Features of creating sales presentations

In our previous article , five basic use cases for presentations for business were described. Now I would like to dwell on the first version from this list, “Presentation, as a commercial proposal” and consider it in more detail.

When to Use a Sales Presentation

The first thing to do when creating such a presentation would be to understand if you really need it, because there are several other ways to create commercial offers that can be more effective in certain situations. For example, if a company has a huge price list with many names and cannot choose the most suitable options for its client, then it will be easier to use a commercial offer in text format.

On the other hand, such a document can always be a great addition to a sales presentation and be used in relation to an already warm potential client who needs more detailed materials for making an order. Thus, the presentation seems to me to be a more profitable option for the first contact with a potential buyer, because it can clearly show what the company is doing and why it will be beneficial to work with it.

Who is the presentation for?

Understanding the audience is always one of the key points in creating presentations. In the case of a commercial offer, first of all, you need to decide whether it will be a personal offer for a particular company (or, for example, for all companies from a single sector) or is it a general document to attract customers from all areas.

It is generally believed that for each segment of the target audience it is better to make your presentation, because this increases the likelihood of solving exactly the problem that bothers them and, accordingly, giving a greater response. A very common option when a company makes two sales presentations: for b2b and b2c. Then these presentations can already be edited a little, for example, for each client company.

Presentation format

Based on the previous paragraph, you need to determine the format of the selling presentation. It can be used as a document for independent study (for example, if you poison it by e-mail) or provide support to the person speaking with it. A lot depends on how it will be used: structure, amount of information on slides, their design, etc.

Typically, presentations for self-study use a smaller font, more text is placed on the slides, and the presentation structure is made taking into account that no one will give explanations for the slides, so they should be clear without additional information. I’ll write a separate article in more detail about these nuances.

Sales presentation structure

There are many slide structure templates for sales presentations, the most famous of which is probably the structure template of Guy Kawasaki . He says that a sales presentation should contain nine slides and briefly describe each of them. Such templates have the right to life, but are not universal enough, because each business is not like the others. Nevertheless, there are five main sections that are usually recommended for use in marketing presentations:

Problem.It describes the main problem that your potential client is experiencing and which you will help him solve. The problem should be significant for this person, not letting him sleep at night. If you make a mistake at this stage and describe a non-existent problem, this will greatly reduce the chances of selling something. This topic can take several slides, if you need to somehow bring a person to this problem, let it feel, provide statistics or just show scary photos. The main thing is not to deviate from the main topic of the presentation and be sure that the offered product or service can really solve this problem. Exaggerating the significance of the problem is also usually not worth it, because it may look like a hoax and nothing good will come of it. The best strategy is to always be honest with customers.

Decision. The logical continuation of the previous block. It says that in fact the problem is not so terrible, because there is a wonderful product that solves it. Again, better without exaggeration, the product really should help solve the problem. Ideally, if during the first block the viewer does not see the solution to the problem, and then you open his eyes. A decision block can consist of just one slide, because it says only the essence.

How is the problem solved. This block already describes in detail the decision process, products and services of the company. There can be any number of slides, it all depends on the number of titles, presentation format, etc. In addition to the usual listing of goods and services, visualization of the main stages of work is often used here.

Special offer. The solution to any problem always has an alternative in the form of other methods of solution or another artist. In this section, it is important to show why the client should choose you. There is a little trick here: to indicate not what unique services a company provides, but what value a client receives from these services. This is a technique used by many of the largest companies and it really works.

Call to action.Usually this is the last (or a couple of the last) slide that tells the viewer / reader what he now needs to do in order to get all these described benefits. It is very good if the call is one and the potential client does not have to choose. With this part there are problems even for good presentations that tell about interesting things, but end with the slide “Thank you!” without any explanation. This works for presentations, the purpose of which is simply to inform or develop a discussion, but is completely unsuitable for selling presentations. You can lose a potential client only because he did not understand what to do now, how to contact you or decided to postpone it all for a while. Well, if you have a chain of interactions with new clients and you can immediately transfer this client to the next stage, for example, by offering a free version of a product or something else. In any case, such a slide should contain some kind of appeal and have company contacts for communication.

Additionally, various trust enhancers that are often used on websites can be used in a sales presentation. These include customer lists, job reviews, detailed descriptions of cases, etc.

Using all of these blocks is one of the universal recipes for creating an effective marketing presentation, but everything, of course, depends on the specific company, its goals and the general situation. Many companies prefer to go the simpler way, using only a description of their services. This approach has its advantages, for example, it allows not to make many unique offers, but to use the universal, reducing costs. This method may be more effective in working with a client who is already ready to buy something, but he needs to understand the whole range of services and decide. In this case, extra slides about the problem and solutions can only distract the client and spend his time. On the other hand, when working with cold clients, the use of these blocks can give excellent results.

I tried to describe all the most significant blocks and criteria that may affect a sales presentation, but if I suddenly forgot something important or you have questions about using sales presentations specifically in your case - write to us at Slidary presentation studio, we are sure to we will answer everything.