Create your sales deck
Section Takeaways
A great sales deck supports your pitch and focuses on the value of the product and what you deliver to customers, not the features and functionality
Your pitch deck should look different for each customer you talk to. Always personalize!
Introduction to sales decks
What is a sales deck?
Slides that show prospective customers the value your product provides and why they should purchase your solution. Your sales deck supports your sales pitch; the two go hand in hand.
Why it's important: This is your chance to make a great impression and showcase your value.
Pitch Deck Examples
Keptify was highlighted by Hubspot as a strong pitch deck
Before you begin, make sure you have your personas defined and the appropriate value props identified for each. This will be useful when you are personalizing the deck before a presentation to make sure you’re presenting the value that will resonate most.
There are a lot of different opinions out there, but here are three principles to keep in mind when building your sales deck:
One: Focus on the value you provide - not your product’s features. [call out + link to other sprints here: To understand the value, you’ll need to understand your customers (personas), the problem they are trying to solve (JTBD), and how you communicate your product’s value (product positioning and messaging])
Two: Keep it simple. No need to add absolutely everything your product does into your deck. You should be able to present your slides in 10 - 15 minutes maximum
Three: Make it personal and flexible. Understand that when building your deck you won’t necessarily use every slide for every presentation.
Building and tailoring your slides
Here’s a very simple framework to start with to build your baseline slides:
Agenda: seems simple but including it will make sure you always set an agenda for the call.
Validate what you’ve heard: Include a slide to outline the problems they’ve told you previously (and how you will address them with your product). Make sure that you ask them to validate that its all still true and add anything that’s missing.
Bring in your vision pitch.
Now create slides to support the pitch you outlined in the last section. A reminder of the flow:
Define the shift in the world.
What happens if people don’t get on board?
What happens if people do get on board?
What does the perfect outcome look like?
Why is your product the key to getting to the perfect outcome?
The nuts and bolts
Now that you have them bought into your vision, you’re going to show them exactly how you will help them and ensure they come out as winners in this world shift
Present evidence you’ve done it for others. Any data you have about existing customers and how you’ve improved their lives. Quotes, numbers, logos, etc. belong here
Demo the product. If you are going to do a live demo, this is your segue. But don’t jump right into features without the context of their value. Continue to present your product as the vehicle to the desired outcome
End with next steps. Seems simple but at the end, make sure you re-validate that your solution is a fit and define the next steps (i.e. trial, legal review, etc.).
Other things to keep in mind:
Always edit the slides before your presentation to make it tailored to your audience. You can always add slides back in when you send it as a follow-up, to add context as they review after you talk.
Your deck will change over time! Stay flexible and re-visit your deck/pitch often. Is it still resonating? Take out what isn’t working and add what is.
Use this pitch deck template to get started
Olivine Sales Pitch Deck Template
(more templates coming soon!)
How to use the template:
Make a copy and save to your own files
Adjust to your brand colors
Add in the details you outlined based on the framework tutorial
