When friends ask me about raising money, this is one of the first articles I ask them to read. It’s a sales deck, but a lot of that transfers into raising money, so it’s worth going through it and understand the fundamentals.
A few months ago, my friend Tim took a new sales job at a Series C tech company that had raised over $60 million from A-list investors. He’s one of the best salespeople I know, but soon after starting, he emailed me to say he was struggling.
“I’ve landed a few small accounts,” Tim said. “But my pitch falls flat at big enterprises.”
As I’ve written before, I love helping teams craft the high-level strategic story that powers sales, marketing, fundraising — everything. So Tim and I met for lunch at the Amber India restaurant off San Francisco’s Market Street to review his deck.
After loading up on the all-you-can-eat buffet, I asked Tim, “At what point do prospects tune out?”
“Usually a few slides in,” he said.
Intent on maximizing dining ROI, Tim went back to the buffet for seconds. When he returned, I pulled out my laptop and launched into a Powerpoint presentation.
“What’s this?” Tim asked.
“This,” I said, “is the greatest sales deck I have ever seen.”
From here: The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen | by Andy Raskin.
