Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 171 posts

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#11

Post by howlingfantods »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #3

"Name a big, relevant change in the world". Example given from Zuora, "We now live in a subscription economy". Except one problem: Instead of a nice solid color on the background of the slide, or a city skyline... ... it's a full shot of a skinny young blonde girl's legs. Like, can you sales guys be any more predictable and sexist? I'm sorry, this frat house behavior really needs to stop. There are so many better way…

That struck me less like "subscription economy, wink wink, here's a hot chick and all the associated connotations of women and payment" - and more like "it's the subscription economy! everything is great! here's a happy person to represent the future potential"

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#12

Post by devonkim »

So basically anyone that can understand the basics of a good salesman from Wolf of Wallstreet can land deals better than the “moderate” personality types that have been shown to statistically deliver better sales results for most companies? Am I missing something about how those studies were conducted that this emotionally based rather than fact-based approach is better at conversion rates than a mix of approaches? On the flip side, is this why more successful people have a habit of defaulting to “no”?

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#13

Post by [deleted] »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #3

"Name a big, relevant change in the world". Example given from Zuora, "We now live in a subscription economy". Except one problem: Instead of a nice solid color on the background of the slide, or a city skyline... ... it's a full shot of a skinny young blonde girl's legs. Like, can you sales guys be any more predictable and sexist? I'm sorry, this frat house behavior really needs to stop. There are so many better way…

[deleted]

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#14

Post by cyberpunk0 »

jk563 wrote: post #9
chank wrote: post #7

>Zuora came up with the phrase “subscription economy” to name the trend in which buyers increasingly choose recurring service payments over outright purchases. It's not a trend where buyers choose recurring payments, but where companies only offer services through recurring payments.

Get where you're coming from, but I don't think they're entirely wrong. Whilst you can't buy Photoshop once now (your point), there are plenty of models where the choice is still there. Netflix and Spotify both have one-off purchase equivalents. You can still buy Jira as a one off purchase instead of SaaS.

Please describe how Spotify and Netflix offer these lifetime price one-time purchase options.. quite well hidden in their exclusively subscription pricing

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#15

Post by kbuchanan »

retube wrote: post #4

interesting. but slightly off topic - do sales guys construct their own decks? surely decks need approval / sanctioning before distribution to prospects? don't firms have their own decks for sales people to leverage?

No, in many companies, different sales people thrive on different sales strategies. Good sales decks are not feature reviews; like the article says-a deck is a launchpad for discussing a compelling narrative, which is why they’re only really effective as part of a presentation (as opposed to a downloadable resource).

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#16

Post by jakelazaroff »

jk563 wrote: post #9
chank wrote: post #7

>Zuora came up with the phrase “subscription economy” to name the trend in which buyers increasingly choose recurring service payments over outright purchases. It's not a trend where buyers choose recurring payments, but where companies only offer services through recurring payments.

Get where you're coming from, but I don't think they're entirely wrong. Whilst you can't buy Photoshop once now (your point), there are plenty of models where the choice is still there. Netflix and Spotify both have one-off purchase equivalents. You can still buy Jira as a one off purchase instead of SaaS.

In case it's unclear, the "one-off purchase equivalents" to Netflix and Spotify to which the parent refers are iTunes, Amazon, etc.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#17

Post by GiuseppaAcciaio »

devonkim wrote: post #12

So basically anyone that can understand the basics of a good salesman from Wolf of Wallstreet can land deals better than the “moderate” personality types that have been shown to statistically deliver better sales results for most companies? Am I missing something about how those studies were conducted that this emotionally based rather than fact-based approach is better at conversion rates than a mix of approaches? O…

I wouldn't think this as an "either / or" approach: in my experience, a sales pitch and a deck are very rarely the deciding factor in closing a sale, however they can help tremendously.

The key aspect here is that a pitch like the one described is usually made to very senior people in an organization, who have little time and mental bandwidth to endure through a list of facts and figures and shudder product features: getting them invested in the result that would come from adopting the product/service is the ultimate goal, not closing the sale at that stage. You still need to do all of the good (i.e. fact-based) salesman work, but that is done at a different time: either ahead of the executive presentation (in which if you did things right you may have the buyer on your side in making a case for using your product/service), or as a consequence of it.

To me what's interesting is not the deck itself, but the focus shown by the company on sticking to their marketing points and on enabling their salespeople to do their job more effectively (you have no idea how many times I have had to figure out on my own what to answer to a prospect that was asking "what makes your company/product/service different from any of your competitors?"...).

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#18

Post by empath75 »

devonkim wrote: post #12

So basically anyone that can understand the basics of a good salesman from Wolf of Wallstreet can land deals better than the “moderate” personality types that have been shown to statistically deliver better sales results for most companies? Am I missing something about how those studies were conducted that this emotionally based rather than fact-based approach is better at conversion rates than a mix of approaches? O…

You can't present facts to people if they aren't paying attention. This deck is merely to get attention. The numbers come afterwards.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#19

Post by GiuseppaAcciaio »

retube wrote: post #4

interesting. but slightly off topic - do sales guys construct their own decks? surely decks need approval / sanctioning before distribution to prospects? don't firms have their own decks for sales people to leverage?

It really depends on the organization: the Holy Grail is to have a well developed Sales Support function that prepares decks for sales people from a data source which is pre-approved (some investment banks have that, it's awesome) so that the Sales people can focus 100% on doing their thing.

In smaller, scrappier companies or just in less "sexy" industries, sales people are known to prepare their own decks and whether prior approval is sought is really to the mercy of the individual's integrity and savvy.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#20

Post by moorhosj »

jk563 wrote: post #9
chank wrote: post #7

>Zuora came up with the phrase “subscription economy” to name the trend in which buyers increasingly choose recurring service payments over outright purchases. It's not a trend where buyers choose recurring payments, but where companies only offer services through recurring payments.

Get where you're coming from, but I don't think they're entirely wrong. Whilst you can't buy Photoshop once now (your point), there are plenty of models where the choice is still there. Netflix and Spotify both have one-off purchase equivalents. You can still buy Jira as a one off purchase instead of SaaS.

Spotify has its own no-purchase equivalent, the free version of Spotify.
Post reply on HN