sales decks for founders - founding sales - december 2015

Founding Sales DecksSales decks that close business.

This slide is here because SlideShare doesn’t allow hyperlinks in the first three slides.

https://twitter.com/foundingsales Enjoy this cat picture while I increment the slide count….

https://twitter.com/foundingsales


As is this one….sorry...don’t know why they do that...

https://twitter.com/foundingsales Sorry. The links are important, which is why I’m doing this....



Pete Kazanjy - Product Marketer / Product Manager turned Sales Leader

Twitter: @kazanjy (Find me on LinkedIn too.)

Founder of

Acquired (‘14) by

Writing@foundingsales

- First “rep” (founder turned rep)- First “sales manager”- First “VP of Sales”- 20 sales reps ; 20 CS reps

- New Product Sales Leader- 800 sales reps

https://twitter.com/kazanjy


https://www.talentbin.com/





Want to watch Pete present this deck live? Video below...

https://twitter.com/foundingsales Link to video recording of live presentation.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIzADEvSthw



There are a bunch of ways founders screw up their sales decks.

Sales Decks are Broken!(Not really)

This presentation is an adaption of a chapter on Sales Decks from Founding Sales. (As excerpted on First Round Review)



http://firstround.com/review/building-your-best-sales-deck-starts-here/



Your fundraising pitch is not your sales pitch.

Fundraising materials are for selling a piece of your company.

Sales materials are for selling your solution to a prospect who cares.




Demos are great, but not sufficient.

Demos are great...for demonstrating features. But they’re just one part of the sales presentation.

“We just do demos.”




What is the sales deck for?

Goal of a sales deck: Visually

and textually present your sales

narrative to your ideal customer

in a way that convinces them to

buy your solution.https://twitter.com/foundingsales



Responses to Common Founder Objections


● It doesn’t have to be beautiful.

● It doesn’t have to be comprehensive.

● It doesn’t have to take a ton of time.



Realities


● Like your product, start MVP.

● It will change / grow over time.

● Something is better than nothing.



Founding Sales Decks - Your Sales Narrative, Weaponized


● The Problem and who has it

● Cost of the Problem

● Existing Solutions & their Challenges

● What has changed

● How your solution works

● Quantitative Proof

● Qualitative Proof

● Company-centric Proof

● Why this will be so easy

(Customer Success)

● Pricing

● Appendix

http://firstround.com/review/To-Build-An-Amazing-Sales-Team-Start-Here-First/(Google “First Round sales narrative - put it in Pocket ; )

(Also, example TalentBin master deck here)

The major components of your deck



http://firstround.com/review/To-Build-An-Amazing-Sales-Team-Start-Here-First/


https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C-0V8zaUoAkGmBXqk2RGR-40ek2mg1CQIzmwwUnu5B0/edit?usp=sharing

Founding Sales Decks - Some examples we’ll use


Recruiting automation software for technical recruiters.

Simple financing for eCommerce providers and their customers.

Job-posting optimization software.

Sales-centric mobile email and CRM client.

Recruiting branding automation and SEO software.

Recruiting agency revenue acceleration.



Founding Sales Decks - The Problem and Who Has It


● Start at the beginning. Helps with qualification.

● Can be “fractal” structured - subcomponents.

● Teeing up the issues your solution addresses (via features)

● Can address multiple types of pains (user vs. managers)

● Can be inductive or deductive in approach. I like to go both ways.

The Problem and Who Has It





That’ll get your attention!

● Very clear. Sales people not selling.

● Includes sub-pains: CRM updates, prep, follow up.

● Hints at opportunity cost: close rates, etc.

● Could have a sales manager slide to follow this (Pain points of another constituency).





● Frame all the issues that could be addressed in a holistic manner.

● Teeing up the specific subcomponents we’re going to address. (Top, middle, bottom)

● Fractal approach to slide creation: zoom in, zoom out.

Overarching example of business pain.




Subcomponents of business pain, “zoomed in.”


● Detail of the second layer of the problem statement - crappy jobs page.

● Problem statement call out.

● This should probably be the second detail slide, not first.




Subcomponents of business pain, “zoomed in.”


● Takes the broader framing, and dives in.

● This is a detail problem case from the first layer in the first slide.

● Calls out the pain point - prevent click through, drag on recruiting spend.

● Probably should be the first “detail” slide, right?




“Zoomed in” unit pain


● Another detail pain, on the other side of the Google results.

● OK callout.

● Probably could speak to user frustration here, “Why be held hostage?”

● Could probably speak to the implications of “letting worst employees tell story” => reduced applies, misplaced job expectations.





“Zoomed Out” Rollup pain

● Roll up the implications of these unit pains. “Let’s bring it all home.”

● Summary of implications of unit pains. “Call and response” approach. Very gospel-style ; )

● Beginning indications of ROI metrics at bottom of rollup pain.




Core driver of the problem case - varied per case.https://twitter.com/foundingsales




“Zoomed in” implications of problem case.


● Detail proof of the abstract problem root cause described in prior slide.

● Explanation in sub-headline.

● Good specific comparison of good and bad cases.

● Add a little comedy. Why not!




“Zoomed in” implications of problem.


● Knock-on implication of previous pain.

● Good callouts of bad, worse, worst implications

● Both rollup stats and unit examples.





Extension of first type of business pain.

● Proof of the implications of one of the core pains.

● “Do you find you have this issue?”

● Could have better callouts. Relies a lot on presenter comment.




Extension of first type of business pain.


● Rollup “zoom out” of that previous implication.

● Third party data source as validator / benchmark.

● Sneaky color usage.




Anecdata can be helpful too.https://twitter.com/foundingsales



Founding Sales Decks - The Cost of the Problem


● Get to the nuts and bolts, dollars and cents.

● Document the costs or opportunity costs of the pain point.

● Should correlate to the pain points you discussed - cost per each.

● Generalities can be good, but per-unit costs can be good too.

● In the absence of costs, can use proxies.

● Make it as easy as possible to make personal to prospect.

The Cost of the Problem





● This is where we frame the pain points we will say our solution fixes.

● Make sure to tease out the individual pain points.

● Later we’ll correlate our solution and its features to resolving these costs (or opportunity costs).





Indicating the magnitude of pain and likelihood of resolution.



Founding Sales Decks - Existing solutions and their challenges


● Touchy topic. Don’t want to bring in competitors per se.

● But helpful to frame off of industry standards.

● “X is broken” does not count. That’s lazy.

● Can be actual products that are in-market, but can be services / internal behaviors, too.

Existing Solutions and their Challenges





Quantitative indicators.

● Enumerate quantitative measures of the shortfall. (e.g., search results, response rates, etc.)

● Correlate those quantitative / qualitative shortfalls to the buckets of pain points.

● Can do so for each of the “standards” or a rollup of them.




https://twitter.com/foundingsales Qualitative indicators.



Founding Sales Decks - What has changed


● What changed to create and scale this problem?● What changed to enable this new sorcery?● Visualization / data / etc.● Helps with “Why now?”

What has changed?



Founding Sales Decks - What has changed

Overarching Change Examples




Founding Sales Decks - How the solution works


● Fractal model of messaging buckets & supporting features.● Tie to messaging buckets of pain.● Not a demo (do the demo), but can stand in.● Conceptual visualizations. Feature Visualizations. ● Screenshots / Animated Gifs of actual product.● Features and correlated proof points.

How our Solution Works



Founding Sales Decks - How the Solution Works

Concept Visualization


● Conceptual representation of how the solution works.

● Nail the concept so everything else that follows has a solid bedrock.

● Visual and textual explanation.

● Visual unit proof example.




Current World v. New World


● Visual comparison to something that the user likely already knows.

● “See, we’re like this well known and solid thing, but in this different way!”




Overarching “story” and chapters Sub-chapter (“Zoomed in”)

https://twitter.com/foundingsales “Fractal” approach




“Chapter” detail with value props.


● Aggregation of screenshots that tell a story.

● Good value prop callouts.

● ROI arguments.

● Conceptual visual, too. “Oh, I get it. Multiple mails. Nice.”




Chapter detail (mediocre value prop use!)


● Can be as simple as a screenshot and header.

● Though probably better handled in Demo.

● But in a pinch, and can be used in Appendix.




Concept Visualization


● Flow charting can cut two ways. Avoid too much complexity, but with simplicity can be great.

● Great call out at the top “Looks like a credit card” (comparison to something that is well known and known-good.)





Feature Visualization

● Conceptual visualization of a feature.

● Hybrid of screenshot approach and conceptual approach (nice if you have design resources!)

● But could be done in a more MVP way too, and be ok.




Quasi-demo


● If your product is fairly simple, you can have a quasi demo.

● Better of course to do a true demo, but good for a takeaway (show the boss), or if your product craps out during demo.





● Demo that is heavily customized to the client.

● “Offline demo” slides if you are without network / don’t have time.

● But don’t do both! Hooboy, that would be repetitive and boring! : )

● More on demo scripts here: http://firstround.com/review/here-are-the-scripts-for-sales-success-emails-calls-and-demos-that-close-deals/ Google “First Round Demo Script”

Demo



http://firstround.com/review/here-are-the-scripts-for-sales-success-emails-calls-and-demos-that-close-deals/





Founding Sales Decks - Quantitative Proof of a Better Solution


● ROI proof (in dollars and cents), tying back to cost of business pain (prior section)

● ROI precursors if $$$ ROI proof isn’t there.

● Correlate to your features (which were correlated to pain points, right?)

Quantitative Proof of a Better Solution




● Points back to the numbers that your narrative framed caring about.

● Ideally closest to the money.

● Can be blinded, but nice if it has a name on it.

● In this case, could be nice to tie to value outputs. Reduced media spend, reduced staffing agency fees.





● Example of pure monetary outcomes, with specifics.

● Great ROI callouts.

● Humanizes it. Can be blinded or can be identified. You can speak to more info.

● Make it easy for them to model that ROI proof onto their situation. (“OK, so I have X many widgets…”)

● This could be better with “HIRABL will drive around $10k in recovered fees per recruiter, per year.”


Blinded ROI proof points





Can be ROI precursor data, too.

● What are the precursors to ROI for you solution?

● Compare the status quos / industry standards.





Richer ROI precursor “Model”

● This is a little busy, but it’s detailed.

● An “ROI model” addressing key business actions taken by users.

● Great for sending along later for “the boss” to read.

● Good “Greek” and “Russian” material.





Aggregated customer results can be good too.

● Show them what will happen for them, based on the aggregation of what has happened to those who have come before.

● Again, boil it down to the units of output. Ideally with a rough takeaway metric.

● E.g., “For every million dollars in annual revenue, Affirm will drive around $100k of additional spend.”



Founding Sales Decks - Qualitative Proof of a Better Solution


● Stories

● Reputation issuers

● Appeal to authority

Qualitative Proof of a Better Solution




● Testimonials correlated to value props. Ideally with #s.

● Focus on your key segments and verticals.

● Write it for them. Make them sound awesome. Send them a gift card.

● Doesn’t have to be a “success story”, but can be.

● Pull out the $$$. This one would be better with that information.


Customer “stories”




https://twitter.com/foundingsales Anecdata!




● Press Mentions: These folks pay attention to you.

● Analyst Coverage: They pay attention to you.

● Investors: You’re not going away.

● Awards: You can apply for these.


Company Reputation




● Organizational Gravitas: Not the common case, but maybe.

● Funding / Investors: You’re not going away anytime soon.


Founding Narrative




● Have all manner of segments and verticals

● Careful: They may know some of these folks.

● Don’t worry about permission to start. But bake it into MSA.

● But you can’t send it.

● Be careful of disappearing logos.


The “Logo” slide



Founding Sales Decks - Why this will be so easy


● Make it easy for them.

● Make it clear there is a roadmap.

● WIFM (What’s in it for me?)

Why this will be so easy.




● Skepticism: They’ve seen these promises before.

● Work: Are you creating work for me?

● Systematized: Is this already solved?


Follow the yellow brick road




● Human face: Take advantage of your staff.

● WIFM: What’s in it for staff and decisionmakers?


Follow the yellow brick road





MVP!“Features” of “Why so easy!”



Founding Sales Decks - Pricing


● They’re going to ask. So have it.

● Keep It Simple, Stupid

● Peak “rack rate” - you’re going to discount

Pricing Slides



Founding Sales Decks - Pricing




Founding Sales Decks - Appendices


● Objection slides.

● “Choose your own adventure” slides.

● Edge case slides.

Appendices & General Points





Objection Handling

● Have an answer to every question. (Like with fundraising)

● Second time you hear it, make a slide.

● Great for time of presentation, pulling together into “custom deck”, and later for one-off emails.





Edge case features

● You will have questions / features that apply to 10% of user base.

● Don’t have to be in the main deck, but have available.



Founding Sales Decks - Structured for Extensibility

Bare bones vs. Fractal vs. Rich.




Founding Sales Decks - Structured for Extensibility

Bare bones vs. Fractal vs. Rich




Founding Sales Decks - Production Value of Slides

Production Value of Your Slides: Don’t worry about it, never gate content on production value.




Founding Sales Decks - Production Value of Slides

Production Value of Your Slides: A little bit of shine can be nice.

https://twitter.com/foundingsales Template Slides



Founding Sales Decks - Content Management and Deployment

Content Management and Deployment: Janky PPT Github; Clearslide / Docsend; Deck for Presenting, Deck for sending




Founding Sales Decks - Your Sales Narrative, Weaponized


● The Problem and who has it

● Cost of the Problem

● Existing Solutions & their Challenges

● What has changed

● How your solution works

● Quantitative Proof

● Qualitative Proof

● Company-centric Proof

● Why this will be so easy

(Customer Success)

● Pricing

● Appendix

http://firstround.com/review/To-Build-An-Amazing-Sales-Team-Start-Here-First/(Google “First Round sales narrative - put it in Pocket ; )

(Also, example TalentBin master deck here)

The major components of your deck





https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C-0V8zaUoAkGmBXqk2RGR-40ek2mg1CQIzmwwUnu5B0/edit?usp=sharing

Pete Kazanjy - Product Marketer / Product Manager turned Sales Leader

@kazanjy on Twitter(Find me on LinkedIn too / [email protected] )

Writing@foundingsales



mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

