Every single slide in your sales presentation needs to earn its place. It should contribute to your story to persuade your prospect to change their behaviour. However, at BrightCarbon we see certain “filler” slides cropping up again and again. It’s time to look at your sales presentation with a critical eye and get rid of slides that aren’t pulling their weight!
The Map
Screenshot of a PowerPoint slide with a map phone numbers in egypt filling the space. Title: Bright Company Our Locations.The message of a map slide, if there’s one at all, is something along the lines of “we’re big”, “we’re global”, “we’re successful”. The best you’re going to achieve with this is to convey a vague sense that your business is doing well. Fine. The problem is that this is a very inward looking message with little thought given to how your company’s size or location impacts your prospect. Why should they care? Delete the slide!
The exception
If the fact that you have offices (or manufacturing locations or whatever!) in specific places directly benefits your prospect, then a map slide can be effective. However, you need to explicitly show how . Perhaps it means that you can deliver to their customers faster, or ensure their products are always made with locally sourced materials. Can you give them a wider reach, or 24/7 customer support? Rather than simply showing your locations on a map, add extra information, like where your prospect’s largest customer base is. This shows them why your presence in a certain state or set of countries is important to them.
The Portfolio
Okay, you don’t have to delete your portfolio slide but please don’t place it at the beginning of your sales presentation! At this point in your presentation, a list of products, services, or solutions has little meaning to your audience. You need to make it clear that your prospect has a problem and show how the problem is hurting them before introducing your solution.