How to Craft the Perfect B2B Sales Deck

A sales deck is an invaluable tool when contacting prospects and pitching your B2B company's products or services. You can use it to convey a unique value proposition. After seeing your sales deck, prospects will feel more comfortable making a purchase. A well-crafted sales deck will distinguish your B2B company's products or services from its competitors, resulting in more sales.

What Is a Sales Deck?

A sales deck is a presentation -- typically a slideshow presentation -- that reveals information about your B2B company's products or services and the benefits they offer. When formatted as a slideshow, sales decks will feature multiple slides. Some of them have just three to six slides, whereas others have dozens of slides. Regardless, sales decks are presentations that focus on products or services, and most of them are formatted as a slideshow.

Keep in mind that a sales deck isn't the same as a pitch deck. While they both consist of presentations, they target different audiences and are designed for different purposes. Sales decks target prospects and are designed to generate sales. Pitch decks, on the other hand, target investors and are designed to secure financing.

Begin With an Overview

You should begin your sales deck with an overview. Avoid jumping head-first into a sales pitch. Instead, create an overview with the first slide. This initial overview slide should provide some basic information about your B2B company and what makes it stand out in its respective industry. You can then mention the content included in the proceeding slides.

The overview slide will break the ice with prospects. it will help prospects understand your B2B company while also capturing their attention so that they continue watching your sales deck all the way to the end. Whether your sales deck consists of four or 20 slides, make sure it begins with an overview. It may not contain a sales pitch, but the overview slide will set the stage for the rest of your sales deck.

Focus on Benefits

When creating a sales deck, remember to focus on the benefits of your B2B company's products or services. Prospects typically buy products or services to solve a pain point. Nearly all businesses have pain points. A pain point is simply a problem that's preventing or restricting a business from achieving its goals.

Some of the most common pain points experienced by businesses include:

• Difficulty breaking into marketers
• Low customer retention rates 
• High overhead costs
• Low or negative return on investment (ROI)
• Poor productivity
• Inaccurate customer data
• Excessive competition
• Unreliable vendors or suppliers

Your B2B company's products or services may solve one or more pain points. Focusing on the benefits will allow you to convey this information. As prospects view your sales deck, they'll see the benefits of your B2B company's products or services. This information can help them identify which pain points, if any, your B2B company's products or services will solve.

Customize for Prospects

You don't have to use the sales deck for all of your B2B company's prospects. A sales deck is a marketing and sales asset. And like other marketing and sales assets, you can customize it for prospects. After identifying a list of qualified prospects, you may want to create a custom sales deck for each of them. You don't have to create these custom sales decks from scratch. Rather, you can modify your main, primary sales deck while turning it into multiple, custom sales decks.

Statistics show that over three-fourths of sales reps say personalized messages are effective at building better relationships with prospects. If you use the same sales deck for all prospects, you won't be able to provide them with personalized messages. Customizing your sales desk, conversely, is a form of personalization. You can include information that's relevant to each prospect so that they respond more positively to your sales deck. 

Leverage Visuals

For a more effective sales deck, include plenty of visuals. Sales decks support text content and visual content. Most sales decks are slideshow presentations, and slides support both types of content. To convey the benefits of products or services, you'll typically need to use text. You should, however, be able to include images alongside this text.

Slideshow presentations support images in traditional formats like JPG and GIF. You can even include animated images by using the latter format. Whether static or animated, images will capture prospects' attention. Prospects will remain focused on your sales deck, which may compel them to make a purchase at the end. Sales decks consisting entirely of text aren't particularly engaging. While they might be informative, they look bland and boring. Prospects may stop viewing your sales deck if all or most of its slides are text.

Visuals can include video content as well. Some people assume that slideshow presentations only support text and images. While most slideshow presentations focus on these two types of content, they generally support video content. If you have a relevant video, you may want to include it in your sales deck. Product videos and demonstration videos, for instance, work well when integrated into a sales deck.

Showcase Statistics

Another tip on how to craft the perfect sales deck is to showcase statistics. Statistics provide concrete evidence regarding the benefits of your B2B company's products or services. You can collect feedback from your B2B company's existing buyers, after which you can turn it into statistics for use in your sales deck.

With statistics, prospects will see exactly how your B2B company's products or services have benefited other buyers. If two-thirds of prospects say they've experienced a higher ROI after using a product or service, for example, you may want to showcase this statistic in your sales deck.

There are different types of content that you can send prospects to nurture and convert them into buyers, one of which is a sales deck. A sales deck is a presentation. It typically consists of a slideshow presentation that provides prospects with information about your B2B company and its products or services.

Let's start putting your new sales deck into practice. Use project reports to start to fill your sales funnel. These are great leads to start with as they have identified projects with the right contacts. Give them a call, set up a time to give your new sales deck pitch and start closing business today.