how to build a good sales presentation

7 Amazing Sales Presentation Examples (And How to Make Them Your Own)

7 Types of Slides to Include In Your Sales Presentation

Inside the mind of your prospect: change is hard, before-after-bridge: the only formula you need to create a persuasive sales presentation, facebook — how smiles and simplicity make you more memorable, contently — how to build a strong bridge, brick by brick, yesware — how to go above and beyond with your benefits, uber — how to cater your content for readers quick to scan, dealtap — how to use leading questions to your advantage, zuora — how to win over your prospects by feeding them dots, linkedin sales navigator — how to create excitement with color, how to make a sales pitch in 4 straightforward steps, 7 embarrassing pitfalls to avoid in your presentation, over to you.

A brilliant sales presentation has a number of things going for it.

Being product-centered isn’t one of them. Or simply focusing on your sales pitch won’t do the trick.

So what can you do to make your offer compelling?

From different types of slides to persuasive techniques and visuals, we’ve got you covered.

Below, we look at data-backed strategies, examples, and easy steps to build your own sales presentations in minutes.

• Title slide: Company name, topic, tagline
• The “Before” picture: No more than three slides with relevant statistics and graphics.
• The “After” picture: How life looks with your product. Use happy faces.
• Company introduction: Who you are and what you do (as it applies to them).
• The “Bridge” slide: Short outcome statements with icons in circles.
• Social proof slides: Customer logos with the mission statement on one slide. Pull quote on another.
• “We’re here for you” slide: Include a call-to-action and contact information.

Many sales presentations fall flat because they ignore this universal psychological bias: People overvalue the benefits of what they have over what they’re missing.

Harvard Business School professor John T. Gourville calls this the “ 9x Effect .” Left unchecked, it can be disastrous for your business.

According to Gourville, “It’s not enough for a new product simply to be better. Unless the gains far outweigh the losses, customers will not adopt it.”

The good news: You can influence how prospects perceive these gains and losses. One of the best ways to prove value is to contrast life before and after your product.

Luckily, there’s a three-step formula for that.

• Before → Here’s your world…
• After → Imagine what it would be like if…
• Bridge → Here’s how to get there.

Start with a vivid description of the pain, present an enviable world where that problem doesn’t exist, then explain how to get there using your tool.

It’s super simple, and it works for cold emails , drip campaigns , and sales discovery decks. Basically anywhere you need to get people excited about what you have to say.

In fact, a lot of companies are already using this formula to great success. The methods used in the sales presentation examples below will help you do the same.

We’re all drawn to happiness. A study at Harvard tells us that emotion is contagious .

You’ll notice that the “Before” (pre-Digital Age) pictures in Facebook’s slides all display neutral faces. But the cover slide that introduces Facebook and the “After” slides have smiling faces on them.

This is important. The placement of those graphics is an intentional persuasion technique.

Studies by psychologists show that we register smiles faster than any other expression. All it takes is 500 milliseconds (1/20th of a second). And when participants in a study were asked to recall expressions, they consistently remembered happy faces over neutral ones.

What to do about it : Add a happy stock photo to your intro and “After” slides, and keep people in “Before” slides to neutral expressions.

Here are some further techniques used during the sales presentation:

Tactic #1: Use Simple Graphics

Use simple graphics to convey meaning without text.

Example: Slide 2 is a picture of a consumer’s hand holding an iPhone — something we can all relate to.

Why It Works: Pictures are more effective than words — it’s called  Picture Superiority . In presentations, pictures help you create connections with your audience. Instead of spoon-feeding them everything word for word, you let them interpret. This builds trust.

Tactic #2: Use Icons

Use icons to show statistics you’re comparing instead of listing them out.

Example: Slide 18 uses people icons to emphasize how small 38 out of 100 people is compared to 89 out of 100.

Why It Works:  We process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.

Tactic #3: Include Statistics

Include statistics that tie real success to the benefits you mention.

Example: “71% lift driving visits to retailer title pages” (Slide 26).

Why It Works:  Precise details prove that you are telling the truth.

Just like how you can’t drive from Marin County to San Francisco without the Golden Gate, you can’t connect a “Before” to an “After” without a bridge.

Add the mission statement of your company — something Contently does from Slide 1 of their deck. Having a logo-filled Customers slide isn’t unusual for sales presentations, but Contently goes one step further by showing you exactly what they do for these companies.

They then drive home the Before-After-Bridge Formula further with case studies:

Before : Customer’s needs when they came on

After: What your company accomplished for them

Bridge : How they got there (specific actions and outcomes)

Here are some other tactics we pulled from the sales presentation:

Tactic #1: Use Graphics/Diagrams

Use graphics, Venn diagrams, and/or equations to drive home your “Before” picture.

Why It Works:  According to a Cornell study , graphs and equations have persuasive power. They “signal a scientific basis for claims, which grants them greater credibility.”

Tactic #2: Keep Slides That Have Bullets to a Minimum

Keep slides that have bullets to a minimum. No more than one in every five slides.

Why It Works:  According to an experiment by the International Journal of Business Communication , “Subjects exposed to a graphic representation paid significantly more attention to , agreed more with, and better recalled the strategy than did subjects who saw a (textually identical) bulleted list.”

Tactic #3: Use Visual Examples

Follow up your descriptions with visual examples.

Example: After stating “15000+ vetted, ready to work journalists searchable by location, topical experience, and social media influence” on Slide 8, Contently shows what this looks like firsthand on slides 9 and 10.

Why It Works:  The same reason why prospects clamor for demos and car buyers ask for test drives. You’re never truly convinced until you see something for yourself.

Which is more effective for you?

This statement — “On average, Yesware customers save ten hours per week” — or this image:

The graphic shows you what that 10 hours looks like for prospects vs. customers. It also calls out a pain that the product removes: data entry.

Visuals are more effective every time. They fuel retention of a presentation from 10% to 65% .

But it’s not as easy as just including a graphic. You need to keep the design clean.

Can you feel it?

Clutter provokes anxiety and stress because it bombards our minds with excessive visual stimuli, causing our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren’t important.

Here’s a tip from Yesware’s Graphic Designer, Ginelle DeAntonis:

“Customer logos won’t all necessarily have the same dimensions, but keep them the same size visually so that they all have the same importance. You should also disperse colors throughout, so that you don’t for example end up with a bunch of blue logos next to each other. Organize them in a way that’s easy for the eye, because in the end it’s a lot of information at once.”

Here are more tactics to inspire sales presentation ideas:

Tactic #1: Personalize Your Final Slide

Personalize your final slide with your contact information and a headline that drives emotion.

Example: Our Mid-Market Team Lead Kyle includes his phone number and email address with “We’re Here For You”

Why It Works: These small details show your audience that:

• This is about giving them the end picture, not making a sale
• The end of the presentation doesn’t mean the end of the conversation
• Questions are welcomed

Tactic #2: Pair Outcome Statements With Icons in Circles

Example: Slide 4 does this with seven different “After” outcomes.

Why It Works:  We already know why pictures work, but circles have power , too. They imply completeness, infiniteness, and harmony.

Tactic #3: Include Specific Success Metrics

Don’t just list who you work with; include specific success metrics that hit home what you’ve done for them.

Example: 35% New Business Growth for Boomtrain; 30% Higher Reply Rates for Dyn.

Why It Works:  Social proof drives action. It’s why we wait in lines at restaurants and put ourselves on waitlists for sold-out items.

People can only focus for eight seconds at a time. (Sadly, goldfish have one second on us.)

This means you need to cut to the chase fast.

Uber’s headlines in Slides 2-9 tailor the “After” picture to specific pain points. As a result, there’s no need to explicitly state a “Before.”

Slides 11-13 then continue touching on “Before” problems tangentially with customer quotes:

So instead of self-touting benefits, the brand steps aside to let consumers hear from their peers — something that sways 92% of consumers .

Leading questions may be banned from the courtroom, but they aren’t in the boardroom.

DealTap’s slides ask viewers to choose between two scenarios over and over. Each has an obvious winner:

Ever heard of the Focusing Effect?

It’s part of what makes us tick as humans and what makes this design move effective. We focus on one thing and then ignore the rest. Here, DealTap puts the magnifying glass on paperwork vs. automated transactions.

Easy choice.

Sure, DealTap’s platform might have complexities that rival paperwork, but we don’t think about that. We’re looking at the pile of work one the left and the simpler, single interface on the right.

Here are some other tactics to use in your own sales presentation:

Tactic #1: Tell a Story

Tell a story that flows from one slide to the next.

Example: Here’s the story DealTap tells from slides 4 to 8: “Transactions are complicated” → “Expectations on all sides” → “Too many disconnected tools” → “Slow and error prone process” → “However, there’s an opportunity.

Why It Works:   Storytelling in sales with a clear beginning and end (or in this case, a “Before” and “After”) trigger a trust hormone called Oxytocin.

Tactic #2: This vs. That

If it’s hard to separate out one “Before” and “After” vision with your product or service because you offer many dissimilar benefits, consider a “This vs. That” theme for each.

Why It Works:  It breaks up your points into simple decisions and sets you up to win emotional reactions from your audience with stock photos.

Remember how satisfying it was to play connect the dots? Forming a bigger picture out of disconnected circles.

That’s what you need to make your audience do.

Zuora tells a story by:

• Laying out the reality (the “Before” part of the Before-After-Bridge formula).
• Asking you a question that you want to answer (the “After”)
• Giving you hints to help you connect the dots
• Showing you the common thread (the “Bridge”)

You can achieve this by founding your sales presentation on your audience’s intuitions. Set them up with the closely-set “dots,” then let them make the connection.

Here are more tactical sales presentation ideas to steal for your own use:

Tactic #1: Use Logos and Testimonials

Use logos and  testimonial pull-quotes for your highest-profile customers to strengthen your sales presentation.

Example: Slides 21 to 23 include customer quotes from Schneider Electric, Financial Times, and Box.

Why It Works: It’s called  social proof . Prospects value other people’s opinions and trust reputable sources more than you.

Tactic #2: Include White Space

Pad your images with white space.

Example: Slide 17 includes two simple graphics on a white background to drive home an important concept.

Why It Works:  White space creates separation, balance, and attracts the audience’s eyes to the main focus: your image.

Tactic #3: Incorporate Hard Data

Incorporate hard data with a memorable background to make your data stand out.

Example: Slide 5 includes statistics with a backdrop that stands out. The number and exciting title (‘A Global Phenomenon’) are the main focuses of the slide.

Why It Works:  Vivid backdrops are proven to be memorable and help your audience take away important numbers or data.

Psychology tells us that seeing colors can set our mood .

The color red is proven to increase the pulse and heart rate. Beyond that, it’s associated with being active, aggressive, and outspoken. LinkedIn Sales Navigator uses red on slides to draw attention to main points:

You can use hues in your own slides to guide your audience’s emotions. Green gives peace; grey adds a sense of calm; blue breeds trust. See more here .

Tip: You can grab free photos from Creative Commons and then set them to black & white and add a colored filter on top using a (also free) tool like Canva . Here’s the sizing for your image:

Caveat: Check with your marketing team first to see if you have a specific color palette or brand guidelines to follow.

Here are some other takeaways from LinkedIn’s sales presentation:

Tactic #1: Include a CTA on Final Slide

Include one clear call-to-action on your final slide.

Example: Slide 9 has a “Learn More” CTA button.

Why It Works:  According to the Paradox of Choice , the more options you give, the less likely they are to act.

Step One : Ask marketing for your company’s style guide (color, logo, and font style).

Step Two: Answer these questions to outline the “Before → After → Bridge” formula for your sales pitch :

• What are your ICP’s pain points?
• What end picture resonates with them?
• How does your company come into play?

Step Three: Ask account management/marketing which customers you can mention in your slides (plus where to access any case studies for pull quotes).

Step Four:  Download photos from Creative Commons . Remember: Graphics > Text. Use Canva to edit on your own — free and fast.

What are the sales presentation strategies that work best for your industry and customers? Tweet us:  @Yesware .

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15 Sales Presentation Techniques That Will Help You Close More Deals Today

Updated: June 01, 2022

Published: May 31, 2022

Hate the thought of doing sales presentations ? You’re not alone. But the best reps have sales presentations down pat, even if it’s not their favorite activity.

The best sales reps know that, when done right , sales presentations are a high-earning skill.

So, let’s hone that skill with simple sales presentation techniques that communicate an irresistible narrative and get buyers to close.

Sales Presentation

An effective sales presentation tells a compelling story, highlights your value proposition, and aligns with your audience's needs and desires. It ends with a strong call-to-action and leads prospects to your differentiators instead of leading with them.

As it can sometimes mean the difference between closing a deal or losing a customer, you definitely want to get your sales presentation right. There are strategies and tips you can follow to ensure your sales presentations are effective, memorable, and engaging. Let’s go over them below.

Sales Presentation Methods

1. structure your presentation. .

Guiding your prospects down a clear path is key to a successful sales presentation. You’ll follow a logical structure, and listeners will understand how each element of your presentation relates to one another, rather than them having to piece together disjointed information on their own. 

There are times when flipping the structure can add unique elements to your presentation, though, and we’ll discuss this further below. 

2. Use data visualizations. 

Using visuals, like charts and graphics, to supplement your message is a valuable way to showcase your content in an easy-to-understand format as they make your words more impactful. 

For example, if you’re selling SaaS that helps users organize their sales process for a shorter cycle, you can create a visual that displays the average length of your clients’ sales cycle vs. those using other tools. 

By doing this, you’re adding extra emphasis to your words with a visual picture, and a bonus is that visuals are more likely to stick with your audience and get them thinking versus just hearing you talk. 

3. Rely on spoken words — not text.

If your presentation slides are text-heavy, prospects may get caught up reading the words you’ve written instead of listening, causing them to miss out on the value you’re sharing. Aim to include less text by calling attention to the most significant elements with short bursts of text that you supplement with your words. 

In addition, when you have less text on your slides, you may be less inclined to just read from them, which can be a bad part of presentations. You’ll have to speak instead of relying on written content. 

Let’s go over some sales presentation techniques that, when paired with the three methods above, will help you nail it every time.

Sales Presentation Techniques

1. send your buyer the presentation deck before your call..

You might assume that sending a buyer a deck before a call is like revealing whodunnit on the cover of a murder mystery. No one will pay attention to the rest of the book, right? 

When the Gong.io team started sharing our deck before opening sales calls, we learned it was a winning move. 

If your deck is compelling, prospects will want to get into it with you, even if they know the main point. Together, you can dive in, dissect the good bits, and talk through questions. It’s going to be a juicy conversation, and they know it.

Then, you can begin the conversation during your presentation with a statement like, “Based on the information in the deck I sent, where should we start?”

2. Invoke self-discovery.

It’s tempting to stick to a positive linear story during your sales presentation. That usually invokes talking about benefits, outcomes, and desired results. But, that approach isn’t always the best. 

Before discussing solutions and results, you must understand your prospect's problem. More importantly, you have to be sure your prospects understand the problem. 

Self-discovery is the ticket that gets you there. Instead of telling the buyer what the problem is and how you’ll address it, get your buyer to connect with the problem on their own. 

3. Talk about Point A. Don’t skip to point B.

This is 100% linked to the tip above. There’s a problem (point A) and desired outcome (point B). Point A is the status quo. It’s a problem your buyer will continue to face if they don’t make a change. 

You can stand out by focusing on point A, as talking about a pain point is shockingly more effective than talking about positive outcomes. 

Make your buyer feel the pain that results from the status quo. Convince them the pain will only worsen without your solution — because you know that to be true.

You should only talk about benefits once they’re on board with that line of thinking. Urgency is what allows benefits to land. Without urgency, benefits are just happy points that hold no real meaning.

4. Insight is your #1 lead story.

Buyers are experts on their circumstances, but they want insights into their situation from you. 

You’re most likely to impress a buyer by telling them something new about themselves, as your offering is a unique insight into their problems and opportunities.

Check out this TaylorMade video. It’s a bang-on example of how to lead a presentation with insight, and then move on to your product’s strengths:

You learned how to get more distance from your golf swing (an insight into what you’re doing). Then you learned how that’s supported by the product’s particular strength.

Insight comes first. It changes how your buyers think about the problem your product solves. Only then benefits can land effectively.

5. Don’t lead with differentiators, lead to them.

At Gong.io, we’ve taught our sales reps to speak with buyers about a critical problem only we can solve. It’s the delta between top producers and the rest of the team.

• "The numbers from your top reps are fantastic."
• "The downside is they’re annulled by everyone else who’s missing their quota."
• "Your team goes from outstanding numbers to breaking even or missing quota. Both of those options are unsustainable."

We only introduce our key differentiator once the backstory is clear and the buyer gets it. Then, our reps say something like this:

"Gong is the only platform that can tell you what your top reps do differently from the rest of your team. We can tell you which questions they ask, which topics they discuss, when they talk about each one, and more."

See why we lead to our differentiator, and not with it? It just wouldn’t land the same way if we started with the differentiator. In fact, it might not land at all.

6. Focus on value, not features.

Gong.io research found that focusing on features over value is not impactful. Prospects, especially decision-makers, want value propositions about how you’ll help them solve their problems rather than an overview of the features they’ll get. 

7. Flip your presentation.

he next, eventually achieving a shiny, final outcome. This isn’t always the best strategy. 

Instead of building up to the most significant and impactful part of your demo for your prospect, begin with the most valuable part, which is how you’ll help them, and let the conversation flow from there. 

There’s one other tactic underlying it all: The best product demos start with topics the buyers highlighted on the discovery call . For example, if the buyer spends 4 minutes talking about X and 10 minutes talking about Y, you want to begin with Y, as the buyer has demonstrated that they’re heavily interested in Y. In the opening section of your presentation, address the biggest issue from discovery. Address the second biggest issue second, etc.

It’s called solution mapping, and it’s going to change your sales presentation process forever. Stop saving the big reveal for last. Stop building anticipation. Start with the good stuff. Let it rip right out of the gate.

8. Turn your presentation into a conversation.

If you sensed we were looking for a two-way dialogue during your pitch, you’re right. That’s a relief to most salespeople, especially the ones who hate delivering traditional presentations.

A two-way dialogue is going to make your pitch feel more natural. To do this, Gong.io says to get buyers to ask questions by giving them just enough info to inspire them to ask more questions and keep the conversation going. In fact, top performers ask fewer questions because they don’t bombard prospects with too much information but instead give buyers just enough information to have them ask questions. 

Long monologues won’t help you have real conversations with your buyers. Instead, aim for a great two-way conversation. 

9. Mind the 9-minute period.

This tip is crisp and clear: Don’t present for more than nine minutes. Gong.io data supports this. 

Presentations for lost deals last an average of 11.4 minutes. Why do they go so poorly? Because it’s hard to retain attention. If you do go longer than nine minutes, switch it up. 

Vary something that re-captures attention and keeps people engaged. Change channels by doing something like switching up who’s speaking in real life or on video. This can rest your clock to zero, and you’ve got nine more minutes for the next portion of the show. 

10. Be strategic with social proof. 

Social proof. Best friend or worst nightmare? It can be either one, so use it carefully. For example, generic social proof (i.e., naming impressive clients for brand power alone) is a disaster. Buyers might not identify with them. Sure, they’re dazzled, but they may not see how they relate to your current client.

An effective strategy is to reference clients similar to your buyer, with the same pain points, challenges and needs that they can relate to. You can tell an accompanying story about the client and their pain points, helping the buyer see themselves in the story you’re telling.

11. Talk price after you establish value.

Would it surprise you to know it matters when you talk about certain topics? It can actually affect whether you win or lose a deal. Pricing is a great example of this principle.

The top salespeople wait to talk about pricing. They know it’s important to demonstrate their product’s value first.

Set an agenda at the start of your call so your buyer knows when to expect a pricing discussion. They’ll be less likely to raise it early, and if they do, you can refer back to the agenda.

Open with something like, " I’d like to talk about A, B, and C on our call today. Then we can go over pricing at the end and -- if it makes sense for you -- talk about next steps. Does that work for you?"

You’re all set.

12. Reference your competitors.

Our data shows that you’re more likely to win a deal if you talk about the competition early in the sales process instead of ignoring them completely.

For best results, practice this during your first sales presentation. Waiting until the end of your sales process puts you into a dangerous red zone. Your buyers will already have formed opinions, and they’ll be harder to change.

In other words, at the end of the day, buyers will justify a decision they made early in the process, which is why it’s critical to set yourself up as the winner early on. Talk about the competition in your presentation. Put the conversation out there. Get your buyer to see you through that lens, and you’re golden.

Over To You

You now have 15 new tips and techniques to throw down this quarter. Many of these data-backed moves come from Gong.io’s own findings and have proven to be effective for us. Implement them, and I know you’ll boost your numbers.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Prep, Present, and Follow Through: How To Nail Your Next Sales Presentation

Audrey Harris

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When it comes to building an effective sales presentation, no one-size-fits-all sales deck exists.

Every sales presentation you deliver to a prospect should be personalized and tailored just for them. Successful selling today is about establishing yourself as a trusted advisor. Cookie-cutter messages won’t do that. So how should you get started?

High-performing sellers close more deals by focusing on their prospects, rather than their products. Follow these sales presentation tips before, during, and after your next meeting to make it more resonant (and hopefully, more lucrative). These tips work whether you’re building customer relationships remotely or in person.

Deliver polished presentations that address your prospect’s biggest pain points

Use generative AI, powered by Einstein, to help you draft an engaging, tailored talk track for your next sales presentation, perfectly aligning product value to specific prospect needs.

Step 1: Research the company and your contact

An effective sales presentation starts long before the actual presentation. The first step is to learn who your prospect is and the challenges they face; then you can use those insights to show how you can help them succeed.

In particular, you should research the company, the challenges it faces, and the contacts who will hear your presentation.

Learn more about the company’s past, present, and future

First, consult your CRM platform. Find other accounts from the prospect’s industry and see what their customer journeys looked like. Their client information and case history will help you learn what products and services they use most and how your company serves them well. The information in your CRM platform can give you insights and tips that will help you win deals like the one you’re currently working on. Take a look, too, at the sales pipeline for that particular industry. Your CRM system is a tool specifically used to help you sell successfully and should be used throughout the sales process.

Once you have that preliminary information, head to the company website and research what the prospect’s company does, how big it is, and what products or services it offers. Then, dig deeper. Make a note of their mission, values, and corporate culture. Also try to learn more about the company’s history and any news items involving the company. Look into the company’s annual report to get a good idea of where it might be headed in the future.

Your presentation should focus on using insights from your research to show a deep understanding of the company and why your product or service can help it grow.

Consider the company’s challenges

As you learn about the company, pay special attention to the challenges it faces that are relevant to your product or service offerings. Remember these issues so you can use them as conversation starters during your sales presentation. Then you can offer advice — or insights — about how they could better face those challenges.

This type of approach is called insight selling : You as a salesperson bring unique, tailored insights to a prospect to solve their problems.

For example, if you sell a marketing tool, you may notice in your research that your lead is currently using the same ads across social media, search, and display networks. Your insight might be, “I see that your company is using the same ad copy across several platforms. How have those ads been performing for you? Have you been able to reach your sales or traffic goals?” Their answer may change aspects of your sales presentation or may make it even stronger.

Learn more about your audience

When it comes to communication, knowing who will be in the room is critical. If your prospect is the Director of Production, your most effective sales presentation may focus on metrics that can determine how to improve output. If your prospect will be presenting the information to a decision maker, offer resources to help make it easier for them.

Step 2: Prepare for your sales presentation

After gathering insights about the company and your contacts, you are ready to put together your presentation. Whether you use a sales presentation template that your workplace provides or you start from scratch, use these sales presentation tips to build a more compelling pitch.

Focus on the challenges your prospects face, not just your benefits

Salespeople should present themselves as a trusted advisor, not just a company representative. Look for ways to create a dialogue with the prospect and share how you can help their company work more efficiently, provide better service, or solve the challenges holding them back.

Keep your presentation simple

Sales template decks can be useful, but they can also overwhelm prospects if they’re too long. Instead of a 50-slide canned presentation, focus on keeping the slide deck relatively simple and highlighting engaging images and key statistics. This will make it easier to use a storytelling approach, rather than just reading off a slide.

Practice your presentation

You want to prepare, but you don’t want to come across as robotic or scripted. Practice what you’ll say and how you’ll answer questions, and make sure you’ve memorized important statistics or metrics. Build time into the presentation so you can share personal anecdotes or pause for questions.

Keep your delivery style confident, but agile. You may find that one point you thought would be critical doesn’t have as much impact with your prospect as you’d hoped, but a different point unexpectedly piques their interest. Keeping your talk track fluid will make it easier to shift gears if you need to.

Step 3: Nail your sales presentation

Presentation day has arrived. You’ve done your research, nailed the perfect storytelling approach, and trimmed down your slide deck. Now is your time to shine. Here are a few sales presentation tips to help your pitch end in a sale.

End the meeting with your presentation; don’t begin with it

You’ve likely had conversations with your contact and know them well enough, but in this presentation you’ll potentially meet additional people who make decisions. Take the time to get to know each attendee.

Building a rapport with your audience before pitching is a no-brainer. But avoid too much small talk; it can come across as inauthentic or like a waste of the customer’s time. Instead, time permitting, try to use the beginning of the meeting asking questions about day-to-day operations and goals. Ask specific questions that demonstrate your knowledge of their company and industry, and use the answers to shape your narrative. Then, during your presentation, tie back to topics the prospect brought up and focus on how you, the trusted advisor, can help.

Ask questions during the presentation to encourage a dialogue

Getting feedback from your prospect during the actual presentation is the best sales presentation technique of all. This allows you to change your focus in the moment, rather than spending your presentation talking about challenges and solutions that might be unimportant to your prospect.

After you make a key point, ask your prospect a question like, “Does this make sense in your industry?” or “Can you see this applying to your company?” This prompts the prospect to either agree or start a dialogue about pain points and how your products and services can better serve them.

If they agree with you, then you know you’re on the right track and that your suggestions are up to date. On the other hand, if they have clarifications, this lets you adjust your presentation — and follow-up efforts — to better fit their position.

Include proof that shows how your products and services have helped others

Step 4: Prioritize the follow-up just as much as the presentation

The actual sales presentation is just one part of your sales process, and it doesn’t guarantee a signed contract or even further contact with you. The final piece of your sales presentation is a well-planned follow-up, and it’s just as important as the presentation itself.

The most effective follow-up format will depend on your prospect, their needs, and how they best retain information. For example, you may follow up by:

• Emailing your slide deck and asking to schedule a follow-up call. Just remember to avoid the “Just following up” email and make sure your email offers the recipient value.
• Scheduling follow-up emails to reiterate key points in your presentation. A sales automation tool automates emails to share product information and set reminders for you to connect. It helps make sure no prospects fall through the cracks.
• Preparing personalized content that highlights the main points from your sales presentation and includes videos of products in action, testimonials, or other helpful collateral.
• Sending an additional resource about a topic they mentioned during your meeting, whether it pertained to your presentation or not.

Your sales presentation doesn’t end when you walk out the door or end the meeting. As you research and present your pitch, consider what the best follow-up approach will be. Then, take the time to create a well-considered follow-up strategy.

You can make your next sales presentation your best

Preparation and practice are key to successful sales presentations. But there’s so much more to a great presentation than well-designed slides or new research. The heart of a great sales presentation is the relationship between you and your customer, and that’s built on unique insights focused on your potential customer’s challenges and needs.

When you focus on helping, rather than pitching, your sales presentation is more likely to be a hit. That’s a win-win for you and your customer.

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Audrey is a senior product marketer for Core Sales Cloud (Salesforce Automation), and a customer advocate who has spent her career delivering B2B technology. An engineer turned marketer, she is passionate about business efficiency, philanthropy, and mentorship.

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How to Create & Deliver a Sales Presentation (+ Template)

Related articles, lead vs prospect vs opportunity: what's the difference, 52 lead generation statistics to consider in 2024, top 14 email nurture campaign best practices.

Selling Signals content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More .

A sales presentation is the act of verbally explaining a product or service and delivering your sales pitch to a potential buyer, usually with the assistance of a sales deck. The ultimate goal of the presentation is to convince the buyer to take next steps with you, such as accepting a proposal. To accomplish this, sales reps follow a key outline that includes sections like the prospect's pain point, how the product or service solves this problem, and a strong call-to-action.

For help crafting your presentation, hire a design expert on Fiverr to custom create an appealing slide deck and write the talking points that will present your offering in the most professional way possible. Freelance gigs start at only five dollars — take a look at your best options below:

How Do Sales Presentations Work?

Salespeople typically give a 20- to 30-minute sales presentation as a  lead nurturing  activity once a lead has been qualified as a high-value prospect — by this point, you've determined it's time to show them in detail the value of your product or service and recommend next steps. The stage of your sales pipeline in which the presentation occurs depends on your business, but it's usually done toward the end of your  sales process  as one of the final steps before deal closing.

As you build your presentation's talking points, you'll follow an outline that typically begins with small talk and introductions, then moves on to agenda-setting. The outline will then dive into the problem, your solution and the benefits that it brings, and stories about a current customer who had a similar issue before working with you. Finally, you'll end with a concrete CTA to entice your prospect to move forward with you.

Keeping this outline in mind, there are steps you can follow to first plan the sections of a general outline and then personalize them to each unique prospect, plus templates and software you can use to build a supporting sales deck. It also helps to consider tips to prepare for and deliver the presentation and take a look at examples of quality presentations to emulate.

This article addresses how to create your entire presentation, including building a visual sales deck and creating and delivering your talking points. If you’re looking specifically to learn how to craft a written slideshow, check out our article on creating a sales deck .

Free Sales Presentation Template

So that you don't necessarily need to start from scratch, we've gathered several sales presentation templates for various scenarios and created our own free general sales deck template to help you create a slideshow to complement your presentation. This deck template can act as a base for you or a Fiverr freelancer to customize into your own deck according your needs and presentation outline. It also comes with recommendations for specific written content to put on each slide.

Now that you have a template to work from, let’s look at the key elements all salespeople should use to structure their sales presentation.

Common Sections of an Effective Sales Presentation

Regardless of your business or customer, there are some common elements to include in your sales presentation to make it as effective as possible. Where in the presentation or deck you place each element is up to you, as there are slight strategic advantages to different arrangements, but the outline below is the best place to start so you can sucessfully give a presentation and communicate your sales pitch .

Here is the common structure of a sales presentation, plus how to communicate each section: 

Small Talk & Intros

Solution & benefits, social proof.

As people enter the meeting, take five minutes to build rapport and engage your prospect in light conversation by asking them personal or professional questions like “Last time we spoke, you were working on {project} . How’s that been going?” Small talk like this gets everyone comfortable and in a good mood.

After the conversation has run its course, thank your audience for attending, then briefly introduce (or reintroduce) yourself and state your company's elevator pitch . Bring up relevant credentials or experiences that will paint you as the right person or team to help them in this area. Then, ask each person in the audience (if there are five or fewer) to say their name and job title. All of this should take another 3–5 minutes.

Before you start flipping through slides, set the agenda in three sentences so the audience knows what to expect. When they know what’s coming, they're on the lookout for the elements and topics you mentioned. This increases their comprehension and engagement. Plus, stating an agenda makes you look organized and professional.

Use the "purpose, benefit, check" method when setting the agenda:

• State the Meeting’s Purpose: Preview the main topics you'll be covering. “We’re here to go over how {product or service} can help you overcome {problem or challenge} .”
• List the Benefits of Attending:  Explain how the prospect will benefit from being here. “Besides learning about our solution and how to use it to reach your goals, you’ll also come away with valuable industry insights that will change the way you think about {topic} .”
• Check for Alignment:  Make sure you’re all on the same page with a simple check. “Does that sound like a plan?”

Once your prospect agrees, you can dive into the problem.

Talk about your prospect’s problem that you found during your discovery call or another method. Mention what you believe is causing it and the negative consequences the prospect will experience if they let it remain unsolved (including any relevant statistics). Because the problem is likely why your potential customer is in the meeting, dedicate five minutes to laying out their pain point and discussing it a bit if your prospect has anything to add.

This could sound like "During our discovery call, you said you're trying to reach {goal} but you've been experiencing {challenge} . It sounded like your main concern is {implications} , and the problem is stemming from {issues/pain points} . Anything I'm missing?"

In a few sentences, tease three benefits they could enjoy if they simply solved this problem. Paint this better world as desirable and free of the pains caused by their current problem. Then, introduce your product or service and take two minutes to explain how it solves the problem and helps reach the promised land.

For example, "If you were to solve this pain point, you could {benefit 1} . {Product or service} is designed to {high-level purpose/benefit 2} for {role or company type} so they can {more impactful action/benefit 3} . Specifically, it does this by {product/service overview} ."

If you'd like to dive deeper into how your product works, you could extend this to a 15- to 20-minute product demo instead of a two-minute overview. Plan this beforehand so as not to run over the time you've allotted.

If there are specific ways in which customers similar to the prospect have used the solution to their advantage, share them in the presentation. This can include social proof like testimonials, case studies, and anecdotes to show how buyers love your solution.

A good way to state this is "One of our longest clients is {similar company} , which {brief, relevant company description} . Before working with us, they were also having {similar problem} , but they've solved it by using our {feature and brief explanation} . I could see your team loving {feature} , too."

Your relationship with the prospect, the amount of people in the room, and the price of your product or service will determine how you end your presentation and make your ask. If you're presenting a pricey B2B solution to three executives, your CTA will be different than if you’re presenting a B2C product to a 1,000-person audience.

Here are three ways to close your presentation:

• Strong CTA:  Make a direct ask like “Over 500 satisfied clients are currently using our solution to {function/benefit} . Are you ready to join them?” or “Are you ready for us to draft up a proposal so you can rid yourself of {pain point} once and for all?”
• Open-Ended Question:  Ask an open-ended question that will prompt them to think about and discuss their key takeaways. For instance, you might ask, “How did I change the way you think about {topic} ?” Higher-priced items that need further evaluation use this.
• Objection-Response Question:  If you sense any objections lurking behind their eyes, ask, “Based on what you’ve just heard, what would hold you back from buying today?” Then, you can address the concern or hesitation while you have them in the room.

In almost all cases, it makes sense to end your spoken presentation by inviting the prospect to ask questions, either before or after you give a CTA such as accepting a business proposal .

As we've shown above using bolded prompts, it's a good idea to create a standard outline of your presentation and generally what you'd like to say to every prospect, then use that as a script template and leave room for personalization to each prospect. This helps you stay on track and sound confident while making the prospect feel as if the presentation were developed just for them.

How to Create a Winning Sales Presentation

Before delivering your sales presentation to a room full of buyers, you have some preparation to do. This includes creating the bones of your presentation, personalizing it to your prospect, and designing a sales deck to support your talking points. Check out the slider below for an overview of each step, or dive right into steps and how to do each.

Craft a General Presentation

First write an outline of the sections and topics you want to cover in every presentation, including a script template to guide your words. 

Personalize the Presentation

Learn about the attendees via a discovery call and independent research, and tailor your presentation to the prospect.

Gather Supporting Materials

Gather relevant marketing messaging, photos, data, and anything else you’ll need to deliver your personalized presentation.

Create a Personalized Sales Deck

Build out the visual slideshow you’ll use during your presentation. 

1. Write Your General Presentation Outline & Script

First, incorporate the common sections of a sales presentation outline — write the main points you want to hit and a general sales script of the words you want to say, but leave room for personalization to each prospect. You can either write this outline from scratch or start with a sales presentation template .

Here is a potential outline of the spoken portion of a sales presentation: 

• Small Talk and Introductions:  Build rapport, thank your prospect for attending, and introduce yourself and your business using an elevator pitch.
• Agenda-Setting: Remind the prospect of the purpose of the meeting and why it's good they're attending. Get their buy-in to move on and talk about the problem.
• Your Prospect’s Main Problem:  Summarize the prospect's problem that you learned about during discovery, plus the implications of leaving it unsolved.
• Solution and Benefits:  Talk about a better world in which the problem is gone, using about three benefits. Reveal your product or service and pitch how it solves the problem.
• Social Proof:  Share a case study, testimonial, and/or anecdote from a company or person that's similar to your prospect to help prove you can help them.  
• Call-to-Action:  Wrap up with a closing statement that includes a CTA inviting them to begin this partnership or take another action.

The outline of a sales presentation will vary across different businesses and presentation situations. Generally, though, you’ll be presenting your product or service in front of a group of decision makers in an office room, so the above is a potential sales presentation outline of the main points to hit for this situation. You can always modify your general outline later on.

If you include some of the above elements within stories, your audience will be more engaged and interested. For example, when giving your company overview, tell a brief story about the issue or opportunity that prompted your founder to create the business and how it's changed over the years to reach its current state.

2. Personalize the Presentation

Once you've developed a general presentation structure that you can reuse for each prospect, use a discovery call and online research to learn about the specific prospect to whom you're presenting. This will help you craft a personalized presentation that captures your audience’s attention and makes them feel understood. It will also ensure the lead is qualified before you start building a presentation for them.

Research these three areas to fill in the blanks within your presentation: 

• Your Prospect’s Business:  Learn about their company size, mission, sector, and goals, plus their internal processes. This will help you plan your small talk and select relevant social proof. 
• Your Prospect’s Problem:  Learn all about their pain point and its associated consequences. If you know the specifics, you can bring up targeted problem insights and solutions. 
• Who Is Attending:  If the decision maker(s) are from high-level management, focus on how you’ll help them achieve long-term goals. If they'll use your solution day-to-day, focus on efficiencies and problem-solving.

While this is most helpful to personalize the general sections you planned out in the previous step, it can also help you to add more sections or modify your outline if needed. It'll also support the next step in which you gather relevant information that will impress your prospect and make the presentation feel even more personalized.

3. Gather Supporting Materials

Now that you’re familiar with your prospect and their needs, begin gathering the materials for the elements you want to include in your sales presentation. You can get these online, in your CRM , or directly from your data, marketing, and/or customer success team.

The best personalized presentation materials and information to gather include: 

• Case Studies or Testimonials: Find a great story or review from your current customers who are similar to the prospect.
• Client or Product Photos:  Highlight clients using the product or service by gathering photos from marketing or the client themselves.
• Data or Statistics: Collect ROI, industry trends, or other data that supports your claims about the prospect's problem or your solution.
• Marketing Messaging:  From your marketing team or your content, find the solution's benefits, unique selling proposition , and story details that will be most relevant to this prospect.
• Props or Demonstrations:  If your product lends itself to physical or virtual demonstrations, gather the required materials or set up the virtual environment. 
• Graphs:  Create graphs that back your claims, illustrate trends, and supplement your stories. If you say Facebook ad prices are trending upwards, show a graph of this. 

Because you might have to get this material from another department or person or even create it yourself, it’s best to handle this at least two or three days before you plan to begin building your sales deck so you can plug them in immediately when you create the deck.

4. Create a Personalized Sales Deck

A sales deck is the slideshow that acts as a visual backdrop and guide for your sales presentation, usually created using  sales presentation software  like PowerPoint. If you choose to use a deck with your spoken presentation, make it about 10 slides in length, light on text (fewer than 30 words per slide), heavy on images, diagrams, and other visuals, and personalized to the prospect's situation so they feel understood and can imagine how your solution will help them.

These are a few ways to personalize the sales deck for your prospect:

• Add Them to the Cover Slide: Your cover slide should include your company name and logo, but adding your prospect's will help them feel more engaged at the start of the presentation.
• Include Components of Their Current Situation: When talking about the problem and its implications, add related images and light text to your problem slide to drive the point home. 
• Highlight Specific Use Cases:  Think of ways you envision your prospect using your solution to their benefit, and add related images or videos of those features to the solution slide. 
• Add Similar Customers' Images or Logos:  When you talk about a case study or testimonial of a company like your prospect, show images of them to promote legitimacy.

Just like your presentation outline, consider creating a general version of your sales deck and leaving a few prompts that you can simply personalize for each prospect. This will help you keep the overall structure that you know to be effective while also helping the deck feel as if you crafted it especially for the prospect.

Additional Reading:

For help on creating the best sales deck for your presentation, check out our detailed article on  how to create a sales deck . There, you'll find key steps as well as templates and examples to craft the best one possible.

How to Properly Deliver Your Sales Presentation

An effective sales presentation is personalized to your prospect and makes them active participants, sparking questions from them and prompting run-off conversations about their specific interests. This helps you build a relationship. Let’s go over some key tips for delivering a sales presentation that wins over your audience.

Start With Highly Personalized Small Talk

Depending on your prospect, you may want to begin your sales presentation with a rapport-building question that asks about their personal life such as “How was the football game last weekend?,” or they may respond better to a more professional question like “I saw you opened a new office in {location} . Congrats! How's it progressing?” Starting off the presentation with the right type of small talk can help your prospect relax and drop their “No one can sell me!” attitude.

Use a Conversational Tone

Resist the urge to speak too formally. It's important to be respectful of your prospect, but positioning yourself as their peer will help them picture you as both a subject matter expert and a quality potential partner. Stick to simple language and try to sound more casual so your prospects see you as a pleasant person to work with rather than a stuffy salesperson.

Switch Speakers Often

If you’re presenting with multiple people, it makes sense to switch speakers whenever you move on to the next main point. When assigning main points to different team members, take into account their levels of expertise and enthusiasm for given topics. For example, if one of them spent days analyzing the prospect’s main problem, let them take that part. Genuine confidence is powerful. For this reason, also let your best closer make the closing statement.

Encourage Questions Throughout

Consider building in extra time so you can encourage your audience at the beginning of your presentation to ask questions and make comments while you’re presenting. This makes your presentation more of a conversation and lifts the audience's engagement level and comprehension. Say something like, “Don’t be afraid to ask questions or make comments throughout. If there’s something you want to discuss in greater detail, let me know.”

Follow Typical Presentation Best Practices

As you go through the outline and any supporting materials (e.g., a slide deck) you've created, keep in mind the communication tactics that help your presentation go smoothly. Here are some best practices for delivering your sales presentation in a way that both captivates and sells the audience:

• Leverage Body Language Tactics:  Put your shoulders back, smile, and feel free to move around naturally. Use your hands to emphasize key points or transitions. The Presentation Training Institute has additional tips on  body language for presenters . 
• Maintain Eye Contact:  Alternate eye contact between the people in the room. Try your best not to leave anyone out for too long. 
• Keep Things Moving and Changing:  Don’t spend more than a few minutes discussing a slide. When you frequently change the visual stimuli, you maintain the audience’s attention.
• Be Confident:  Avoid apologizing if you make a mistake. This indicates nervousness or discomfort. Instead, take it in stride and keep presenting with confidence.

Learning these presentation tips can also help you be a better salesperson in general since they can be applied outside of presentations, as well.

Go Off Script When Needed

The presentation outline, the sales deck, and any sort of script that you write all contribute to a well-organized presentation, but a truly professional presenter knows that it's important to be flexible throughout the presentation. If your prospect asks a question that you were planning to answer later in the presentation or not at all, consider taking a moment to address their curiosity or concern. This will help them feel more engaged and view you as a helpful potential partner.

Ultimately, go with the flow. Expect the unexpected to occur, like a confusing question from the audience. If you lack the knowledge on the specific subject, say you’ll do some research and send them the answer in a follow-up email. They’ll understand.

Top 3 Sales Presentation Software

Most of your prospects will better follow what you're saying and understand your product and what it does if they can view a visual slide deck as you speak. While there are many sales presentation software options out there, we've found Visme, Google Slides, and Prezi to be some of the best ones in terms of key factors like cost and features. We've briefly covered each platform below:

Google Slides

Visme is an online software that allows you to create, store, and share visual materials such as sales presentations and infographics. Its searchable library contains over a thousand presentation layouts and themes to get you started, and its free educational resources such as tutorials, webinars, and courses make it a great option for those new to sales presentations. Visme has a free version and available upgrades.

Google Slides is a free slideshow tool that helps you create simple, professional-looking sales decks to accompany your verbal presentation. Start with one of their templates, then invite your team members to collaborate on the slides in real time. Slides is a great option for Google Suite users since it integrates seamlessly with other Google apps.

Prezi is a highly interactive presentation builder that uses features such as zooming in and out to keep the viewer engaged. Because the zoom function is nonlinear, you can bounce between slides as your prospect asks questions, helping you to keep the conversation flowing and give the buyer more control than they'd normally have in a typical presentation. The basic platform is free, but you can upgrade for more functionality.

When choosing the right platform for you, consider factors such as your budget and any particular features you need. Also think about the number of employees who will use it, their level of experience with presentation software, and whether they'll use the software for their own individual presentations or collaborate on a presentation as a team.

For more on these platforms plus additional options, read our independent editorial review of the best presentation software available. In the article, we cover their pricing, core features, ease of use, and more, plus each option's primary use case.

3 Best Sales Presentation Examples From Top Companies

You can learn a lot about sales decks and presentation skills by reading through exceptional sales decks and watching great sales presenters. Here are example sales presentations from Facebook, Zuora, and Steve Jobs (Apple), and what makes them so successful. Click the images below to see each example presentation.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Presentation

First off, LinkedIn does a great job of using color to create a visually appealing slideshow of their LinkedIn Sales Navigator product. As for the presentation, they begin with an elevator pitch that gives context to the prospect. Then they talk about the current environment of their customers (salespeople), emphasizing that sellers in this age need to be focused, informed, and trusted.

After backing this claim with data, they introduce their solution and describe how it can help them be more focused, informed, and trusted, dedicating one slide to each attribute. They repeat these three words throughout the presentation so that they stick in the prospect’s mind. This is a good example of using three key benefits and the power of repetition.

Zuora Sales Presentation

Zuora  does a fantastic job in this sales deck of using little text and still making a big impact. The presentation begins with an explanation of a big change (the new subscription economy) in the customer’s industry. This hooks the audience immediately, since it’s top of mind.

Zuora then goes on to explain how there will be winners and losers in this economy and offers case studies of companies who have used this change to their advantage. Then, they show how their solution can help the prospect do the same.

Steve Jobs Sales Presentation

In this presentation, Steve Jobs introduces the first  Apple  iPhone. The presentation is an illustration not only of what it means to present with confidence, wit, and charm, but also of solid presentation structure. Steve begins by building credibility, listing past successes. He then describes the problem with current smartphones — their static, plastic keyboards. After dismantling the competition, he introduces the solution to the problem and its many benefits.

Examples such as these are a great place to get inspired and think of similar ideas for your own presentation outline or presenting style. Seek out as many sales presentation examples as you need, then pick a few key tips to keep in mind as you get ready to host your next few sales presentations.

Top 4 Sales Presentation Tips

We listed best practices for delivery above, but there are also best practices for preparation that can help you get your presentation in good shape before your attendees arrive in person or virtually. These include planning a certain closing technique, rehearsing your presentation, sharing your sales deck in advance, and testing the technology. Keep these four main tips in mind, especially after you finish creating your presentation and start getting ready to deliver it.

Plan a Personalized Closing Technique

It's important to personalize your sales closing technique to your prospect. As you personalize your CTA, consider the relationship you have with the prospect plus what's realistic.

For example, if you have great rapport with them and you think they might buy soon, you can try an assumptive close, using language that assumes they'll make a purchase. If you don't know them as well or they seem like a tougher client, you may want to try using an inoffensive close to reiterate your product's benefits and ask if they'd be open to receiving a business proposal .

Rehearse Your Presentation

Practice your sales presentation at least five times all the way through. Do it alone first and then in front of others so they can spot your weak points. The reason you are rehearsing is to memorize the material enough so you can field questions and comments throughout the presentation, then easily get right back on the track.

For instance, if a CEO in the audience says “That’s a super cool idea” during your presentation, you won’t have to bulldoze to the next slide in order to keep your rhythm and memory if you’ve rehearsed properly. You can pause and discuss it before picking up where you left off.

Share Your Sales Deck Beforehand

Share your sales deck with the attendees two days before the meeting. In most cases, they will look it over and build interest. Some won’t read it, but it’s courteous to give them the option. Most importantly, emailing your deck to the attendees will also help them prepare any questions, so the discussions will be top-notch.

If you know a lot about the prospect’s current situation, day-to-day, and goals, take this approach a step further and send them a written vision statement that explains how you see this product or service changing their life or business. It can be as short as a single paragraph or as long as a page. It’s meant to show the prospect that your presentation will be personalized to their needs.

Prepare & Test the Technology

Your presentation could be in-person in an office or meeting room or virtual via a conferencing platform like Zoom. In both cases, it’s crucial to prepare the environment and smooth out any wrinkles by testing the technology. If in person, make sure your screen and projector or laptop and the necessary cords are functioning properly. If virtual, test the conferencing software, your mic, and your webcam. In both cases, ensure your slideshow is ready to go.

You'll naturally come up with additional best practices as you give more presentations, but even implementing these four can drastically change the success of your presentations.

For more information on creating and optimizing your sales presentation, check out our article on the top  sales presentation tips and ideas  from verified experts.

Bottom Line: Sales Presentation

Your audience should come out of your sales presentation different than they were at the beginning. Give them insights about their industry, a deeper understanding of their problem or challenge, and ideas about how they can reach their goals and dreams with the help of your product or service. If you follow the steps and tips we’ve presented to you today, you should be able to do just that.

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15 Sales Presentation Examples to Drive Sales

By Danesh Ramuthi , Oct 31, 2023

A sales presentation is not merely a brief introduction to a product or service. It’s a meticulously constructed sales pitch tailored to showcase the unique features and key elements of what’s being offered and to resonate deeply with the prospective customers. 

But what stands out in the best sales presentation is their ability to weave an engaging story, integrating customer testimonials, success stories and sales performances to maintain the audience’s attention span and to persuade them to take action. 

The right tools, like those provided by Venngage presentation Maker and its sales presentation templates , can greatly aid in this endeavor. The aim is to have a presentation memorable enough that it lingers in the minds of potential clients long after the pitch. 

Its ultimate aim is not just to inform but to persuasively secure the audience’s commitment.

Click to jump ahead:

6 Sales presentation examples

What to include and how to create a sales presentation, sales presentation vs pitch deck.

• Final thoughts

A sales presentation can be the differentiating factor that turns a potential client into a loyal customer. The manner in which a brand or individual presents their value proposition, product, or service can significantly impact the buying decisions of their audience.

Hence, drawing inspiration from various sales presentation examples can be an instrumental step in crafting the perfect pitch.

Let’s explore a few examples of sales presentations that cater to different needs and can be highly effective when used in the right context.

Clean sales presentation examples

The concept of a “clean” sales presentation reflects more than just its visual aesthetic; it captures an ethos of straightforward, concise and effective communication. A clean presentation offers a professional and efficient way to present your sales pitch, making it especially favorable for brands or individuals looking to be perceived as trustworthy and reliable.

Every slide in such a presentation is meticulously designed to be aesthetically pleasing, balancing visuals and text in a manner that complements rather than competes.

Its visual appeal is undeniably a draw, but the real power of a clean sales presentation lies in its ability to be engaging enough to hold your audience’s attention. By minimizing distractions, the message you’re trying to convey becomes the focal point. This ensures that your audience remains engaged, absorbing the key points without being overwhelmed.

A clean design also lends itself well to integrating various elements such as graphs, charts and images, ensuring they’re presented in a clear and cohesive manner. In a business environment where attention spans are continually challenged, a clean presentation stands as an oasis of clarity, ensuring that your audience walks away with a clear understanding of what you offer and why it matters to them.

Minimalist sales presentation examples

Minimalism, as a design and communication philosophy, revolves around the principle of ‘less is more’. It’s a bold statement in restraint and purpose. In the context of sales presentations, a minimalist approach can be incredibly powerful.

It ensures that your content, stripped of any unnecessary embellishments, remains at the forefront. The primary objective is to let the core message shine, ensuring that every slide, every graphic and every word serves a precise purpose.

This design aesthetic brings with it a sense of sophistication and crispness that can be a potent tool in capturing your audience’s attention. There’s an inherent elegance in simplicity which can elevate your presentation, making it memorable.

But beyond just the visual appeal, the minimalist design is strategic. With fewer elements on a slide, the audience can focus more intently on the message, leading to better retention and engagement. It’s a brilliant way to ensure that your message doesn’t just reach your audience, but truly resonates with them.

Every slide is crafted to ensure that the audience’s focus never wavers from the central narrative, making it an excellent choice for brands or individuals seeking to create a profound impact with their pitches.

Simple sales presentation examples

A simple sales presentation provides a clear and unobstructed pathway to your main message, ensuring that the audience’s focus remains undivided. Perfect for highlighting key information, it ensures that your products or services are front and center, unobscured by excessive design elements or verbose content.

But the beauty of a simple design is in its flexibility. With platforms like Venngage , you have the freedom to customize it according to your brand voice and identity. Whether it’s adjusting text sizes, incorporating vibrant colors or selecting standout photos or icons from expansive free stock libraries, the power to enhance and personalize your presentation lies at your fingertips.

Creating your ideal design becomes a seamless process, ensuring that while the presentation remains simple, it is every bit as effective and captivating.

Professional sales presentation example

A professional sales presentation is meticulously crafted, reflecting the brand’s guidelines, voice and core values. It goes beyond just key features or product benefits; it encapsulates the brand’s ethos, presenting a cohesive narrative that resonates deeply with its target audience.

For sales professionals, it’s more than just a slide deck; it’s an embodiment of the brand’s identity, from the great cover image to the clear call to action at its conclusion.

These presentations are tailored to address potential pain points, include sales performances, and present solutions in a compelling and engaging story format. 

Integrating elements like customer success stories and key insights, ensuring that the presentation is not just good, but memorable.

Sales performance sales presentation example

A company’s sales performance presentation is vital to evaluate, refine and boost their sales process. It’s more than just numbers on a slide deck; it’s a comprehensive look into the effectiveness of sales campaigns, strategies and the sales team as a whole.

This type of sales presentation provides key insights into what’s working, what isn’t and where there’s potential for growth.

It’s an invaluable tool for sales professionals, often serving as a roadmap guiding future sales pitches and marketing campaigns.

An effective sales performance presentation might begin with a compelling cover slide, reflecting the brand’s identity, followed by a brief introduction to set the context. From there, it delves into specifics: from the sales metrics, customer feedback and more.

Ultimately, this presentation is a call to action for the sales team, ensuring they are equipped with the best tools, strategies and knowledge to convert prospective customers into paying ones, driving more deals and growing the business.

Testimonial-based sales presentation examples

Leveraging the voices of satisfied customers, a testimonial-based sales presentation seamlessly blends social proof with the brand’s value proposition. It’s a testament to the real-world impact of a product or service, often making it one of the most effective sales presentation examples. 

By centering on customer testimonials, it taps into the compelling stories of those who have experienced firsthand the benefits of what’s being offered.

As the presentation unfolds, the audience is introduced to various customer’s stories, each underscoring the product’s unique features or addressing potential pain points.

These success stories serve dual purposes: they not only captivate the audience’s attention but also preemptively handle sales objections by showcasing how other customers overcame similar challenges.

Sales professionals can further augment the presentation with key insights derived from these testimonials, tailoring their sales pitch to resonate deeply with their potential clients.

Creating a good sales presentation is like putting together a puzzle. Each piece needs to fit just right for the whole picture to make sense. 

So, what are these pieces and how do you put them together? 

Here, I’ll break down the must-have parts of a sales presentation and give you simple steps to build one. 

What to include in a sales presentation?

With so much information to convey and a limited time to engage your audience in your sales presentation, where do you start?

Here, we’re going to explore the essential components of a successful sales presentation, ensuring you craft a compelling narrative that resonates with your prospects.

• A captivating opening slide: First impressions matter. Start with a great cover image or slide that grabs your audience’s attention instantly. Your opening should set the tone, making prospects curious about what’s to come.
• Data-driven slides: Incorporate key points using charts, graphs, infographics and quotes. Instead of flooding your slides with redundant information, use them as a tool to visually represent data. Metrics from your sales dashboard or third-party sources can be particularly illuminating.
• Social proof through testimonials: Weave in testimonials and case studies from satisfied customers. These success stories, especially from those in the same industry as your prospects, act as powerful endorsements, bolstering the credibility of your claims.
• Competitive context: Being proactive is the hallmark of savvy sales professionals. Address how your product or service fares against competitors, presenting a comparative analysis. 
• Customized content: While using a foundational slide deck can be helpful, personalizing your presentation for each meeting can make all the difference. Whether it’s integrating the prospect’s brand colors, industry-specific data or referencing a past interaction, tailored content makes your audience feel acknowledged.
• Clear path to the future: End by offering a glimpse into the next steps. This can include a direct call to action or an overview of the onboarding process. Highlight the unique value your company brings post-sale, such as exceptional training or standout customer support.
• Keep it simple: Remember, simplicity is key. Avoid overcrowding your slides with excessive text. Visual data should take center stage, aiding in comprehension and retention. 

Related: 120+ Presentation Ideas, Topics & Example

How to create a sales presentation? 

Crafting a good sales presentation is an art that blends structure, content and design. 

A successful sales presentation not only tells but also sells, capturing the audience’s attention while conveying the main message effectively. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide to ensure that your sales deck becomes a winning sales presentation.

1. Find out your ideal audience

The first step to any effective sales pitch is understanding your audience. Are you presenting to prospective customers, potential clients or an internet marketing agency? Recognize their pain points, buying process and interests to craft a message that resonates. This understanding ensures that your presentation is memorable and speaks directly to their unique needs.

2. Pick a platform to Use

Depending on your target audience and the complexity of your sales literature, you might opt for Venngage presentation maker, PowerPoint templates, Google Slides or any tools that you are comfortable with. Choose a tool that complements your brand identity and aids in keeping your audience’s attention span engaged.

3. Write the ‘About Us’ section

Here’s where you build trust. Give a brief introduction about your organization, its values and achievements. Highlight key elements that set you apart, be it a compelling story of your brand’s inception, a lucrative deal you managed to seal, or an instance where an internet marketing agency hired you for their needs.

4. Present facts and data

Dive deep into sales performance metrics, client satisfaction scores and feedback. Use charts, graphs and infographics to visually represent these facts. Testimonials and customer success stories provide that added layer of social proof. By showcasing concrete examples, like a customer’s story or feedback, you give your audience solid reasons to trust your product or service.

5. Finish with a memorable conclusion & CTA

Now that you’ve laid out all the information, conclude with a bang. Reiterate the value proposition and key insights you want your audience to remember. Perhaps share a compelling marketing campaign or a unique feature of your offering.

End with a clear call to action, directing your prospects on what to do next, whether it’s downloading further assistance material, getting in touch for more deals or moving further down the sales funnel .

Related: 8 Types of Presentations You Should Know [+Examples & Tips]

Sales presentation and the pitch deck may seem similar at first glance but their goals, focuses, and best-use scenarios differ considerably. Here’s a succinct breakdown of the two:

Sales Presentation:

• What is it? An in-depth dialogue designed to persuade potential clients to make a purchase.
• Focuses on: Brand identity, social proof, detailed product features, addressing customer pain points, and guiding to the buying process.
• Best for: Detailed interactions, longer meetings and thorough discussions with potential customers.
• Example: A sales rep detailing a marketing campaign to a potential client.

Pitch Deck:

• What is it? Pitch deck is a presentation to help potential investors learn more about your business. The main goal isn’t to secure funding but to pique interest for a follow-up meeting.
• Focuses on: Brand voice, key features, growth potential and an intriguing idea that captures the investor’s interest.
• Best for: Initial investor meetings, quick pitches, showcasing company potential.
• Example: A startup introducing its unique value proposition and growth trajectory to prospective investors.

Shared traits: Both aim to create interest and engagement with the audience. The primary difference lies in the intent and the audience: one is for selling a product/service and the other is for igniting investor interest.

Related: How to Create an Effective Pitch Deck Design [+Examples]

Final thoughts 

Sales presentations are the heart and soul of many businesses. They are the bridge between a potential customer’s needs and the solution your product or service offers. The examples provided—from clean, minimalist to professional styles—offer a spectrum of how you can approach your next sales presentation.

Remember, it’s not just about the aesthetics or the data; it’s about the narrative, the story you tell, and the connection you establish. And while sales presentations and pitch decks have their distinct purposes, the objective remains consistent: to engage, persuade and drive action.

If you’re gearing up for your next sales presentation, don’t start from scratch. Utilize Venngage presentation Maker and explore our comprehensive collection of sales presentation templates .

How to Smash Your Next Sales Presentation [15 Tips and Tricks]

We all know that sales presentations are a love-it-or-hate-it part of B2B sales .

You might consider yourself a natural presenter, and love slaving over PowerPoint, thriving on every moment of the experience.

Others? Dread it like a trip to the dentist.

Luckily building and delivering an effective and truly great sales presentation is something that can be taught.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to smash your next sales presentation. From must-have slides to sales presentation tips and examples, you’ll find out all it takes to captivate your prospects and close deals.

Let’s start with the basics:

What is a sales presentation?

At its simplest, a sales presentation is a collection of slides that tells a story through visual elements and text.

Teamed with a salesperson’s narration (either in person or via video), its aim is to convey a product or service’s value proposition, and ultimately convert potential clients into paying customers.

A successful sales presentation will resonate with your prospect – linking in with their current needs and challenges, and positioning your company as the ideal solution. Here’s a great structure for one:

Knowing this formula will put you ahead of some of the competition, but how do you make sure you beat them all ?

What slides make up a good sales presentation?

1) The cover slide

Too many reps make the mistake of creating a generic cover slide for their sales deck. Our view? This is a big waste of valuable real estate.

Come on, this is where you make your first impression. You want to reel your prospect IN. 🎣

Whilst it might not be a clincher on its own, it can start to get across your main point: the value of your product.

Let’s go with an example.

You’ve immediately suggested some of the benefits and value your software offers before you’ve even reached the first “real” slide of your PowerPoint presentation.

So, now you have your prospect’s attention. Nice work – now it’s time to build on that.

2) The context slide

The context slide: where you set the stage with information on the trends and pressure points that are spurring change in your prospect’s market.

It’s all about setting your prospect up, hinting at the pain points you’ll touch on next. Build tension, and in turn, interest. 🤞

Your context slide might include the following snippets:

• Work is becoming increasingly remote and dispersed.
• Collaboration occurs across countries and continents.
• As the pace of work increases and competition rises, slowing down is not an option if you want to succeed.

3) The problem slides

Next, you’ll want to dedicate a few slides of your sales presentation to covering the problem, or a key pain point.

You’ll need more than one slide to do this because problems – especially big, business-critical ones – are complex and interconnected.

What’s more, prospects don’t always see the full range or depth of the problems they’re experiencing – it’s all too easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day, isn’t it?

According to the principle of loss aversion , people will work twice as hard to avoid loss as they will to gain a benefit. So, by painting a clear picture of the problems your prospect faces (and will continue to face in the future), you can motivate them to seek a solution.

Example time:

Let’s examine this through the lens of our fictional company, Projector.

Sure, your prospect knows they don’t currently have dedicated project management software. They might know it’s difficult for their teams and departments to keep tabs on work or communicate on progress, but have they considered anything like:

• How this impacts productivity
• How many hours their team loses every week, month, and year due to low productivity
• Connecting the dots between low productivity and less revenue
• How needless meetings and excessive communication apps can actually make things worse

You get the idea.

4. The “enviable future” slide

Cool, so you’ve hit them where it hurts (their pain points), the next step is to portray how it could be if the problem no longer existed.

From there, provide solutions to prove this is actually possible. Something like this…

Projector enables:

• Centralized communication to eliminate unnecessary video calls, email threads, and text messages
• A visual way to monitor progress and identify bottlenecks, so nothing slows you down
• A single source of truth for all of your resources and deliverables, so you never need to go searching for the latest version
• Customizable workflows to meet the needs of any project

The secret is to instill a true sense of longing for all of these benefits. This can help secure the ultimate buying decision.

5) The bridge slide

Next up in your sales pitch is the bridge slide. This slide provides the path to a problem-less world, and how your solution can get them there.

The bridge slide is a great opportunity to include the first touch of social proof, because people (and businesses) often copy how others behave – especially if they see proof of positive results.

In sales, it means demonstrating that someone relevant to your prospect (like a close competitor or a category leader they respect) has gotten real value from your solution. The implication is that:

• Your prospect could too
• If they don’t, they’ll be missing out on a real competitive advantage

This comes to life through a customer quote, stat, full case study, or all of the above on how a customer improved a business metric while using your solution.

See what we did there?

6) The solution slides

Like the problem slides, you’ll want to include more than one slide dedicated to describing the solution in your sales presentation.

The first of your solution slides should give a brief, clear explanation of what your product or service does.

This likely won’t be the first time your prospect is hearing about your offering, so there’s no need to cover every single detail. Try to boil down your product or service – as it relates to your prospect’s unique needs – into one to three clear sentences , and include a few visuals of your product in action where you can.

The next of the solution slides should focus on the value your offering will bring to the prospect. Make sure your value proposition ties directly back to the “enviable future” you previously outlined, so it’s clear your offering is the key.

Once again, social proof – like testimonials and customer stories with results from clients – can really lift these slides and grab your prospects attention.

“Projector helped my team cut back on 70% of emails and eliminated the need for weekly team sync meetings. Now everyone’s status and progress is clearly visible to the whole team on Projector’s platform.”

“With full visibility into our marketing campaign budgets, we can quickly reallocate spend and optimize our campaigns. This quarter alone, we’ve increased inbound leads by 200%!”

Those are some pretty compelling stats (even if it is a fictitious company).

7) The closing slide

You’ll want to end your deck on a short slide with a powerful statement that helps ignite a sense of urgency in your prospect.

Like we said before, visuals of your solution’s success will always make an impact; a nice little upward trending graph or a video testimonial of a loyal customer, perhaps.

If your final slide touches on both the emotional impact of resolving the pain point and the potential business gains, you’ve hit the mark. Not only will your prospect want to stop losing out on productivity, revenue, or whatever else they’re losing, they’ll want to reap the benefits of your great offering.

Powerful sales presentation templates to learn from

Explanations are good, and fictional decks are nice, but we all know learning by example is the best way to gain new skills.

You can find examples of sales presentation decks and PowerPoint templates scattered all over the web, but below we’ve sorted the wheat from the chaff just for you.

Get ready to borrow from the best:

• 21 incredible sales deck examples guaranteed to get buy-in
• 9 incredible sales presentation examples that succeed
• 10 best sales presentation to inspire your sales deck

6 sales presentation tips to help you crush your pitch

After you’ve crafted your narrative, built your slide deck, and got your design looking slick, it’s time to practice delivery.

The way you deliver your sales pitch is key to your prospect’s engagement, understanding, and their interest in continuing the process. 🔑

Here are six tips to help you communicate best.

1) Don’t talk for too long

There’s no specific winning length for a sales presentation, but data suggest that keeping under 10 minutes is smart.

According to a study from Gong (which analyzed 121,828 web-based sales meetings), successful presentations in intro meetings lasted on average 9.1 minutes . The unsuccessful presentation? 11.4 minutes .

This mirrors neuroscience research which found that human attention begins to wander when a listener hears a single voice for 10 minutes.

It’s actually why Apple doesn’t let its keynote presentations run for more than 10 minutes without introducing a change (like a switch to video, a demo, or just a new speaker).

2) Rely on data and insights

Now, we might be biased, but this one is really important. ☝️

If you want to drive a business decision, you need to prove there’s a problem, and what the impact of the solution would be – all using real numbers.

A sprinkle of competitor analysis , a measure of revenue forecasting ( if they close a deal with you), and a dash of ‘what could be’ goodness is the magic recipe.

If you’re able to confidently recall some persuasive, meaningful figures and drop them in where relevant, you could be in for the win.

3) Clearly illustrate the problems

The challenges you’re describing might be big, messy, and complex. But your sales presentation and pitch needs to be concise and digestible. Don’t overload slides with text.

Choose the most relevant information and illustrate it in a logical, clear way.

When crafting your problem slides and thinking about how to deliver the information, keep the following pointers in mind:

• Use numbers and data to back it up : As mentioned, data is key. Connect each main problem to tangible losses, like revenue, human capital costs, customer churn, etc.
• Focus on the strongest (most painful) points: Your goal is to distill a web of problems into a few core examples.
• Paint a telling picture: Think charts, graphs, stats, and images.

4) Personalize it

Even the most pixel-perfect PowerPoint presentation won’t get you anywhere if it looks like you’re just going through the motions. 🤖

What we mean is: your sales presentation needs to feel like it’s been specially crafted with them in mind – even if you know the majority of it stays the same from week to week.

Dropping in meaningful insights about their business is a great way to do this. These could relate to their own performance in the marketplace, to their competitors’ performance, or to an opportunity you’ve spotted for them.

Ideally you’ll be telling them something about their business that they don’t already know, and guess what? Your product can help them to exploit, navigate, or overcome it.

A tool like Similarweb Sales Intelligence can generate attention-grabbing and compelling data like that. It helps to inform any sales conversation you have, thanks to traffic and engagement data on over 100 million companies worldwide.

The Sales Intelligence Insights Generator allows you and your sales team to automatically find “insight nuggets” to either include on slides or incorporate into your dialogue. This is the secret to a consultative selling approach, which we won’t shut up about (and for good reason).

With an effortless way to source the freshest data tailored to your specific audience, building and delivering a successful sales presentation can become your most powerful selling strategy yet.

5) Welcome interruptions

It’s easy to get fixated on landing your key points while presenting. So fixated, in fact, that you don’t give your prospect a chance to get a word in.

Encourage your prospect to speak up with questions or comments throughout the presentation. Make this clear at the start, and keep an eye out for any hints through body language that suggests a question or observation is brewing.

A sales presentation that feels more like a dialogue will be far more effective and memorable. Here’s why:

🗣️ People like to talk: When you give your prospects a chance to get their two cents in, you’ll make them happy – and will help them to remember the conversation more fondly.

✍️ You can learn along the way : If your prospect says something super interesting and relevant, you can use that information to tailor and refine your presentation on the fly (and maybe use it in your next pitch).

⚡ It helps keep their mind engaged: As mentioned, when people take turns speaking, their brains automatically reset – and that makes it easier to have longer conversations, instead of listening to one long monologue.

What’s more, interruptions also help relieve you of some of the pressure of talking non-stop. Win-win.

6) Be confident

If you typically hate delivering a sales pitch, then you might be rolling your eyes at this tip. We know it can be hard to just ‘become confident’ if that’s not how you really feel.

But there are things you can do that really will boost your confidence, helping you deliver a better presentation:

• Prepare : Get to know your slide deck back to front, memorizing all the numbers and stats you need to highlight.
• Practice your script : But also anticipate where questions or comments might come up.
• Listen to successful presentations: Make the most of your company’s recording software or find successful pitches on YouTube, and try to analyze what made these meetings, pitches, or persuasive presentations succeed.
• Make sure you’re super-familiar with your product: If you don’t fully understand your product, you’ll have a hard time getting someone else to. Practice presenting to a colleague to identify the holes in your own understanding as you speak.

How do you do a sales presentation?

Two good tips are to keep it short and tell a story.

What should a sales presentation include?

Include an introduction and presentation of the problem or pain point, before getting to the solution (hint hint, your product).

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How to create an effective Sales Presentation

Sales presentations are one of the most effective tools to increase sales. Here’s everything you need to know to create a powerful one

If you are a salesperson, you are likely to be constantly thinking about how to increase sales. You may wonder what are the ideas, concepts or tools that could help you do that.

What if I tell you that there is one magical tool you can use to increase sales?

This is my number one tool to increase B2B sales. I have used it in multiple organisations as well as in channel & reseller sales with fantastic success – great sales and revenue results.

This magical tool is: The Sales Presentation . 

In this article, I will in detail share everything I know about this tool. I will discuss the following topics:

Why the sales presentation is important

• What are the components of a great sales presentation

How do you create a really good sales story? 

An example of a successful sales story , five steps to build the perfect pitch, what presentations often do wrong, you need to transfer knowledge .

While working with your sales team, it is important to transfer information and knowledge to them as efficiently as possible. If you can educate your sales persons about your product or solution and train them to present it at the same time, they can start selling it immediately, saving valuable time.

All salespersons need to learn a sales pitch 

To grow your business to increase sales, you need a sales pitch. All salespeople should have a consistent sales pitch. It is best if the sales leadership creates the best sales pitch they possibly can and then trains every sales person to present that pitch to your end customers. In doing this, you ensure that you make the sales person’s job easier, enabling them to make more sales.

A presentation is easy to consume 

A sales presentation made using PowerPoint or Google slides is fantastic because if done well, it allows the receiver to easily understand the story you are telling. It is easier for a person to comprehend information presented slide-by-slide than to process a mass of text contained in a brochure or email. Once your sales person understands your story, it’s not only easier for them to tell the story to others, they will also be hugely motivated to do so.

A presentation is easy to update 

Products change, offerings change, we make things better, and with all this we must update our sales presentation and sales materials. Presentations are way easier to change than, say, brochures. We can quickly add a slide, remove a slide, change some text or replace a graphic.

Presentations are easy to send to prospects 

After sales people hold a call or a meeting with a prospect, presentations are great to send as follow up material. If you want to be extra helpful you can provide the deck in original PPT format via a link so the prospect can use your slides when creating internal presentations about your solution. 

Prospects can share presentations internally  

When sales people have meetings with prospective customers, many times there are people such as colleagues or decision-makers who cannot attend the meeting, and it might be difficult or time-consuming for you to deliver the sales pitch to them at another time. A really well-done presentation that you send your prospect via email is easily shared with bosses, colleagues or senior company leadership. That way, your sales pitch can reach them without you even being present.

What are the components of a great sales presentation?

I believe a great presentation is all about the story. Looking at it technically, however, a great sales presentation comprises two main parts – the core pitch and the appendix.

‍Part 1: THE CORE PITCH – A great core pitch must tell a great and focused story. To tell a great story, you will need to understand your B2B customer, your end customer and your product or solution really well. For this, you will need to create detailed customer profiles , build a proper value proposition and do your research on the market.

PART 2: THE APPENDIX –  Because the core pitch must be focused on the story you are telling, any other information (which is important but doesn’t really contribute to the story) must go in the appendix.

‍ Why a great story makes a great presentation

So here’s the thing, if you are selling a B2B solution, you are probably spending a lot of time getting that one meeting with a prospective customer where you can explain what value you can deliver to them. But the prospect is probably meeting several of your competitors too, so you need to think of what you can do to stand out.

The presentation is the number one factor as to why a customer chooses one vendor over others , says a Gartner research report.

So, if you want to stand out, you must have a presentation that stands head and shoulders above that presented by your competitors.

‍How do you ensure your presentation stands out from that of your competitors?

You create an amazing sales story that focuses on value propositions. 

Creating a really good sales story is an art form and takes time and energy. One of the best presentations I ever made was developed over 45 iterations.

It led to fantastic results – the company managed to find partners all over the world for a new product and closed deals with over 100 of the world’s biggest telecom operators – with a minimal budget. But that’s not all, our partners were willing to pay our company a $20,000 recoupable guarantee to close a deal. I wrote this article on that project: How I built a hugely successful partner program and you can too (in-depth).

When I am building my sales story, I work with the following outline:

BUILD THE FOUNDATION

• Agree: One or several slides that state something we can all agree on. This could be something about the field of business you are in, the industry, a problem or something else that is connected to what you do.
• Explain the problem: In a few slides, explain the problem without mentioning or discussing your product or solution. The problem description should be high level. 
• What could be a solution: One slide where you explain what the solution could be without mentioning your product or service. 

EXPLAIN YOUR SOLUTION AND VALUE PROPOSITION 

• Your offering: One slide with text and an image that explains your offering in one sentence.
• Value proposition: Next, explain your value proposition in several slides. While you draft it, remind yourself that you are explaining your product or solution’s value proposition – that is the value it brings to the customer – and NOT its features and functions. 
• Explanations: It all depends on your offering, but make sure you subsequently add explanations about the features or functions of your product or service. 
• Why choose us? Answer this question here. Create one or several slides that explain how you are different and why you should be the chosen vendor.
• The value we offer you: Conclude by reiterating the value you offer the prospect. 
• Company info: Add some slides with information about your company.
• Case studies: It’s always great to add examples of how you delivered value to customers.
• Typical questions: Create slides that answer the most common questions you get from prospects. Preferably address one question in each slide. 

I also think you should read this article that really helped me polish my sales pitches: The Greatest Sales Pitch I’ve Seen All Year – The Mission – Medium .

I created a sales story for Appland , a company that offers a mobile games subscription service. The B2B customers in this case were telecom operators around the world, and mobile phone users were the end customers. 

Appland built a channel partner program so that its partners could help them sell its Games Clubs to mobile phone operators in their countries who would include the product in their offerings to their customers. The program was so successful that in just three years, the Sweden-based company had signed on over 100 of the world’s biggest telecom operators as its customers.

This was how I structured the story for Appland’s channel partners according to the pointers I gave in the previous section: 

• Slide 1 (Agree): We all want quality content. Subscription streaming services like Spotify, Netflix and HBO show us that people want really good content and are prepared to pay for it. 
• Slide 2 (Agree): People love to play mobile phone games. 82% of all apps sold in Google Play and Apple App Store are games. Revenue generated by mobile games is an astonishing $40 billion per year. 
• Slide 3 (Agree): Over 1.8 billion people on the planet play mobile phone games. 
• Slide 4 (Problem): But you know what? These games have become boring. 
• Slide 5 (Problem): If you get a free mobile game it will nag you to buy coins and berries. You see advertisements on it all the time. Some games suddenly stop and make you wait three days before you can play them again. Some games implement a type of gameplay where you have to constantly wait for stuff. 
• Slide 6 (Problem): This “harassment” happens because it is the only way for a game developer to make money. 
• Slide 7 (Solution): We need to bring back the fun in games. 
• Slide 8 (Solution): We can do this by creating a business model that makes it easier for developers to make money and for consumers to get amazing content so that they can play without being nagged to buy things.

EXPLAINING THE SOLUTION 

• Slide 9 (Our offering): Let us introduce the Games Club – a service that offers subscribers 400 of the world’s best games.
• Slide 10 (Value proposition): The games are the absolute best of the millions on offer. Users get free in-app purchases and the service lets users play games for as long as they like. Customers are offered a free trial and there are no advertisements or interruptions.
• Slide 11-16 (Value proposition): Details of the super popular games that billions of people are playing, all of which are included in the Games Club subscription.
• Slide 17 (Explanation): A summary of all the content of the games on offer and also data on how popular the games are.

CONCLUSION 

• Slide 18 (Our Secret Sauce): Consumers can play games offline in a model where they pay a low price and can play as much as they like. In addition, there is a digital rights management system that will lock all games installed when users unsubscribe to the service. 
• Slide 19 (Conclusion/The value we offer you): The Games Club is a high-quality service and together we can launch and market the solution to your customers. The value you get is a revenue share of the service, your branding and you will have an amazing offering for your consumers. 

This summary is slightly simplified but I hope it still works as a good example of how we can build a story. As you see, I did not talk about the features and functions of the service. I discussed value for users and values for the prospect Appland wanted to work together with. 

You now know how to create a really good sales story. Next, you need to put together a convincing pitch. How do you do that?

My approach to create the perfect pitch are these five steps.

Step 1: Create detailed customer profiles

If you don’t understand your customers well – B2B as well as end customers – you will never be able to craft a good message and presentation to attract them to your product or solution. Click here to learn How to create customer profiles / buyer personas for B2B Sales .

Step 2: Build a proper Value Proposition

You need to create a really good value proposition for your product or service. Click here to learn How to Create a Strong Value Proposition for B2B .

Step 3: Do research 

To find a really good story you need to do research. You need to understand the industry, the problems there and how you can connect this to your product or service. You need to dig and find that story. 

Step 4: Build an outstanding presentation 

I think there are many ways to design a good sales presentation. It all depends on how it will be used. Will it only be used for presentations or will it be sent to clients via email? Do you think the prospect will forward the presentation to colleagues? All these questions need to be considered when you draft your presentation.

As I mentioned earlier, I design presentations with two major sections. The first section contains my “Core pitch”, which can be between 10-45 slides. (I try to restrict the presentation to a maximum of 25 slides). The second section is the “Appendix” where I put all other slides.

Here are my general rules when I work on each slide:

• Only one message or story per slide.
• A super headline, sub headline, additional mini headlines and possibly a little text. You can see an example below. In this slide, you can quickly read and understand the consumer value proposition of the Games Subscription Club I wrote about earlier. 

• A slide can also only have an image and a little bit of text.

• It is ok to be succinct and not give out all details. If information is missing, the prospect will ask for it. 
• I always make sure to use standard fonts in presentations. Many people will use your presentation to present your pitch to their colleagues or customers and missing fonts can complicate matters.
• It should be easy for both internal and external personnel to make changes in the text.
• There should be “master slides” that make it easy for any channel partners to change the company logo and so on.
• The end slide should have contact information.
• The presentation should have divider slides so it is easy for the prospect to understand when you move to another section.
• Create BIG message slides for important conclusions.

• Make sure the design of the slides changes constantly so the prospect stays active and interested. 
• I add page numbers to the slides so it is easy to reference in discussions. 

Step 5: Continue to improve 

Version 1 of your presentation will not be perfect. Continue to improve your presentation as you learn new things. The sales presentation I created for Appland was on version 45 when I left the company. To create a really good story we need to test, evaluate and improve and this process never ends. 

So, you now know how to create a compelling sales story that will form a part of your presentation’s pitch.

Before we conclude, let’s talk about what people often do wrong while drafting their presentations.

I have seen a lot of sales presentations over the last 20 years and there is always room for improvement. Here are the most common mistakes I see:

• Egocentric: Presentations are often egocentric and all about the company and your product. The problem with this is that the customer doesn’t really care about you or your product or service. Customers care about themselves and they want you to tell them how you can make their lives better.
• Too much text: No one wants to read a mass of text. A presentation should be as succinct as possible or it will risk confusing people. Each slide should address one idea or point. When you have too many ideas on one slide, instead of paying attention to your next point, people are more likely to be distracted trying to digest what you said in your previous one.
• No storytelling: Humans love to be told stories. Presentations that are only a list of features and functions don’t command as much interest as those that tell a story of how the product or solution can add value to a customer’s life.
• Lack of value propositions: A presentation should be about the values that you offer to the customer. 
• Bad and ugly design: People like to look at things that attract them, and those things are usually well designed. You may not be an ace designer but there are plenty of designers you can find on freelancing platforms such as Upwork who will help make your presentation look professional.
• Difficult to understand: Some presentations use difficult language and also lack a structure, which makes them difficult to understand. 

You now know why the sales presentation is important, what makes a great sales presentation, five steps to build the perfect pitch and what sales presentations often do wrong.

I hope this article has given you the inspiration to create your own storytelling-based sales presentation that you can share with your sales team as one of the best sales tools you ever created. Go ahead and do it. Good luck!

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How to create an effective sales plan and present it: components and tips

Any business involves sales, and forecasting and planning are some of the major activities for a sales team. In this article, you will learn what a sales plan is, how to create an effective one, and how to make a sales presentation PowerPoint based on this plan. We will also discuss some sales plan examples.

What’s sales plan, and why do you need it?

A sales plan is a part of an extensive sales planning process. It helps forecast the sales success a business wants to achieve and outlines a plan to help it accomplish its goals.

Here are the reasons why you need an effective sales plan:

• It helps foresee risks.
• It makes it easier to track company goals.
• It helps find any bottlenecks in the process.
• It helps set clear revenue targets to achieve within a specific period.
• It helps improve lead generation efforts.
• It helps unify labor policies and ensure consistency in operations.
• It helps understand the business’s strengths and weaknesses.
• It helps track progress.
• It helps identify sale strategies that match the target market.
• It helps evaluate the sales team’s performance.
• It helps define each salesperson’s role and delegate work.
• It helps lay out tactics to execute the sales team’s strategies.

Sales plan structure

A sales plan outline will help you present critical metrics, KPIs, processes, tools, objectives, and strategies necessary to hit your sales goals.

If it is your first time creating a sales plan, below are the sections that must be included:

1. Your target revenue

In a sales plan, you can set a revenue-based goal, such as a target of $10,000 in 5 new deals in one month or $150 million in annual recurring revenue. You will need to keep that revenue target achievable.

Here are a few tips for setting your target revenue:

• Determine a reasonable sales goal according to prior sales results and your ability to reach a new market.
• Calculate the anticipated expenses for a specific period.
• Use projected sales forecasts based on estimates or industry standards.

2. Your ideal customer profile and buyer personas

To establish the target market or ideal customer, you must create a series of unique customer profiles that include geographics, demographics, job positions, behavior, and interests. From there, you can clearly define buyer personas and develop more targeted marketing and advertising strategies.

3. Your sales team

A sales team plays a vital role in implementing any sales plan. You must clearly delegate roles and responsibilities to the sales managers, customer service representatives, account executives, sales development representatives, and other sales professionals.

What’s more, there should be smooth communications and a handoff process. You can even consider using a Customer Relations Management (CRM) system to bring visibility and transparency to the sales process for all team members.

4. Your resources

Is your team small? Then, it would help if you determine how to expand the team to meet the sales targets and state how many resources are necessary within a specific period in your business plan.

You may also utilize specialized sales software for effective sales operation management. One such tool is snov.io , which helps scale a small business while engaging better quality leads with the product or service.

5. Safety of communications

Effective communication is essential in a sales team as it keeps each member productive, engaged, and informed. It also performs the following functions:

• Provides analytics needed to measure engagement with sales goals and benchmarks.
• Encourages marketing and sales teams to collaborate on projects.

That’s where you need to ensure the security of your communications and take advantage of dialpad.com, a workspace dedicated to team and customer communications. It is designed for global teams, where they can safely and efficiently communicate through voice, video, and AI contact centers.

6. Your position on the market

Position on the market is about competition, market trends, risks, and predictions. It outlines what your company must do to market your products and services to your target customers.

If you know how to position your business on the market, you will have a big picture of how you can establish the identity or image of your brand. It also allows you to achieve superior margins for the product or brand relative to competitors.

7. Your prospecting strategy

Prospecting strategy involves how you will generate quality leads and what inbound and outbound methods your sales team will use. Your goal here is to create interest and convert it into a sales meeting.

Below are easy ways to start your prospecting strategy:

• Build a list that includes who your sales team wants to generate meetings with.
• Research your prospects to ensure your new leads are a good fit.
• Craft your offer to drive value.
• Create a prospecting campaign to generate appointments with potential buyers and include a solid value-based offering.

8. Your pricing strategy

Your sales plan’s pricing strategy is about determining how you plan to change the price of your product and within what period. It will help you choose prices that maximize your shareholder value while considering the market and consumer demand.

Pricing strategy accounts for many business factors, such as product attributes, brand positioning, target audience, marketing and revenue goals. It is influenced by external factors, such as economic and market trends, competitor pricing, and consumer demand.

When creating a pricing strategy, consider the following:

• Pricing potential evaluation
• Buyer personas
• Historical data
• Your business goals vs. value
• Competitor pricing

9. Your goals, objectives & DRIs

Goals often include one to three- or five-year projections. Your goals must reflect recurring or existing customers’ expected sales and revenue. Then, you will need to have sales objectives that prioritize the activities your sales team needs to engage in.

Assigning Directly Responsible Individuals (DRIs) also helps make a successful strategic sales plan. These individuals are typically responsible for making sure particular tasks are well-executed.

10. Your action plan

Part of creating an effective sales plan is defining your action plan. It deals with summarizing your plan to achieve each specific objective. For instance, if your sales goal is to increase your referrals by 20%, your actions would be:

Holding referral technique workshops Running a contest to boost referral sales Increasing referral sales commissions by 5%

11. Your budget

In this section, you must outline all costs you believe will be required to achieve your sales targets. Some expenses include hiring, printing, travel, training, sales tools, commissions, salaries, etc. These expenses are meant to be estimates, but due diligence and research should be done to prevent financial errors.

Sales plan examples

When it comes to creating a sales plan, there is no unified sales plan template. Each sales plan differs based on the company’s purpose. While you can encounter different sales plans, here are the common ones:

1. 30-60-90-day sales plan

A 30-60-90-day sales plan is milestone-based. This means it specifies a short-term goal you must achieve within 30, 60, or 90 days. This type of sales plan is suitable for new sales managers, helping them establish tactical and strategic activities according to this plan.

2. Territory sales plan

A territory sales plan features tactics dedicated to the sales team in different territories. You will need to consider a specific area’s market dynamics and working environment.

With a territory sales plan, you can:

• Target specific customers, opportunities, regions, and industries.
• Align the sales team with the prospects.
• Set realistic goals, optimize the strategies, and track progress.
• Spend more time selling.

When creating this sales plan, you have to:

• Define larger sales goals.
• Define the target market.
• Assess account quality and prospects.
• Map out the sales representatives’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Assign leads. Polish your plan.

3. Sales plan for specific sales

When it comes to this sales plan type, you must familiarize yourself with different sales domains, such as sales training plans or compensation, as well as:

• State the company’s mission
• Set objectives and timeframe
• Define the sales team
• Define the target market
• Evaluate the resources
• Create a comparative analysis of your offerings
• Set the sales budget
• Define the marketing strategy
• Work out the strategy
• Define the action plan

4. Monthly sales plan

If you prefer a traditional sales plan, you can opt for a monthly sales plan. It features tactics and revenue goals, which have to be accomplished within a month.

5. Sales tactics plan

A sales tactics plan includes execution strategies. It also involves detailed daily or weekly plans, including prescribed call sequences, meeting appointments, and email follow-up frequency.

Tips on how to create a sales plan

Are you looking for effective recommendations on how to make sales plan for your company? Then, check out the following:

Tip #1: Back up your plan with research and statistics

It is advisable to always back up your sales plan with research and statistics. This will help you define the sales team’s tasks needed to better meet your sales goals. These tasks should primarily stem from statistics and research.

Tip #2: Use SWOT analysis to analyze your capacities

From a sales perspective, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis will help assess your company’s position in the market. It will also allow you to gain insights into leveraging your selling points, acquiring market shares, and comparing your business’ position with that of your competitors.

To make this easier, you can use a visualizing tool to document the results of your SWOT analysis. You can choose from flow-chart tools, spreadsheet apps with SWOT analysis templates, mind mapping software, SWOT analysis generators, or online presentation or graphic design tools.

Tip #3: Split your sales plan into specific tactical plans

You can use specific tactical plans to achieve your sales goals. The details depend on different variables, such as resources and time. You can make a plan for individual areas of sales, such as SDRs, sales enablement, sales operations, and customer success.

As you create a tactical plan, you have to consider the following key elements:

• Company mission
• Key performance indicators
• Flexibility
• Action items
• Responsible parties

These key elements will help you identify the plan’s success in many ways, including the likelihood of accomplishing it.

Tip #4: Use previous performance data

You can use previous performance data to build incentive, territory, quota, and sales capacity plans. Using this data as your crucial decision-making tool, your sales team can have a basis for making informed decisions and forecasting performance more efficiently and accurately. In return, your sales plan will likely help achieve efficiency, higher performance, and bottom-line growth.

Tip #5: Outline the tracking methods you’ll use

By outlining tracking methods, you can set process workflows, allowing your sales representatives to determine where each prospect stands and which steps they need to take next.

You can also track the following:

• Sale cycle length.
• Number of closed deals.
• Conversion rate.
• Average contract value.
• Pipeline value by quarter, by month, and by individual and team.
• The number of unclosed deals after reaching a specific stage.

Now that you know the peculiarities and components of a sales plan, let’s find out how to make a sales plan presentation, what to include in it, and discover the top 14 sales presentation tips from vetted professionals.

What is a sales deck, and how to best present one?

A sales deck is a set of slides you can use to guide your audience through your sales strategy presentation.

Slide presentations can help your target audience grasp crucial information, pricing, and product characteristics your sales representatives can build their story around.

The best sales presentation slides serve as a touchstone for your sales team’s pitches. They allow your sales managers to draw on their personal knowledge to deliver additional information tailored to the prospects and stakeholders they are presenting to.

What are the types of sales presentation?

Sales presentations are classified into three types: standard memorized presentations, formulated sales presentations, and need-satisfaction presentations. Each sales presentation deck type has distinct characteristics that suit different scenarios.

1. Standard memorized presentations

Standard memorized presentations are very detailed and precise and always follow a predefined structure. They ensure no detail is overlooked and enable the sales team to produce a well-rehearsed, flawless presentation, leaving no room for misinterpretations or potential inaccuracies.

2. Formulated sales presentations

Formulated sales presentations offer a balance between rigidity and flexibility. While they follow a structured sales presentation outline, they allow salespeople to adjust their presentation in real time based on the customers’ reactions. Because of this flexibility, the sales presentation is not set in stone but revolves around customer preferences and queries.

3. Need-satisfaction presentations

Need-satisfaction presentations follow a customer-centric approach, allowing the salesperson to focus on satisfying the customer’s individual demands. The emphasis here is on establishing a dialogue rather than presenting a monologue, encouraging the customer to actively engage in the process.

What are the features of a sales presentation?

The content of your sales presentation PowerPoint must be written carefully and portray the story behind the specific product or service. As time is of the essence in sales, ensure your presentation is no more than 10 minutes and the overall meeting time does not exceed one hour.

When you invite people to come to your sales presentation, make sure they are decision-makers and are related to the things you are selling. Also, try not to lose the prospect’s attention by choosing the wrong points. Your sales presentation doesn’t have to concentrate too much on your service or product. Instead, show the audience how your service or product will change their lives in a good way.

Sales presentation structure

Here’s how to build a sales presentation that catches your audience’s attention and delivers your product’s value proposition in the best way possible:

• Introduce the pain points of your prospects.
• Describe the impact of the problem your prospects are facing.
• Explain why change is urgently necessary and what they stand to lose by not acting.
• Present the solution: a clear path toward the prospect’s goals.
• Provide evidence, address reservations, and FAQs.

To create personalized sales decks quickly, you can use a sales presentation template with the most recent FAQs and case studies. This will allow you to easily copy a deck and create a customized sales presentation for each new prospect in a matter of minutes.

What to include in a sales deck?

Good sales decks have a few key elements, such as:

• Introduction. Say a few words about your company, mentioning your activities and mission. Make sure you grab the audience’s attention with a memorable opening slide or cover image.
• Definition of the problem. Identify the main issues that your company is trying to solve. Provide your audience with some data. Metrics can come from third-party sources or your own sales dashboard.
• Social proof. For instance, you might add quotes and success stories from customers to support your sales presentation. However, you must not repeat the things you say.
• Customized content. Customize your sales presentation for every single prospect so as to build a bridge between your services or product and your audience. In other words, make sure it is personalized.
• Next steps. Include a clear and brief call to action. Offer a few next steps for your potential prospects.
• Visuals. Graphs, charts, and other design elements are all effective techniques to illustrate your point. However, make sure they are simple. Do not overwhelm your sales presentation with too much data; use more visuals instead.

Lastly, make sure that the font (and font size) used in your sales presentation design is legible to everyone in the room.

Other points to consider

1. the product.

Demonstrate how your service or product operates in action. Create a perfect environment to showcase how the product works, if it is physical. Utilize technology if it is a digital product. For instance, you might ask your prospects to download the app. In some cases, you might use video as a demo.

2. Handouts

Hand out some materials to your audience. For instance, it might be a QR code or contact data. The information must be clear and to the point. Distribute the handouts once the sales presentation is over.

3. Practice and teamwork

Double-check your sales presentation with a few salespersons. Practice a lot before the actual presentation. Come earlier to make sure everything works well. Also, decide who will say some information during the presentation and who will do certain things to help you.

Expert tips: How to create your sales presentation?

Tip #1: sync.

Your main points must be synchronized with your sales deck. When you present statistics, you should speak slowly. Emphasize your tone of voice when you are talking about pain points. Express relief when you showcase how your company wants to tackle specific issues. Make sure all the questions you ask your audience have straightforward answers or are rhetorical.

Tip #2: Involve storytelling

People like exciting stories related to their daily lives and problems. They will listen to your sales presentation even more attentively if you tell a story that solves their everyday problems.

Tip #3: Avoid using technical slang

In your sales presentation, use general terms that are clear to every audience member. Do not use slang words. Most people in the room might not have a clue about your offering, so the simpler the lexicon is, the better the result.

Tip #4: Emphasize the value of your product or service

Try to demonstrate how your product or service differs from your competitors. Tell about the main differences slowly. Mention how your product or service will make other people’s lives more comfortable. In other words, emphasize their value.

Tip #5: Practice body language

Your body language must be confident during the presentation. Improve your body language by maintaining eye contact and standing straight. It will prove to people that you are interested in communicating with them.

Tip #6: Be funny

Use your sense of humor. For instance, you might play jokes, but you would better not force them. Keep in contact with your prospects by telling funny stories. Make sure everyone in the room is comfortable and relaxed.

Tip #7: Emphasize your expertise

Do not talk too much about your company. You should focus your sales presentation on the field of your expertise instead. For instance, you might demonstrate a slide with logos of the companies that have already invested money in your brand.

Tip #8: Focus on benefits

Emphasize the strong points and tell how your product or service will improve your prospects’ lives. Do not focus too much on the pain points. Make sure your presentation is personal and describe all the benefits they will get. You might also mention the names of people in the room to make them feel valued.

Tip #9: Include research

Add internal and external types of research to your sales presentation. Use statistics or graphs and cut the information into brief pieces for your company to get more authority. Add relevant numbers and examples to demonstrate how you helped previous clients.

Tip #10: Showcase the return on their investment

Tell how your company will master productivity, multiply market share, make more money, eliminate costs, and boost sales. In other words, you should show the results of investments both long- and short-term.

Tip #11: Rehearse

Rehearsing before a presentation will help boost your confidence and smooth “rough spots.” You will also get to know the approximate amount of time needed to deliver your presentation.

Tip #12: Talk directly to your audience

Do not speak just to your slides. Utilize slides to emphasize the things you say. If you fail to do so, your presentation will most likely sound boring. Try to engage every member of the audience. Express yourself by using your hands. For instance, you might ask them to raise their hands if they agree to some of the points.

Tip #13: Add a clear call to action

Make sure your last slide includes a call to action. Add your contact data, but do not go deeply into detail. Know when it is the right time to stop.

Tip #14: Answer the audience’s questions

Your prospects will ask questions, and you have to be prepared to stop the presentation and answer their questions as they appear. Your audience must be sure that you take them seriously. At the end of your presentation, you can also offer a product’s trial, discount, or other incentive to motivate the audience or create a sense of urgency. The main goal here is to make the audience involved.

Lastly, follow sales presentation best practices to ensure a polished and persuasive delivery. This includes maintaining a clear and concise narrative, addressing potential objections proactively, and incorporating compelling storytelling techniques. Utilize engaging visuals to enhance your message and capture the audience’s attention. Practice your delivery to ensure a confident and natural presentation style and encourage audience interaction through discussions.

By adhering to these best practices, you can create a sales presentation that not only increases the likelihood of successful outcomes but also fosters positive connections with potential clients or stakeholders.

Still wondering how to create a sales deck?

Don’t worry—our presentation design service has got you covered! With profound expertise in designing compelling presentations in different software and thousands of satisfied customers from across the globe, it will be a no-brainer for our dedicated team to transform your ideas into a visually stunning, impactful sales presentation. Take the first step towards a winning presentation by reaching out to us today.

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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How to Create Slides That Suit Your Superiors: 11 Tips

When you’re pitching ideas or budgets to execs in your organization, you need to deliver slides that fit those particular people just right. This checklist identifies the key considerations.

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I recently interviewed 20 of my customers, all in senior roles at Fortune 100 companies, and asked them their biggest pain point in presenting to higher-ups and even colleagues. What I heard consistently was that it can feel like Goldilocks bouncing from one option to the next, testing to figure out what’s “just right.” Does the audience want deep reports? Sparse slides? Something in between? Like … what?

Teams often come to presentation meetings with vast amounts of backup content just in case an exec wants to take a deep dive on any given point. There’s often a struggle to anticipate every direction attendees might want to go. It’s frustrating, and it’s not efficient.

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There are many ways to build slides. I’m not just talking about crafting them well versus poorly. I’m talking about all of the important decisions regarding how to organize them, how much text to use, when to lean into a chart, the best ways to use bullets and color, and whether to include an appendix with additional information. Before you make your next proposal or request of the executive team, use this list of 11 tips for your next set of slides as a guide.

Four Things You Must Have in Every Exec’s Slides

Before we drill down into the harder aspects, the ones where your executives’ tastes may vary widely, let’s quickly cover four aspects that you can consider the building blocks — the basics you should never proceed without.

Start with an executive summary. Begin the slide deck with a tight executive summary that follows a three-act structure. First, start with stating the current realities. Second, clearly state the problem or opportunity your idea addresses and its potential impact. Third, explain how your recommendation solves the problem or exploits the opportunity and the next steps you’re proposing.

Have a logical organization. The arc of the deck — the package from beginning to end — should make sense. If your audience reads only the headline of every slide, the order should be coherent and make most of the case for you. The content below each slide’s headline must support the statement made in the title. Remove everything that doesn’t support your point; as writers will tell you, you sometimes need to “kill your darlings” when you’re editing.

Begin the slide deck with a tight executive summary that follows a three-act structure.

Make it skimmable. Help your audience to quickly grasp the point without getting bogged down in details. Create a clear visual hierarchy. Guide the reader’s eye through the content: Use bold headings, bullet points, and numbered lists to break down information into digestible pieces. Highlight key takeaways or conclusions in a different color or font size to draw attention to these critical points.

Focus on concise insights. Succinct statements with clear insights are everyone’s jam. Every slide should serve a purpose and contribute directly to the decision-making process. Distill complex information. Don’t use 100 words when 20 words will nail it. If you’re having difficulty trimming, consider using company-approved AI tools to help you take out the fluff.

Five Preferences to Confirm With the Person You Want to Reach

Now we’ll delve into what your particular audience does and does not want. If you haven’t yet, start by asking the person you’re presenting to what they generally prefer. They probably know themselves well but have not been asked to articulate how they like to receive information.

Ask how dense is too dense. Some executives prefer detailed slides with comprehensive data. Others favor a more high-level approach. You’re weighing how to balance informative content with readability, ensuring that slides are not overloaded yet are sufficiently detailed to support decision-making.

Confirm the delivery format and timing. Some execs like information presented to them. Others prefer a pre-read of the material followed by a discussion. I always recommend our tool Slidedocs (I’ve written a free e-book on them), which are visual documents using both words and images. The templates help presenters organize their thoughts into a document for a pre-read or a read-along. They are designed to be skimmable and able to travel through your organization without the help of a presenter.

I’m a huge fan of pre-reads and prefer to use my time in meetings to ask questions and build alignment. If your audience didn’t review your material in advance, ask at the top of the meeting whether they would like you to present it or would prefer to read through it and then discuss it.

Find out how much data visualization they prefer. Charts, graphs, photos, and illustrations often communicate complex data more clearly than words alone. When execs can see what you’re saying, they often can better understand the impact of your idea. Does the exec want to understand exact numbers? Bar charts allow them to move their eyes across a series of specifics. Does the exec want to know the shape of a trend over time? Line charts can show the pattern. (See “Classic Charts Communicate Data Quickly.”) Some prefer charts with annotations that draw attention to what you think is the most important point. Others want to make their own conclusions from the data.

One of my clients, the CEO of a massive commercial real estate company, doesn’t want anything visualized. He prefers numbers, only in a table, and only in two colors — black and red. You might think this is archaic. But the fact that he’s clear to his teams about what he wants takes all the mystery out of how to communicate with him.

When the stakes are high, have a conceptual thinker help with diagrams and concepts. If you don’t have one on your team, and when it’s high stakes, find an internal designer to help you or hire one. You can’t afford to have the baby (your idea) thrown out with the bathwater (terrible slides).

Identify which details need spelling out. How well do the people you’re presenting to know the landscape and function of the company and products you’re talking about? For example, if your engineering team threw a slide into a deck about an issue that requires executive approval, do the execs all speak geek? Or do you need to explain the technology so that they will really understand the ask? Either eliminate internal jargon and acronyms or unpack those bits, especially if your proposal deeply involves expertise outside of the executives’ domain.

Ask whether appendices will be useful. When you’re organizing a presentation, you often troll data, read through complicated reports, and even hire external experts to figure out what’s best for the company. Do your execs want access to that supporting data? You can add a document to the end of the presentation as an appendix to show all of the data and source material. This allows the main content of the slides to remain focused and accessible while still providing comprehensive background information for those who want more.

Two Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills

Getting materials in place is the biggest step. They will be your best tools for selling your ideas. But there are two extra areas to pay attention to as a presenter: how you handle questions and how you use every experience to improve.

Anticipate questions, and practice your answers. Before you have your meeting, gather a small team to challenge every point you make. Invite colleagues you trust to role-play as “a rapidly inquisitive exec” or “the doubting naysayer exec” so you are prepared to present your idea well. They’re gonna grill you, and practicing will help you remain unruffled when it happens.

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Ask for feedback after the presentation. Establish a feedback loop with those you presented to. Ask what worked well and how you can improve. If attendees don’t have the time, find people who have had their ideas funded and talk to them about what they did that worked. Advice and some perspective will help you nail your performance even better next time.

Empathetically understanding your audience members and how they process information, whether it’s executives or peers, sets up your ideas for success. Clarity creates efficiency. When a presentation fits just right, you’ve given your great thinking the best chance of moving through your organization and having maximum impact.

About the Author

Nancy Duarte is CEO of Duarte Inc. , a communication company in the Silicon Valley. She’s the author of six books, including DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story (Ideapress Publishing, 2019).

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