And here’s what you can do about it!

Sales Presentations are the keystone of any company’s sales efforts yet they aren’t given the attention and time they deserve. It’s 2018. And it’s about time we relieve the world of bad sales decks. Too much time has been wasted in creating and distributing such Sales decks that only bore the customers and are not viewed beyond the first few slides. Most are text laden poorly designed decks that fail to address what’s beneficial for customers.

As per the Weiss-Mcgrath Report of ‘92, post 72 hours, people retain only 10% of what they experienced via audio messaging, only 20% of Visual information and 65% of Audio & Visual. In other words, which of these will have a more lasting impact? The paragraphs are written so far or the graph that comes next?

What this implies is very simple: For maximum retention, its imperative to create sales presentations that are visually enticing and well designed.

Problem is, on the contrary, most of the decks do the opposite. Very often, initial slides of many sales decks talk in-depth about the organization, their services, and then post a long drawn script, come to the product. By then, most customers lose interest and don’t really connect with the product.

In the end, too many sales decks are just unbearable, leaving prospects wondering:

How long can this possibly go on?

Based on our experience of designing hundreds of Sales decks, investor decks, pitch decks, and other decks, we have boiled it down to few key guidelines you should keep in mind:

How to maintain Audience Engagement: Keep in mind that well designed content will always be received better and appreciated, thereby increasing engagement. While a picture says a thousand words, you can say a million with an interesting Video. Incorporating Videos in your sales decks can do wonders. Videos compel your prospects to pay attention, take heed of the content, bring the focus to you and most importantly, by increasing attention and engagement, they ensure the prospect retains information about your product and services.

What to include: Bullet Points are dead.Causing mental agony to your prospects by forcing them to read text is definitely a guaranteed to fail. Sales presentation decks should be about images rather than words. However, clipart and stock images have been used to death for ages. Please refrain from them. Instead, Images, Infographics, Icons, Videos all are some great ways to showcase your product without the need of using text-heavy slides.

Deck Design that highlights your Brand: Sales decks are not only about your product and the customer. It’s a great opportunity to highlight your brand values and identity. Associative memory of the brand identity and image generally helps associate a great product with your brand and thus enables you to sell better and sell more.

A Caveat: Sharing text-heavy, open-to-edit sales decks to your prospects can backfire as well. There’s no stopping Individuals from editing and changing the deck to suit their own needs and selling stuff of their own. This can become a nightmare in a regulated industry and worse, undermine your business and your brand. Hence, It’s best advised to share HTML5 Version of your decks which are locked and available for a set period of time, or else, the decks should be sent as locked versions which are non-editable for content integrity and security.

Many people get sales decks wrong, really wrong. Right from the story, to the focus, the design, to the way they look. Apologizing for a poorly crafted sales deck or worse rushing through slides will leave a dent in the experience and hence remove any chances of you closing the sale. It’s best that every sales deck is designed by professional designers who can help transform your sales decks to visual masterpieces that showcase your product keeping in mind your prospects’ needs.