Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 103: How to use your sales deck effectively

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103: How to use your sales deck effectively · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 103 of the Sales Bluebird Podcast, which exists because at B2B startups it's hard to get go-to-market fit and grow revenue and scale the sales team.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sales Bluebird provides tips, tricks, experiences, examples, and ideas from people who've been doing this for many years and at many companies.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We want your path to go to market fit and beyond to be less rocky so that you can grow sales faster.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and today we're talking about first meetings.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know how when not enough of your first meetings are converting into opportunities, something is happening, or maybe something is not happening in that first meeting, and things are not going further or not going further as fast as we'd like.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Last episode, we looked at a checklist to help us figure out what's going on.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: This episode, we're actually looking at the bit in the meeting where we talk about or we describe what it is that we do.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Some might call this the deck, the pitch deck, or some might just have a conversation.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get into that, I want to hear from you, the listener, first.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: What questions or topics do you want to be answered on the pod?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably something in your mind that's burning away right now.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're struggling with something, or you're just thinking about things that you could do better, or topics that you've been kind of wrestling about what it might mean for what you do.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Please email me directly at andrew at unstoppable.do.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's do at the end not com.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So direct at andrew at unstoppable.do.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can send me a video message on zipmessage.com forward slash unstoppable.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Send me through your questions or topic ideas.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear them and include them on future episodes.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So back to the main topic.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: At some point in the first meeting, we need to be able to position what we do.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the prospect is there, they're ready to engage with us, and they've got some questions in their mind, right?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're thinking about what does this company do?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Who are they like that I already know so I can do a comparison against?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Which part of this big world of cybersecurity are they in?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And who else is already working with them or who else is already doing it with them?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I can learn from that and understand uh the use cases.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: In that moment, some people, some of us use a deck.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: We actually use some sort of presentation deck, some don't.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's split uh all over the place depending on what your experiences are.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, the deck itself, when you mention the phrase, it's become synonymous with pitching.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's become synonymous with talking all about us at a prospect, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's often what people think on the seller side, but frankly, also on the prospect side.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when the prospect sees the seller start to share the screen and there's going to be something on the screen that looks like a PowerPoint deck, or if it's face-to-face, they got the laptop out.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee you, none of them are sitting there going, yes, you know, the salesperson's about to give me the pitch, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just not an experience they're they're really looking forward to.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: However, you know, at the end of the day, humans, and we're all humans, we benefit from using visuals as a way to communicate, right?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just sometimes just a few diagrams or whatever can tell a thousand words, right?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important to recognize that that sort of thing has value, and doing it in a deck is not a bad way to do it, provided that we use the deck effectively.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So here are five ways to use that deck effectively in a first meeting.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Way number one is to start every slide with something about the prospect, right?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you could just say, you know, referring back to what they talked about in discovery, the problems they talked about, the things that were going on in their world.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: You just in your mind, you know, slide number three, okay.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: You said an hour, you know, half an hour ago that you were really challenged with this, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then you lead into that deck, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: This could be as simple as that.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: You might have done some research ahead of time, right?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you can say, look, I just know from talking to your team or having worked with this company before or seeing what's in the news that this area right here is probably top of mind.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just go into it, right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know how that information, you can make it about them by talking about others just like them, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you could say that security leaders at other companies have told us that there's three things that they often struggle with, and you get into some problem statements, maybe, right?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then what you can do is get them ready to take part in the conversation by saying, you know, I'm curious what you will think about this next slide, this next topic that I'm gonna cover, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you're getting them ready, getting them drawn in, ready to engage with that.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So start every slide with something about them, is number one.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is actually all about you and the mindset that you take into this portion of the first meeting.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you can go in there thinking that this is gonna be a conversation, even though I've got this thing called a deck, and people might call it the sales deck or the pitch deck, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I've got this thing about the call the deck, I want to use it to drive a conversation as opposed to use it to picture, like pitch or lecture.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lecturing is an interesting one.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, often what happens is that someone in our company, or maybe a small team, have put together this deck, right?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's got some philosophical things in there, it's got market shaping and things like that.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And used wrongly, what happens is you get a seller who's been doing, you know, in this industry or whatever for a year or two, trying to teach someone who's been doing it for 15 years about stuff they already know.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it just doesn't come across well.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a great way to build credibility and a relationship with someone when you're lecturing at them about something they already know, right?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be starting looking at their watch or looking at the email.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing, as well, I said was pitching.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you literally go in there and start pitching at them, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, it's all about us and we're awesome and we do it this way, and it's it's great, and it's so much better, you know, it's it's it's not right to have an effective, if you want to have an effective relationship with someone, it's not a great way to treat them to go in there and do that.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you can just change it by thinking about the mindset you have going in.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: If your mindset is that this is about driving a conversation, not about telling them stuff, then you're gonna actually approach it in a slightly different way.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: The other part of mindset as well is that if you can think about your role is not to convince with the the deck, your role is to drive the conversation a bit further and see if there's an alignment around how to solve some problems that are out there, right?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're seeking an alignment as opposed to convincing them that our way is the best way, it again means for a different mindset as you go in and how you engage in the conversation.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that was number two, which was your mindset.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to stop right now because I want to tell you about cybersalesejobs.com.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a hiring manager and struggle to find great cybersecurity sales talent, or you're looking right now and are fed up having to check out a bunch of different sites to see what's out there, go to cybersalesjobs.com.
• 7:45
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• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hiring managers can actually post jobs for free.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Job seekers can get alerts as jobs come up for their role in their areas, also for free.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So head over to cybersalesjobs.com.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Back to our talk track.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So number three is have specific intentional questions for each slide.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you ever look in your conversational intelligence tool, whether it's gong, chorus, mind tickle, CI, or refractor, which one you have, look at first meetings and look for points in the meeting where the bubble where the prospect talks is very small, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sliver in that uh that chart that goes left to right there.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I bet you if you look at what happened preceding that, there was a pretty lame question that came from the sales team.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Things such as, does this make sense?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Does this resonate?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you have any questions?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Almost always the answer back is sure, no, maybe, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just lame, lame answers, right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So lame questions get lame answers.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have in your mind that at certain points in your using of the deck, there's actually specific questions that you can ask that are really good questions, that are thoughtful questions that's gonna drive a conversation again and bring that person into discussion, then you'll find that you'll get them talking.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to be intentional about those questions, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to think about what types of questions they might be.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, ease their mind, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now you imagine at that point in the meeting where you say, I just want to share my screen to you know show you some slides, or you're doing it face to face and you start taking out your laptop to show them some slides.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, virtually no one is like, yes, the salesperson is about to pitch me, right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're sitting there going, oh my God, how long is this gonna take?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: What they're gonna show me, uh, is this gonna be painful like the last one I had to do?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's there's there's worry, let's say, at least, in their in their mind about what's gonna happen next.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So just address that, right?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just a simple thing.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Look, you know, I I've got some things I want to, some areas I want to drive the conversation into.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think a few visuals might help us do that.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna show you some.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, it's only five slides.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a really pitch thing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to use it to drive our conversation a bit further, right?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just something as simple as that is gonna ease their mind about what is coming next and understand that you really want to involve them in the conversation.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think saying, look, I really want to present some, I want to show you some visuals to see if we can drive the conversation a bit further, it's a lot more effective than saying what everyone says, which is, I really want to make this interactive, and then pitch at them for 15 minutes, right?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the way to do it.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I really want this to make this interactive.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't say that.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just say I want to use some visuals just to drive our conversation a little bit further or some version like that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, number five is make sure that you start strong and impactful in at the start of that section of the meeting where you're using the deck to do that.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't start with here's our funding, here's the prizes that we've won, here's our exec team's faces, here's our fund, our VC uh firm's logos, here's our customer, none of that.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't start with that, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, it's the old thing.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Don't lead someone towards something.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: You start with the important stuff.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: You start with things that they're gonna care about.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: You start with dessert first, because that's what's gonna draw them into the conversation.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do they care about?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: They care about their problems, they care about ways to solve their problems, they care about alternative approaches, ways to do things differently, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's where to start off the conversation.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: To be really effective when you're doing that, don't forget to use emotional words when you're doing it.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And quickly, what I mean by that is rather than just saying, you know, it takes a long time, you could say that, you know, many are frustrated that it takes a long time to do remediation in this area, right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just simple things like that, just elevate the conversation and draw them in.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Empathize with the problems that they talked about, maybe in discovery, empathize when you're going through it, how you can address those challenging problems that they talked about.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there we have it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Five ways to use that first deck uh more effectively.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: First one, start every slide with something about them, make it about them.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, make sure your mindset is right going in.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your mindset is about uh a deeper conversation, not about pitching, lecturing, telling them about stuff.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, have specific intentional questions ready to go for each slide, which we will drive deeper into the conversation.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Ease their mind so they know what they're uh getting into by looking at your your deck.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then fifthly, start strong.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Start with things that they're really going to care about that's gonna grab their attention.
• 12:31
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• 12:36
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• 12:45
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• 12:50
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• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: For this podcast, thank you, Hayda Jonsen, for making all that we do at Sales Bluebird just happen.
• 13:08
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• 13:17
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• 13:20
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• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, the dad joke of the week.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's the advantage of living in Switzerland?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the flag is a big plus.
• 13:31
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