Not all pitch decks are created equal and making a crucial mistake with your pitch deck can lead to a loss of a sale/investor/client. Like with all things business related you want your pitch deck to reflect positively on your company. The right pitch deck can help close sale after sale so putting time and effort into it is imperative for success. If the sales team at your company is not closing sales at a high rate even with solid leads, it is time to take a look at the pitch deck as it could be the problem. The following are mistakes that you are making with your pitch deck that could be stunting the growth of your company.
Poorly Designed
Your pitch deck is not the place to try out new fonts that can be difficult to read. Keep the design simple yet presentable enough to represent your brand. Keep the colors in line with what you are pitching as pitching to a financial firm with overly bright colors is much different than doing the same for a company full of creatives like a web design or content production. Your pitch deck should be sent to prospects in a PDF as at times sending in a Powerpoint file can lead to issues with formatting.
Too Much Information
Putting too much information on one slide or in the entire presentation can be overwhelming to the person being pitched. Give highlights of information and explain things that need to be elaborated on. If the information is necessary opt to put it on another slide as crowding the slides with copious amounts of text can bore a potential client. If the client has told you what they are interested in then edit the pitch deck to highlight what they are interested in, here’s a few before-and-after of pitch deck slides. Otherwise the client could feel like they are being sold something instead of making the decision to purchase on their own.
Irrelevant Information
The pitch deck as mentioned above needs to be customized to the audience. Know who you are pitching to as well as what they value and what would be irrelevant to them. This does not mean that with every new audience that you have to create a pitch deck from scratch but rather edit it accordingly. Having a few pitch decks for different types of audiences is wise so a few edits can be made instead of constantly creating new pitch decks for a client in a new niche.
Not Telling A Story
Those being sold want to be told a story about how a product or service can help them. Many customers are going to have specific pain points that should be covered before the pitch. This will allow the presenter to focus on these pain points during the pitch by telling a story with their pitch deck. This could be a great way to help a prospect understand how you can help them more clearly. Telling a story combined with the right pitch deck can help close sale after sale.