What the best sales deck of all time means for your marketing

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading through this breakdown of a Zuora sales presentation deck, which the author calls the greatest sales deck he’s ever seen.

There are a couple elements here I really like, with implications not only on how you sell but how your marketing engages prospects more actively and successfully moving forward:

• Introduce new information and trends up front: Make your prospect smarter, give them insights they didn’t have previously that changes how they might look at the world
• Use that information to gently tell them they’re wrong about the future:  No prospect wants to hear that they’re wrong, but by introducing new insights you can help prospects come to that conclusion themselves.  The end-result is the same, just without unnecessary tension or animosity between the two of you.
• Reinforce that in the future there will be winners and losers based on this new information:  Those who ignore this new information are likely to fall behind.  Those who listen but don’t respond correctly may be out of business faster.  So what does it mean to listen and respond correctly?  The answer is about your prospect’s business, not yours, and puts them on a firm footing to commit to a change (for themselves) that may very well include your solution as the bridge that gets them there.
• Prove that you’re right, that the trends are true, and that you’ve helped other companies reach the promised land:  Success stories, case studies, mentioning your solution as little as possible.  Position your customers as the hero, let their results and success speak to your impact.

The last point made in this article is probably the most important.  Knowing this progression is great, but having your entire organization able to follow it is what differentiates those who dabble from those who dominate.

If your sales team could tell stories this way, you’d have more engaged prospects.  If your content told stories this way, you’d have more responsive prospects.

If your prospects heard more frequent and consistent stories this way, you would surely increase prospect engagement and deal velocity.

Take eight minutes and read through the whole breakdown, it’s well worth the time.