The customer pitch deck is dead!

The customer pitch deck is dead!

Perhaps you had no idea it was even unwell, so apologies if this comes as a surprise.

So, your company has just started a new year, quarter, half-year, and have a renewed zest to reposition your solutions to be more appropriate to prospects under the current world crisis. Yes, it’s time to ditch the previous pitch deck you learned, and learn this new, shiny, more colourful deck to impress the heck out of all your new prospects, showing them all your solutions and key features with cracking new graphics.

Is this you and your company? Do you really think your clients plan to give you 1-2 hours of their valuable time to talk all about you? Waking up and smelling the coffee may be good about now.

Having worked for a dozen software companies, I’ve had to learn my fair share of pitch decks, with the single most common feature of them all being too much information, too much talking about us, and not enough talking about the client, their needs, and the benefits to them using our solutions (Okay, many of the common features). One company even rolled out a new corporate pitch deck of 30+ slides with associated talk track, with the expectation every salesperson would become an expert in presenting this to clients.

Several years ago in a presentation training course I attended, the instructor retold of a 2-day technical presentation pitch/workshop for a client he was up against tough competition. After successfully winning the business, when he asked the client what it was about their presentation helped them win over the competition, the clients’ response was: “You were all very similar and it was hard to put it down to technical features. The majority of people in the evaluation committee said they preferred the solution from the company that played theme music during the breaks”. Not to say it was the music that won the deal, but it was the only thing the evaluation team really recalled from the whole experience.

My own personal experience a few years before with a presentation pitch to a major prospect, where I had secured the clients' full evaluation team and was advised we would have the CEO for the first 15-20 minutes, as he had other commitments. I had been very clear and specific with the sales exec opening the session to flash past the introduction and get quickly to the point of why the company would benefit from doing business with us. To say the introduction was long-winded is an understatement. The CEO left after 10 minutes while the sales exec was still taking “About us”. We did not win that business.

The pitch deck presentation atrocity of “show up and throw up” (You know, tell them everything about us and our products) is most commonly perpetrated in the initial pitch to ensure the client gets all the information about your company and solutions to understand how great you truly are. In reality, your customer probably does not care, and will likely not remember more than 20% of what you present, especially if it is not directly relevant to them.

Try walking into a new car showroom and see how many salespeople start by talking about how long they have been in business, the development of their brand, and all the great cars they have in stock. Would it be more likely you’re greeted with “What vehicle are you looking for today? Did you have any particular style of vehicle or particular model in mind?”, and possibly followed with a few more probing questions to ascertain your planned use of said vehicle. While some people may find this pushy, it serves to help establish what you the client are looking for, and not waste your or the salespersons time.

Another analogy I like to use when I talk to salespeople and technical people about presenting to clients is how with singles dating the most successful people are likely the ones who are curious and appear interested in the other party. To quote Dale Carnegie: “People aren’t interested in you. They’re interested in themselves”. If you can show you are also interested in them, you’re on the right track.

So how do you respect this everyday reality when you’re presenting to a client? Firstly, you need to uncover how your solution will benefit them, not through assumptions, but through curiosity-based questioning. Heaven forbid you take the approach of the rookie salesperson who rattles off scripted standard questions, such as: “Do you have the budget”, ”Who has the authority”, “Will this solve your problems”, and “Is this something you can engage on now”. While these are important questions to have answered, the scripted approach is about as effective as asking a dating prospect; “If I can show you what a great person I am, and you have the time in your schedule, can we set up a date?”. Hmm, I’m starting to recall a car salesperson or two using that approach…..

Several years ago, I had the very good fortune to be introduced to a different style of presenting to customers leveraging the methodology “Selling through curiosity”, curated by Barry Rhein. Like all good training with a new wisdom to impart, we had to first unlearn the mistakes we had been making in the past, and by the end of day 2, we were ready for our homework to create a pitch deck for a case study using all we learned in the two days.

If you’re in the marketing design team for your company, now could be a good time to make a cup of coffee, sit down, and perhaps take a deep breath or two.

The resulting full pitch deck was a total of 9 slides, the only graphics being on slides 6 and 7, being screen grabs of the software solutions representing how we would solve the specific problems uncovered from the case study. Oh, and apart from our company logo on the first and last slides, those graphics were the only mention of us and our company.

Returning to the field after this training, using this pitch deck format along with the advanced questioning techniques that formed the bedrock of the training transformed how I worked with clients. The very first time I used this format, the customer complimented me at the end of the session on being the only vendor who was laser focussed on them and how to address their specific challenges. Yes, I did win that business and much more after that.

You’re likely wondering what else was in that very concise and effective pitch deck. Firstly, you need to understand your client, and as a curious and consultative student of business, use advanced questioning techniques in a conversational manner to understand their business. You will want to be able to drill down on each of your client’s key challenges until you can’t drill any deeper. The end result should be that very concise deck where you show for them:

• Their current circumstances
• Their specific challenges
• Where they would ideally like to be
• Why?
• What they stand to gain
• The consequence of making the change with related benefits
• What does the ideal solution look like?
• What’s in it for them?

The sooner you change from the “It’s all about me” approach, to focus your attention 100% on your client, will mean less time wasted presenting slides people will likely not remember.

So what are the top 5 mistakes people are making with pitch decks?

In my opinion, they are:

• About our Company introduction slide – Tick
• All of our solutions – Tick
• Each product broken down with features - Tick
• Our key customers across industries – Tick
• More than 10 slides – Tick

Some quick changes you can make today with your sales approach is to start acting more like a consultant, become more interested in your clients business, the challenges they are facing, the implications of their doing nothing, and the wins for them if they do something with you. When you present back to them, make that presentation all about them and the success they can achieve by dealing with you and your company. 

Simple really.