How to Create a Sales Pitch Deck That Wins Every Time

Every salesperson — no matter how skilled — needs a great pitch deck as part of their sales presentation. Without one, you risk losing your audience to easy distractions and, frankly, because they’ll be bored. Creating a sales pitch deck that wins with potential clients means emphasizing your most important points with visual, engaging content without including too much information.

In other words: your sales deck is an important support piece, but it’s not a replacement for your actual presentation (or the real person who gives it).

Here’s how to create a sales deck that emphasizes the right points, keeps your audience engaged, and leaves potential clients with a tangible reflection of your brand and the value of its offerings.

Quick Takeaways

Sales decks are essential because people notice and retain visual information at a much higher rate than any other type.

Slides in pitch decks commonly cover important topics like customer pain points, value propositions, social proof, pricing models and packages, and calls to action.

High-quality visuals, personalization, storytelling, and a “less is more” approach are important components of a great sales pitch deck.

Sales pitch decks: a quick overview

How they’re used

A sales pitch deck serves as a visual supplement to your sales pitch. It presents information in engaging, interesting ways that grab attention and emphasize your most important points.

Creating a sales pitch deck requires a balance between wide applicability and options for customizability. You can’t (and shouldn’t try to) reinvent the wheel every time, but even small custom additions like mentioning a company’s name and potential use cases can make a big impact when it comes to winning new clients.

Sales pitch decks are not replacements for your actual pitch, but they should be able to stand alone in cases where they’re shared outside of your pitch presentation. While they don’t include every piece of information you cover in your pitch, a good sales deck is complete and has enough context to capture your primary messages.

What they include

Every sales pitch deck is different, but a good rule of thumb is to only include as much information as you need to make your pitch. Added fluff is just a distraction from your main selling points.

Here are 8 of the most common slides you’ll see in sales pitch decks:

Cover slide: A no brainer. You need a well designed cover slide to display at the start of your presentation.

Pain point slide: Covers the problem your customer needs to solve. Demonstrating that you understand a customer’s pain points makes them more likely to trust your solution.

Value proposition: Highlights your offerings and how specific ways they deliver real value.

Solution slide: Also known as product slides or services slides, these cover the details of the solution you’re offering.

Options slide: Covers pricing models and packages your potential client can choose from.

Social proof: Uses customer stories, testimonials, and case studies to demonstrate your proven track record of success.

Call to action slide: Outlines the specifics about follow up and other next steps in the process.

Contact slide: Includes presenter names, phone numbers, and email addresses so potential clients have easy ways to get in touch.

Why they’re important

Here’s the main reason: the majority of people (65%) are visual learners. While that might not sound like an overwhelming majority, get this: 90% of all data processed by the brain is visual.

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Those compelling stats you’re using to make your sales pitch? They’re probably getting missed if you’re only sharing them verbally. Those same statistics are much more likely to get noticed and remembered if they’re prominently displayed in your sales pitch deck.

The second reason creating a sales pitch deck is important is that it’s a tangible representation of your pitch and your value proposition that potential clients can refer to at any time.

In most cases, there are several people involved in making a B2B sales decision. It’s likely that your pitch deck is being shared as potential clients move through the decision process. Without a deck, you leave it up to potential clients to give secondhand accounts of your pitch to other people at their company.

Creating a sales deck that wins

Remember: less is more

A common recommendation is to include no more than 10 slides when creating a sales pitch deck. Be sure there is a clear purpose for each slide you include, and only include information that contributes directly to your pitch.

Don’t skimp on visuals and design

Including visuals is the right first step, but they must also be high-quality and look professional. Professionally created data visualizations, videos, and photography can seriously enhance the impact of your presentation. Sales pitch deck visuals is one area to consider partnering with a marketing or design team.

Use templates

There are tried-and-true formats that work for sales pitches, and there’s no reason not to use them just because you didn’t create them. Using a template to create your sales pitch deck takes much of the time-consuming and tedious work out of the process and allows you to focus on the most important parts of your presentation like high-quality design, unique brand messaging, and client customization.

Personalize your sales deck

When you can, personalize your deck specifically to your current potential client. This does not have to be complicated. If you’re ready to make a sales pitch, you’ve (hopefully) already done a thorough sales discovery.

Use this information to include personal touches like your potential client’s name and logo, potential use cases, and ways your company can help them address their specific pain points and challenges.

Tell a story

Storytelling is one of the best ways to avoid making a boring presentation. Stories provide a welcome balance to the facts, figures, and statistics you use to back up your pitch. They get your audience engaged, make you more relatable, and evoke emotion.

Highlight social proof

When you think of social proof, your mind might go straight to the ratings and reviews you see on social media or ecommerce sites. But B2B companies are just as likely (if not more likely) to be impacted by social proof as regular B2C consumers.

Why? Because their investment requires (in general) a larger financial investment and impacts their entire organization. There’s a lot riding on their purchase decision! Social proof can provide much-needed reassurance and peace of mind to potential clients.

Fortunately, there are many types of social proof you can incorporate into your sales pitch deck, like customer testimonials, expert reviews, and special certifications or recognitions.