A Powerful Sales Presentation Outline

Woman Giving Sales Presentation Outline

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As a marketer, you are always selling. From external customer pitches to internal leadership alignment, knowing how to create a compelling sales presentation means knowing how to tell a story.

While most of us get the basic concept of storytelling, it helps to have a tangible example to look at. So, I’m sharing an example sales presentation outline and flow that was published by Andy Raskin on LinkedIn near the end of 2016. It already has over 26K views on LinkedIn Pulse and provides a great overview of how to construct a compelling sales story. It’s titled, The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen.

Andy dissects Zuora’s (a SaaS company) sales and marketing pitch content and boils it down into five elements of a brilliant narrative, complete with screen shots of example slides. He points out and teaches each element so you can follow the same flow in your own presentations.

Zuora Opening Sales Presentation Slide“Don’t kick off a sales presentation by talking about your product, your headquarters locations, your investors, your clients, or anything about yourself. Instead, name the undeniable shift in the world that creates both (a) big stakes and (b) huge urgency for your prospect.” Read more on LinkedIn.

Here are the five elements Andy proposes for your sales presentation outline (with my tie to positioning in parentheses):

  1. Name a big, relevant change in the world (the opportunity)
  2. Show there will be winners and losers (the tension)
  3. Tease the promised land (the benefit)
  4. Introduce features as “magic gifts” (sub-benefits/RTBs)
  5. Provide evidence you can make the story come true (proof points)

When you present, you are often positioning. How you position yourself and your message is what motives someone to take the desired action. This applies if you are a startup trying to get funding, a salesperson asking someone to buy, or if you are a corporate employee trying to persuade senior leadership.

Read the post and hold the example flow and slides up next to your own. What can you do to improve your pitch?

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