You’ve heard it all about pitch decks, studied its nature and might now be wondering how this differs from a regular sales presentation. Or maybe, on the contrary, a sales presentation is what you know about best.

Can a pitch deck be more appropriate than a sales presentation, do you wonder? What the difference between a pitch deck and a sales presentation is should be fully clear by the end of this article.

Shall we dip in, already?

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT PITCH DECKS

Let’s quickly cover the basics to a pitch deck to get us started. We have written on this extensively, so our best bet is to direct you to our CEO’s complete Pitch Deck Presentation Guide, with examples for extensive info on what constitutes the perfect pitch presentation.

COVERING THE PITCH DECK BASICS

Briefly, as Caya describes in the mentioned article, “A pitch deck is usually a 10-20 slide presentation designed to give a short summary of your company, your business plan and your startup vision.”

What’s important about a pitch deck is that the use of it be considered before determining the ideal content for a pitch.

HOW TO USE A PITCH DECK

As such, creating a pitch deck should include contemplation as to how the slides will serve you, what they will help you achieve. The deck should always reinforce your presentation, not direct your performance.

In that sense, consider whether your pitch will be used to be sent over email, presented in front of a large stage or audience or simply projected from your computer on a more private meeting. Each diverse setting might require changes in terms of format and content.

As a final wrap-up to our presentation deck summary, we here give you a visual summary as to the slides a pitch deck should include according to diverse VCs and successful startups.

If you’d like to know more about the differences and perspectives the chart presents, feel free to refer to the link we give above on Caya’s guide.

Related read: Pitch Deck examples from successful startups

WHAT ABOUT SALES PRESENTATIONS?

Now, let’s look at sales presentation templates, as well. Contrary to a pitch deck that is meant to give a summarized idea of your business, company and vision - typically in search for investment, a sales pitch deck template should include an overview of your product or service hoping to lead to a purchase.

TARGET AUDIENCE FOR PITCH DECKS AND SALES PRESENTATIONS

Rather than pitching at VCs and potential investors of diverse kinds as you would a full auditorium with a pitch deck projected at your back, sales presentation templates are more commonly aimed at buyers, sellers, marketers and other people in the product or service industry.

With a sales presentation, you are looking for someone who will hopefully buy what you have to offer, thus becoming your consumer or client; not your funding seed.

Let’s narrow down on the main differences of a pitch deck and a sales presentation now.

Related read: The ABCs of a winning Sales Presentation

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PITCH DECK CONTENT

When it comes to what to put into a pitch deck, we have clearly become masters at developing pitch deck content. Far from conceited, we at Slidebean have start-up first-hand knowledge and are experts in presentation templates. Putting the two together can only naturally produce the best presentation design, moreover in terms of pitch decks.

So, let’s recap what makes up a great pitch deck. As we detailed in the Complete Presentation Guide of which we speak above, diverse authors, CVs, investors and knowledgeable people in the industry have diverse opinions on the exact slide content that should fit into a pitch deck.

However, as we have outlined in the mentioned article before, as well, “Every author agrees that the Problem, Solution, Business Model, Competition, Team and Fundraising slides need to be on your deck, making them the absolute most important slides in your presentation.”

Aside from these, and almost at the same level of relevance, at least 4 of these re-known authors agree that a separate slide should be used for each of the following: Market Validation, Market Size, Go-to-Market Plan, Traction / Use of Funds.

Here’s a follow-through list of slide content for pitch decks for you now, then:

• Problem
• Solution
• Business Model
• Competition
• Team
• Fundraising

Additionals:

• Market Validation
• Market Size
• Go-to-Market Plan
• Traction / Use of Funds

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SALES PRESENTATION SLIDE SUGGESTION

Drawing on the concision above, we also have a list of slides to include in a sales pitch deck:

• Agenda
• About us
• Our mission
• The before and after
• How to get there
• Your Team
• Pricing
• Next Steps
• Q&A
• Contact information

Items such as a start with an agenda, a detailed slide on pricing and the before and after of your product or service trajectory differ concisely from the use given to a pitch deck. For instance, starting with the problem slide is aimed at allowing investors to quickly comprehend how your business makes a difference in a profitable market while your agenda slide is more of a situational opening for a sales pitch than anything else.

RECOMMENDATION ON PRODUCT SALES: TELL A STORY

Now that we’re covering openings, by the way, we strongly recommend you think of your sales presentation deck in terms of a story. Story-telling is a well-studied phenomena in the Marketing realm, for which we trust we need not cover much more in-depth just how powerful it is that you deviate from a long product features list to instead focus on telling a compelling and exciting story to drive your sales points across.

In case you are new to this world, and for our masters as a reminder, storytelling gives life to a brand and is thus often one of the main components of a content marketing approach. Use that for your sales presentations slides is our point; don’t leave it out.

PIECES OF ADVICE TO TRACK INVESTOR ACTIVITY

And as a final piece of advice before we wrap this one up, remember to produce evidence from your efforts. Making presentations takes a long time in platforms other than ours. And even though Slidebean has made it the easiest to put a slick presentation together in just minutes, the work you put in is optimized when you can track what has happened to a pitch deck or sales presentation after you hit the send or present button.

Track your investor’s or potential sales point actions once you have left control of your presentation slides and determine whether they have even read 100% of what you have sent. Knowing where you are losing or whether you are keeping your main target’s attention for a particular content is key in factoring what frequency of follow-up your email communications should be receiving on your end.  Best of luck to you!

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