In a remote work inspired and online selling environment, the two most important aspects that matter in a sales conversation are the sales pitch and the sales pitch deck.
Every salesperson uses their own sales tactic to sell. Some may need the support of a presentation or pdf while others may do better without it. There are several successful sales people who don’t really believe in sales presentations but would rather focus on the kind of conversation they are having with a prospect.
Either way, the purpose of having a brand presentation or comprehensive pitch deck is to have a ready document to send your prospect once you’re done with a sales call.
The current business environment is such that everything is now being done via virtual conferences and online meetings, the number of actual physical and face to face interactions have reduced, in part due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but in general, within the tech and B2B, SaaS industry, this was already a normal most global teams had adjusted to over the last few years.
Read More: Four Quick Tips To Help You Succeed At Remote Selling
In a largely online selling environment, without having the pros of actually sitting across the table from your prospect and showing them a demo of your product physically, your sales presentation or pitch deck will have to make up for it and depict the biggest features and value-add of your product.
Here’s how your sales pitch deck can be built to better suit today’s online selling environment:
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Customize your Sales Pitch and Sales Pitch Deck
We live, work and buy in a hyper-personalized, remote environment. AI-powered tools suggest what products we would need, before we show actual interest in it. The technologies used by sellers in e-commerce and B2B sales today can tell you what your prospect intends to do, thereby enabling you to create the right messaging in time to convert them faster.
In short, salespeople and marketers today know a lot about their prospect even before meeting them or having a first sales call with them. This rule has to transfer onto any sales collateral when it is being used a supporting tool or as a follow-up to a sales call, a generalized pitch deck will not create the same impact in the minds of your prospect as a highly-customized one would.
Read More: How Early-Stage Companies Can Approach Selling B2B
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Visuals vs Bullets
Most sales people do have a standard sales pitch always-ready and this makes the base for every prospecting conversation. The pitch deck is either used as a supporting tool during the process or sent afterwards as a follow-up.
Keeping in mind that today’s online selling environment is one in which prospects take the information they need from you and then research on alternatives in their own time, your sales presentation has to hit the mark and help a prospect keep your brand top of mind, for a long time!
If your sales presentation is being sent as a follow-up to a sales prospecting call, ensuring that the product information is depicted via rich visuals instead of the standard bullet points will help ensure prospects digest the key features about your brand and product faster and without the need to breakdown text.
Why are visuals crucial here? Visuals help retain a brand message for longer!
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Your Company’s Story vs The Product Story
Any sales deck should help tell a brand’s story in a succinct manner. If you’re using your sales deck as a follow-up to a sales call, the pitch deck has to have a balance of both: the company’s brand story and the product(s) story.
Buyers want to know the story behind the tech they are going to invest in, especially in the B2B and SaaS marketplace. While most successful sales and marketing teams have sworn by the benefits of creating a storytelling-like-theme in their collaterals, in an online selling environment, what matters is how a salesperson creates that balance in their story-telling feature within the collateral and while making a sales pitch.
Need more tips on – storytelling in B2B, SaaS sales? Catch this episode of the SalesStar Podcast!
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Interactive and Creative
No one has the time to read a complete sales deck, the longer your sales presentation is, the higher the chance of your brand message getting lost in the document.
In order to retain the prospect’s interest, ensuring that the sales pitch is quick-to-read is one aspect. But in order for your prospect to be able to quickly go through the presentation AND retain the core points for longer, it is crucial to make your sales pitch deck interactive and creative. Especially when remote selling is the new norm and when there are limited instances of having meetings to breakdown FAQs and other important feature details, your sales pitch deck has to bear the brunt of this and be able to deliver the message with the aim of staying in the prospect’s mind for as long as possible. Tools like Prezi can come in handy to make your sales pitch interactive, using humor, gifs, actual quotes by users of your product, etc will help your sales message and sales pitch stand out in their mind, for longer.
This is key in enabling more wins, because, there is usually going to be a gap between your first sales conversation and the next one, and in the interim, it’s your email follow-ups and sales collaterals as well as sales pitch deck that have to do the talking!
Read More: Top Sales Books That Every Tech Sales Professional Should Read Now!
The ultimate sales pitch deck is one that can deliver a brand’s message and do the selling for them! There is no perfect sales deck, but with the right measurement tactics and assessment of reader behavior, you can create something that will resonate better with your prospect, one that helps you drive more sales!