A sales deck can make or break a deal. Done well, a sales deck highlights the uniqueness of your offerings and demonstrates your understanding of clients’ needs, ultimately moving them toward a buying decision.
WHAT IS A SALES DECK?
According to software developer Pipedrive, a sales deck is a series of slides used to guide a prospective client through your sales presentation. Slide presentations can help your audience understand key statistics, pricing and product features, which your sales reps can build a story around.
Yet the work doesn’t end with one outstanding pitch. For many successful companies — like Cambridge, Massachusetts-based InterSystems — it is necessary to adjust sales decks regularly to stay ahead of the competition and demonstrate to clients that the company can evolve to meet them where they are.
Built In recently sat down with InterSystems’ Sales Engineer Annie Tong to chat about the process of building a stand-out sales deck and how she continually refines and optimizes her pitches to do just that.
InterSystems is a software and technology vendor for high-performance database management, integration and health information systems.
What are the key components of a sales deck?
The components of a sales deck include industry challenges, a solutions overview, customer success stories and use cases, to drive impact and engagement with prospects through demonstrating an understanding of the market and their industry-specific challenges. To inspire prospects, we share customer success stories and use cases that demonstrate the tangible benefits and outcomes of our products.
What makes your sales pitch special? How do you stay ahead of the competition?
With 45 years of expertise with healthcare and public sector customers, InterSystems has a deep bench of industry experience that we aim to highlight with our sales pitch. Customer success stories and use cases illustrate our track record with specific markets while showing continuity in certain industries.
Our sales pitch stands out because of our consultative approach and a genuine commitment to the success of our prospects, grounded in the company philosophy of customer success. We go beyond being mere sellers; we strive to be trusted advisors who actively listen to customer challenges and pain points. Through understanding industry trends over the last four decades, we can provide tailored solutions and insights that go beyond a typical sales pitch.
“Through understanding industry trends over the last four decades, we can provide tailored solutions and insights that go beyond a typical sales pitch.”
Successful startups evolve their sales deck over time. What steps does your team take to refine and optimize its deck continually?
Successful startups understand the importance of continually refining and optimizing their sales deck. Our team treats the sales deck as a framework that iterates to account for portfolio developments and feature introductions to accommodate shifts in technology and industries. We apply insights from prospect conversations and industry events to reflect our knowledge of industry trends and competitor offerings. We actively seek feedback from our sales team, prospects and customers to identify areas for improvement and analyze sales data to identify patterns and trends. We also collaborate closely with other departments, such as marketing and product teams, to ensure our sales deck aligns with our overall sales strategy and goals.
By continually updating our sales deck with the latest product updates, market positioning and customer insights, we ensure that it remains relevant and competitive in the evolving market.
