The Best 25 Sales Decks - According to Hubspot

So is this some thinly veiled attempt for the author to merely and gratuitously repost Hubspot’s blog post?

Yes, but…

What gives you the right to simply regurgitate someone else words?

Well I’m getting to that, if you’ll just let me…

Is this just some attempt to turn meat scraps into sausage and then turn that sausage into tomorrow’s casserole?

In a manner of speaking, but…

Well then why?

BECAUSE I MADE #3 BABY!!! I humbly repost this story by link just to proudly share that out of their top 25 decks, my company, i.e. the company I co-founded with my partner and was COO for the first 6 years, made #3. Now I’m no longer at that company since I exited at the B Round and that was far from the last or best sales deck I created there but it is nice to be recognized.

Here’s Hubspot’s excellent post — could I call it anything less when they feature such genius? I’m kidding of course, I’m just giddy to be picked as a winner of anything.

Some commentary: I think great sales decks start out by surprising the audience and reframing a problem. The first slide or two should jar and shift the readers thinking. By the end of it, the reader needs to see your solution as not a nice to have but a must have, especially in the pandemic and post-pandemic world. Here’s my other blog post on how to sell in this new era.

How to Grow B2B Sales During the “New Normal” of 2020 & Beyond

We can learn a lot from restaurants that have transitioned into food delivery companies on a dime during the COVID-19 crisis. As sales professionals, it’s critical to redefine your company’s value as customers redefine their definition of value as we move into the “new normal.” 

The next few months will prove to be the survival of the fittest (or most adaptable) as you ride the waves of this crisis while helping your customers navigate some sometimes uncharted waters without wiping out. In fact, here are some preliminary numbers that Hubspot compiled showing how difficult B2B is right now. 

However, wherever there is difficulty, there is opportunity. Below are some strategies to help you and your company grow your B2B sales through the pandemic and beyond. 

  • Think, brainstorm, and re-iterate. You and your company will have to do some deep thinking about the new business environment post COVID-19. What does this new world need from your company? What are your company’s strengths? Regardless of your position, can you encourage your leadership to pivot if necessary? If you were building a company from scratch right now, what would it look like? What can your company learn from this exercise? Brainstorm and re-iterate until you feel like your company is on the right track. If you’re a leader in the company, lead compassionately but decisively while being flexible, and encourage experimentation where appropriate. 

  • Stay close to current customers. Find out if your current customers will be reducing or canceling the purchase of your products. Make concessions (such as providing extra support, discounts or free upgrades) to keep them on board, buying as much as possible, and paying on time. Work with your accounting team to figure out where you have excessive credit risk and make necessary adjustments. 

  • Sell to survivors. Sell to companies who are well positioned and currently have cash flow, not companies who are poorly positioned and cutting back. Account-Based Marketing/Selling is critical right now. Target: 

    • Large, established companies that aren’t facing layoffs

    • B2B SaaS startups who have recently received $5M+ in funding that are cloud, enterprise, or IoT-based. 

    • Companies that are hiring

  • Be essential.  Position your product or service as essential, not something that can be postponed or eliminated. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask yourself, “How are they re-prioritizing right now? How would I spend money if I was in their position?” And then ask yourself, “Am I helping my customer unlock more value? Sell more? Cut costs? Sell more while cutting costs?” And listen to your customers more intently than ever and help them do more with less. Schedule a meeting and see if you can brainstorm regularly until you have pivoted your value proposition into the essential column. Quickly kill products and messaging that are no longer resonating. 

  • Be insightful and educate. Sales professionals must come to the table prepared to be a proactive source of value for customers. In doing so, you must have a deep understanding of buyers and their business objectives. It’s also important to approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. Trying tailoring your sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. If prospects see that you’re bringing insights and value to the table, they will be more likely to book a Zoom meeting with you. This book has more great insights on taking control of the customer conversation. 

  • Seek partnerships and channels. Going with the “we’re in this together” theme, now might be a good time to encourage partnerships with certain customers in an effort to expand both of your sales channels.  For example, you may be able to bolster offerings and further engage customers by tailoring bundled deals. 

  • Sell with sensitivity. When making that sales pitch, make sure your approach is helpful and sensitive to what people are currently dealing with. If you are in a position to give away a product for free or at a reduced price for businesses that are hurting, you should do so, and it’s certainly OK to promote that. In fact, that helps encourage others to also pitch in and help. You can certainly reference the crisis and let people know how you can help them through it, but don’t focus exclusively on it. And remember, emotions are running high, so downplay any strong opinions you have about COVID-19 and its impact.  For some email outreach tips, this is a great article. 

  • Work in step with marketing. Ensure that you share insights with your marketing team, get on the same page, and work on strategies to reach potential customers who are more likely to buy the  products/services you’re offering. This means lots of testing of platforms and types of content such as written, infographics, audio, and video. 

  • Take care of your team. Members of your own sales team may be dealing with a variety of emotional, medical, and financial issues. Be kind, compassionate and patient with them. Listen and be supportive and provide whatever resources you can. We all need that right now.  

ABOUT BOLTT.io 

BOLTT.iO is a fractional B2B sales leadership company. We are working with companies in this economic downturn to help them balance their growth capabilities with costs. Contact us today for a free one-hour sales coaching session. We can augment your team in sales, management, sales ops, and hiring.  We are here to help.

Find the Radioactive Core of Your Value

The most important first step in expanding sales is to find the “radioactive core” of your value. This is not always what you think it is so you need to talk to prospects and customers. But talking to people is tricky since you can’t really trust direct answers to our burning questions. This has caused some to claim that “customers are liars”. Are customers liars? Well, sort of — it depends on what you ask them and what you trust. Recently, I was developing a software idea around decision making. When I asked people about their internal process of team decision making, they went into detail about the process and problems about it. The details they provided and the passion they exhibited told me they were being honest. When I asked them if a defined process would help, they said yes. I thought this might be a lie. When I asked them if they would be open to trying a process through Survey Monkey, they said yes. Now this was easy to test since I asked them to actually do it. That cleared things up pretty quickly. They were lying, but not because they are evil. They were lying for the same reason that I sometimes lie. I want to be nice and I want to believe that I’ll be able to help someone. So we need to talk to a lot of people, ask direct and indirect questions, and look for trends of agreement in the responses we get. We need to ask questions like, “How do you solve this problem now?”, “What would it be worth to you to solve this problem?”, “If you like my solution, will you write a check to me now?” Ask people to commit to what they say quickly separates fact from fiction. If people have a big problem and are willing to actually try or pay for your solution, you are on to something. Find out why they want it so badly. This is your radioactive core of value.

Startups To Hit Rough Waters in 2020

Here’s a great article from First Round on the State of Startups to lead us into 2020. Here are some key highlights:

  • Over 2/3rds of founders think we’re in a tech bubble and that it will be harder to raise money this year

  • Pay attention to diversity, Glassdoor reviews, and your mental health

  • Consider incubators, remote working, and a user community

And then there are things that suggest a need for Fractional Sales Leadership.

  • The hardest executive hire is a sales executive

  • The biggest selling point for your startup is future growth

  • 1/3rd of startups missed their last sales goal

  • When startups were asked to predict what might cause them to fail, the #1 answer was growth stagnation

  • If founders could clear their schedule to focus on 1 priority, the #1 answer is to focus on sales