The professional sales pitch is of enormous importance for every company. With a successful pitch, desired customers, cooperation partners and investors can be won. There are different forms of a pitch. In our article, we want to look at the pitch deck, the presentation slides of a pitch.
Just as with sales or corporate presentations, pitches depend on the right structure and content of a pitch presentation. The goal is clear: to deliver a convincing presentation in the shortest possible time. To do this, the slides for your pitch, the pitch deck, must be perfect. If you’re on the hook for a big contract, or want to get an investor “on board,” for example, you can be relatively sure that you’re not the only candidate. Companies or investors usually have many irons in the fire and check very carefully how a company presents itself.
What should the outline of the pitch deck look like?
In a pitch, you’re usually dealing with decision makers, and they always have a busy schedule. The pitch deck should therefore be short and “to the point”. Your pitch presentation to investors should be 10 to 15 slides maximum. “Keep it short and simple”. There is no universally binding scheme for the outline. Reference books differ somewhat in their descriptions among each other. But this is roughly how your structure should look:
- Slide 1: The introduction
The introduction of the pitch deck serves to briefly introduce your company and the reason for the pitch presentation. - Slide 2: The problem
What is the problem to be solved? Who is affected? Describe in clear understandable terms what problem you want to take care of. - Slide 3: The solution
Here you should explain very convincingly the optimal solution to the problem. What do you want to solve and how? - Slide 4: The product
What can your product do? How does it work and what are the concrete benefits? What can you show? What added value do you offer? Do you have pictures, drawings, models, prototypes that you can present? - Slide 5: The
Market
situation
Who are your target groups? How big is the market? You should have a convincing market study that proves that your product has a realistic chance of success in the market. - Slide 6: The
Competition
Which companies are also dealing with your topic? What solutions do they offer? List the main competitors with their solutions. What are the differences to your solution? - Slide 7:
Unique selling points
What can your solution do, better, faster, cheaper, than the competition’s offerings? Is your solution perhaps even unrivaled in some areas? - Slide 8: The proof of concept
The proof of concept of your business idea should demonstrate the feasibility of your idea in principle. Are there already initial successes? Was there perhaps already a successful pilot project? Have you perhaps already built up address files of prospects? - Slide 9: The business model
How do you want to earn money? How and when can the first sales be expected? How do you calculate the profit margin? - Slide 10: Funding needs and uses
If you are looking for investors, you need to explain how much money you need. What do you want to spend it on. - Slide 11: The team Who is behind your company? What expertise do the individual team members bring to the table?
Depending on who you are pitching to, these slides could be a template for your pitch deck. For example, if you are looking for investors, the 11 slides should be part of your pitch deck.
The biggest mistakes when creating a pitch presentation
The requirements for a good pitch deck are high. Even small slip-ups can have a negative impact on the overall picture. Therefore, you should pay attention to the following mistakes:
- Unprofessional foil design
The decision makers you are dealing with have already seen countless presentations. Your foil design must be professional. The PowerPoint slide master offers you good standard solutions; however, this might not be enough if you are dealing with a really demanding audience. If you are not a PowerPoint expert, it is better to consult a professional at this point. - Spelling and grammatical errors
Even with careful proofreading, a misspelling or other clerical error can easily be overlooked. If a prospective investor, client or partner discovers it, doubts about your professionalism and conscientiousness will quickly arise. Have your presentation edited by a professional. - Small font size
Do not choose the font size too small. Your slides must still be legible even at some distance. - Better no animations
Animations can certainly enrich a presentation. They have no place in a pitch deck. - Too many bullet points
Bullet points are better for the reader to grasp than continuous text. But a whole slide of bullet points quickly becomes confusing.
In part two, we give you ten more important tips for your pitch presentation.
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Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Informatiker Matthias Garten as the expert for multimedia presentations and professional PowerPoint presentations knows about the art of professional slide design. He is an entrepreneur, speaker (TOP 100 Speaker), trainer (TOP 100 Excellence Trainer), multiple book author, presentation coach (presentation training), member of the GSA and Club 55, organizer of the Presentation Conference, Presentation Bootcamp and Presentation Rocket Day. In addition to PowerPoint and presentation training, he inspires and advises companies to present themselves even more effectively and thus stand out from competitors. He is the business owner of the presentation and PowerPoint agency smavicon Best Business Presentations and with his team has created over 10,000 professional PowerPoint presentations for over 150 industries since 1993.
