So tempted to reply: "No salesperson worth a damn has ever used a deck from marketing" but don't want to draw the ire of marketers. What do y'all think?
braintank
Using decks from marketing...
11
I may use their slides here and there but never ever used a whole deck. Not once.ย
The cherry on top was one deck from marketing that used 9/11 as an analogy for "evolving IT risk". They even had a picture of a long TSA line as the backdrop. We had to get "certified" on the new deck by marketing when I reached this slide I stopped and told them: "You can fail me because there is NO WAY I'm talking about 9/11 during my discovery call"
FUCK THAT. I would've gone on a tear trying to get people fired.
Out of touch much? Geez ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
Agreed! My marketing team has created decks that are 40-60 slides long and explain basic concepts that my buyers are well versed in. Why can't they spend all that time and effort generating MQLs...
Maybe used one on my first sales call ever?
Agreed. Then once you see the prospect get bored to tears you make a change ;)
"Make the slides we tell you to make"
My god, marketing literally never does anything she even mentioned in her post. ๐ญ๐
I like the fact she mentions actually interviewing sellers. Now whether or not they listen is a different story.ย
Marketing taking feedback from sales when producing material sales is expected to use? What is this, fantasy land?ย
Marketing would never ever in a million years listen to first meeting calls recording. They probably have zero clue how to access Gong.ย
Well at least she says the salesteam needs to be involved.ย
I literally never use slides at any point in my sales process. We all had to record ourselves "pitching" for 10 minutes against a new slide deck earlier in the year as part of required training, and then an AI would score us. Any rep that spends 10 minutes talking at a prospect on a discovery call shouldn't be in sales.ย
At my first sales job, the top rep at the company once told me he never used a deck. At the time I was naive and lacked the appropriate skills to follow suit but now I completely agree.
Decks only portray your company/product/solution through a fixed narrative (or the "master deck" contains multiple narratives but 100+ slides)
Disco calls should be a conversation and hence don't need slides. Equally, any follow ups should be so specific to the prospects business and pains that a demo makes much more sense to me rather than spending an age crafting an uber personalised deck (could be looking at this from a purely software sales mindset though - happy to be corrected)
Only slides I use consistently are technical integration/process maps when late on in the process - probably because I'm too stupid to understand anything technical...
Decks only portray your company/product/solution through a fixed narrative (or the "master deck" contains multiple narratives but 100+ slides)
Disco calls should be a conversation and hence don't need slides. Equally, any follow ups should be so specific to the prospects business and pains that a demo makes much more sense to me rather than spending an age crafting an uber personalised deck (could be looking at this from a purely software sales mindset though - happy to be corrected)
Only slides I use consistently are technical integration/process maps when late on in the process - probably because I'm too stupid to understand anything technical...
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