 24, 2014. www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/issue-314-june-24-2014

“Edelman Trust Barometer.” Edelman. 2009. www.edelman.com/assets/uploads/2014/01/2009-Trust-Barometer-Executive-Summary.pdf

“Five Tips to Make PowerPoint Business Presentations More Effective.” Think Outside the Slide. n.d. www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/five-tips-to-make-powerpoint-business-presentations-more-effective

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