How To Close The Deal With Sales Presentations

AlexAnndra Ontra is the Co-founder and President of Shufflrr, a presentation management solution that is changing how the enterprise world thinks about its most undervalued asset–the presentation.

Shufflrr has shaped the presentation strategies of hundreds of Fortune-level companies and transformed humble PowerPoint slides into invaluable business assets. AlexAnndra joined the Predictable Revenue podcast to share her best tips for better sales development presentations.

3 must-have presentations for outbound sales

Although every company’s funnel is unique, there are three main presentations AlexAnndra recommends having in your deck:

1. The Introduction

This is a general presentation about your company, the products and services you offer, why the customer should choose you over the competition, and how you can help solve their problems. “It’s like a first date,” AlexAnndra says. At this stage, you’re still getting to know the customer and vice versa.

2. The Needs Analysis

At this stage in the sales development process, your goal is to learn more about the customer’s problems and their business so you can start building trust. “Ultimately sales is about relationships,” AlexAnndra says. “And if you can’t help your customer, you can’t sell to them.”

3. The Solution

After you have a firm understanding of the customer’s needs, you can then present your solution. AlexAnndra recommends framing this presentation through the lens of “let’s see how we can work together to solve this problem”, rather than going for the hard sell. You may also want to add references, qualifications, and case studies at this stage to build more trust.

The problem with traditional sales development presentations

“The traditional or lazy way of selling is to monologue about why your company is so great,” AlexAnndra says, but that approach is often ineffective.

Instead, AlexAnndra recommends creating outbound sales presentations with the goal of facilitating a conversation. The information in each slide deck should encourage dialogue between the seller and the customer.

“It’s always better when both people are contributing to the conversation and it’s not one-sided,” she says. “At the end of the day, we’re all people.”

How to build a better sales development presentation

According to AlexAnndra, every presentation used during the outbound sales process has three objectives: to provide information so your customer can make an informed buying decision, to support the sales development rep who is responsible for closing the deal, and to brand the company.

Providing Information

“Don’t create a sales presentation,” AlexAnndra says, “create a structured story, where every stage of your funnel is a chapter.” Traditional sales presentations are unengaging, but following a more natural storytelling approach can help keep prospects interested.

“Take a step back, get the 20-mile high view, and create a story about your company.” Include things like the company’s history, mission, your products and services, case studies, or even a message from the CEO. Give the prospect the information they need to make an informed decision–but keep it interesting.

Help your sales development reps do their job

One of the first things AlexAnndra recommends to any company looking to improve their outbound sales presentations is to create a library of presentation slides.

Instead of having each sales development rep create separate presentations, provide them with a library of slides they can access on the go. Let them pull certain slides and customize the deck for each meeting, but make sure every slide can stand alone as well.

The benefit of this is that when a prospect has a question, the rep will be able to go into the library and locate the slide that answers that exact question–instead of making the customer sit through another 20 slides before their question is addressed.

The key to this approach is to make all of your slide decks as interactive and adaptable as possible, so sales development reps can easily find what they need in each meeting.

Brand every slide

Every slide should be branded with the company logo, fonts, and color scheme. A common mistake AlexAnndra sees is sales leaders leaving it up to the reps to create their presentations. “Salespeople are not designers, nor do they want to be.”

Instead, let your marketing team handle the slide deck creation. “Make sure it’s branded the way your website is branded,” AlexAnndra says. “Every slide is an opportunity to brand.”

How better presentations lead to more deals closed

Through her work with Shufflrr, AlexAnndra has seen sales development reps cut their meeting prep-time down from five hours to five minutes. Having a readily available slide library allows salespeople to spend more time building relationships and closing deals.

Interactive presentations also move prospects through the funnel faster, because when questions come up, they’re answered right away–reps have all the information they need at their fingertips.

How Shufflrr can help

Shufflrr is a presentation management solution that incorporates these strategies into an easy-to-use tool. Files can be uploaded into the cloud and easily formatted into ready-to-present slides, and sales reps can access the entire library on the road. Fully customized and branded presentations come together in minutes.

The slide library is also searchable, which makes it even easier to customize each presentation and answer the prospect’s questions during a meeting.

The first step toward better outbound sales presentations

As a first step, AlexAnndra recommends shifting your view of sales presentations: “Look at your slides and presentations as a marketing asset.” Use them as a tool to tell your company’s story, chapter by chapter and slide by slide.

If you want to connect with AlexAnndra or learn more about Shufflrr, visit their website shufflrr.com to send an email or request a demo.

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